The Summer Before the War (52 page)

To my parents, Alan and Margaret Phillips

When World War I
ended at 11
A.M.
on November 11, 1918, many young poets, including Rupert Brooke and Wilfred Owen, had died for their country. The work of the war poets is as enduring a remembrance of the conflict as the red poppy…

Writers and poets are at the heart of my novel, and it is perhaps no accident that the most renowned Sussex- and Kent-connected authors, who inhabited a special shelf in the Rye bookshop when I was young, all lived in this time period: Henry James, E. F. Benson, Radclyffe Hall, Vita Sackville-West, Rudyard Kipling, and Virginia Woolf. Edith Wharton was also on the shelf, as she would regularly visit Rye to take her friend Henry James out in her large car. Alas, the bookshop is gone, as are the used book dealers where I spent my Saturday job money on dusty hardcovers of these authors' books, but their work and lives continue to inspire me.

A novel with a historical setting is a great challenge. Among the many books, websites, and other sources I read in preparation for writing
The Summer Before the War,
I must mention a few standouts.
Agatha Christie: An Autobiography
and Vera Brittain's
Testament of Youth
showed me young women coming of age in this tumultuous period as the rigidity of their upbringing was swept away by the tumult of war.
Myself When Young,
edited by Margot Oxford, featured famous women of Britain recalling firsthand their Edwardian girlhoods and provided a wealth of detail.
Henry James at Work,
by his longtime amanuensis Theodora Bosanquet (edited by Lyall Powers), not only showed an intimate portrait of the Cher Maître, as he liked to be called, but, more important, gave me insight into Theodora's life as an independent unmarried woman who went on to a literary career of her own after James's death.

Military history can be dry, but
Europe's Last Summer,
by David Fromkin, gave me a clear day-by-day run-up to the declaration of war, so I knew what Uncle John was up to. In
Boy Soldiers of the Great War,
by Richard Van Emden, I was shocked to find out that more than 250,000 underage Richard Sidleys might have enlisted in Britain's military services. The Bryce Report, a 1915 British government report similar to that which Mr. Poot works on, described atrocities in Belgium and was dryly hilarious in its refusal to describe some atrocities because they were too atrocious. Not funny at all was its finding that rape, though widely reported, was probably not officially forbidden at the highest levels and therefore not to be classified as an official war crime. War diaries, photographs, and records were found on many websites, including
1914-1918.net
and
firstworldwar.com
, which both feature enthusiasts doing stellar work in collecting and preserving information. I must pause to acknowledge Google for the miracle of being able to search any idea midsentence.

My depiction of life in Edwardian Rye was informed by a series of booklets called
Rye Memories,
the result of an oral history project by pupils of my old school, Thomas Peacocke (Rye Grammar in 1914 and now Rye College), and local seniors. Thanks to Mrs. Jo Kirkham, MBE, former mayor of Rye, and town historian, who founded this project and who advised me many times on additional information about the town's history. The
Bexhill Quarterly
newsletter from 1914 was a plum find at Rye Library and landed Bexhill a cameo role.

The more I researched my British Romanies, the more ashamed I became of my own lack of awareness of the international plight of the Roma people, a UN-recognized ethnic minority against whom racism and prejudice have persisted unbroken for over a thousand years. I would like to thank Professor Ethel Brookes of Rutgers University, an international expert on Romani studies, for introducing me to Ian Hancock's
We Are the Romani People
and for her guidance and openness in discussing my research.

All research errors are my own, but expert advice on Vergil (the original spelling) and Latin came courtesy of author Madeline Miller. My poetry may owe more to
The Pickwick Papers'
“Ode to an Expiring Frog” than to the indelible legacy of the British war poets, but my prosody was expertly dissected by the Whiting Award–winning poet Professor Julie Sheehan of SUNY Stony Brook Southampton (hello to all at Southampton). I would be remiss if I did not also thank the places that make research and writing possible—libraries. The New York Public Library at Forty-second Street, and its books, represent the marble halls of civilization to me. The British Library Newspapers at Colindale gave me access to large leather-bound books of original newspapers and magazines from 1914, which I read for hours at a huge slanted oak desk. The division is now closed and these original periodicals restricted for preservation. Alas, microfilm and searchable digital content cannot replace the thrill and serendipity of reading a full newspaper just as my characters would have done. The branch library at Rye, with its shelf of local history resources, was a joy to work in, as was the Rogers Library in Southampton, New York, where I took refuge to finish this novel in several long shifts.

I can attest that a second novel is harder to write, not easier, than the first, and I have many people to thank for supporting me in my creative struggle. Let me begin by thanking my agent, Julie Barer of The Book Group, and all her colleagues, including Anna Geller and Meg Ross—with a grateful nod to Barer alums William, Leah, Gemma, and Anna W. At my very first meeting with Julie, I slowly understood that this extraordinary agent was willing to take me on and secure me some small place in the great community of writers. As I stepped from her office into a busy New York street, it seemed that the landscape of my second novel spread out before me as I stood on a Sussex hilltop with Agatha Kent. I nearly got run over by a cab, but this novel was born then, in a moment of pure exhilaration.

My enduring thanks to Susan Kamil, my editor at Random House, for taking a chance on an unknown debut novel and supporting me all through the writing of my second. Her edits always pierce to what is true. Her laughter is infectious. The entire team at Random House is amazing: Thanks to Gina Centrello, Avideh Bashirrad, Sally Marvin, Andrea DeWerd, Robbin Schiff, Benjamin Dreyer, Evan Camfield, Jennifer Garza, Leigh Marchant, and Molly Turpin. Also thanks to Caitlin McCaskey and Lisa Barnes at the Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau.

My wonderful U.K. publishing house, Bloomsbury, offered invaluable British editing assistance. Much appreciation to Alexandra Pringle, my editor, and to founder Nigel Newton, who shares a fondness for Sussex. Thanks also to Antonia Till, Alexa von Hirschberg, and Angelique Tran Van Sang. Warmest regards to my British agent, Caspian Dennis, of Abner Stein, whose kind words sustained me during the saggy, baggy times. Gratitude to Patrick Gallagher and Annette Barlow (Australia), Maggie Doyle and Katel le Fur (France), Annette Weber (Germany), and my other fine editors and publishing houses around the world.

The writing life can be frustrating and lonely, and it is friends and family who sustain me but who also give me the well-deserved eye roll, and kick in the pants, when I need it. Thanks to writer friends Mary Kay Zuravleff, Susan Coll, Michelle Brafman, and Cindy Krezel. Thanks to Lisa Genova and Tim Hallinan for your long-distance advice. Brooklyn friends, I thank you all, especially Susan Leitner, Sarah Tobin, and Leslie Alexander, who have known me since before I ever picked up a pen, as have Joe Garafolo, and Helena Huncar and her family.

Last but first is always family. To my parents, Alan and Margaret Phillips, who left Sussex for an exciting new life in southwest France and who were loud in their opinions that my novel needed no editing whatsoever, thank you for the unconditional love! Appreciation also to my father-in-law, newspaperman David Simonson, whose stalwart care of my elegant and gracious mother-in-law, Lois Simonson, in her declining health was a lesson in love and family for all of us. Thanks to my sister, Lorraine Pearce, and her family for keeping us connected to Sussex and invited to family gatherings.

A special thank-you to Ian Simonson, elder son and computer engineer, for Web design help and for rescuing the chronology of my story at a critical juncture. Jamie Simonson, younger son, went to study abroad during editing, perhaps to avoid having his considerable writing skills pressed into service! It has been our greatest joy to watch the world through our sons' eyes as they have grown up into fine young men. They are an inspiration, even when they are mercilessly teasing me about my writing!

And always there is my John, my love, my best friend, and my husband of some thirty years. That the years have been swift only means they were happy. Here's to taking the future at a run.

The Summer Before the War

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

H
ELEN
S
IMONSON
was born in England and spent her teenage years in a small village near Rye, East Sussex. A graduate of the London School of Economics, she has spent the last three decades in the United States and currently lives in Brooklyn. She is married, with two grown sons. Her debut novel,
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand,
was a
New York Times
bestseller and was translated and published in twenty-one countries. This is her second novel.