March book of the month: Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave. Join author webchat on Monday 27 March, 9-10pm

[RachelMumsnet]

We’re delighted to announce March book of the month is Chris Cleave’s Everyone Brave is Forgiven. We have 50 free copies up for grabs and Chris Cleave will be joining us to discuss the book on Monday 27 March, 9-10pm.

Impeccably researched, Chris Cleave's latest novel shines a light on the untold stories of the second world war. He looks at the plight of the unwanted children who remain in London during the blitz, at a small community of black inhabitants, working in theatres in London throughout the war and he draws on the experiences of his own Grandfather when describing the plight of soldiers stationed in Malta, besieged by horrific attacks from both Italian and German troops.

These fascinating stories are explored through three characters, dealing with complexities of love, alongside the dangers of war. With emotion and humour Cleave looks at and their capacity for humility and courage both on and off the battle-field.

Find out more about the book and apply for a free copy before Monday 27 February and put the date in your diary to join the discussion and chat to Chris Cleave on this thread on 27 March.

Welcome everyone to March bookclub. We're really thrilled that Chris Cleave will be joining us tonight to talk about his wonderful novel Everyone Brave is Forgiven. I've just seen the words 'unputdownable' in a post from earlier and this is exactly what we thought when we read the book last year. There's already some questions in and I know lots more to come so will hand over to you Chris but may we also ask you our Mumsnet questions that we put to all authors:

What was your favourite childhood book?

What was the last book you bought someone as a gift?

And the last book you received?

And finally - can you describe to us the room where you wrote Everyone Brave?

Thanks so much for giving us your time tonight Chris and welcome to Mumsnet. Over to you....

Many thanks to Mumsnet / Sceptre Books for a copy of 'Everyone Brave Is Forgiven' by Chris Cleave. An absolutely brilliant book, really powerful, really moving. It's great that the book focuses on perspectives and viewpoints which are different from previously published accounts of the many that were affected by the war. The well-developed narrative transports the reader to WWII London, the Blitz, and the siege of Malta, and we follow the characters as their paths and lives overlap in their struggle to survive. As expected with any book set during wartime, it is laced with an ominously dark undertone as the immense horrors of the period are recounted. However, the tale proves itself to be an endearing and uplifting read. Clearly a lot of thought & hard work went into writing this book.

I'd like to ask Chris a couple of general questions, if I may ..

QUESTION ONE:- Do you have a personal favourite out of the books you've had published? And/or out of books published by other authors?
QUESTION TWO:- With the advancements in CGI and on-screen visual effects, and the tools now available to film-makers, we have seen previously 'unfilmable' literary classics finally make it to the big screen. Your first book, ‘Incendiary’ was adapted into a film, and I hear your 2nd book may be up for the same. How do you feel about your work in 'other people's hands', and do you feel compelled to intervene with a ‘do’s and don’t’ instructions list for film producers?

Hello everyone – first, A HUGE THANK YOU to all of you for reading ‘Everyone Brave is Forgiven’ and for your incredibly kind comments about it on this thread. It’s been really moving for me to read them. This novel was a heartfelt one, being based on my grandparents, and so it means a lot to me that it meant something to you. Thank you.

Thanks to everyone who has logged in this evening to talk about books on what is quite frankly a school night. I salute you & I will try to be worth your time.

Sincere thanks also to Mumsnet for having me. I really appreciate it and it’s an honour to be here.

Right, now to answer your questions…

Evening! I was lucky enough to receive a copy of this book and am enjoying it but making slow progress due to a couple of busy weeks. Have gone back to it again tonight and just finished part one. I think the characters have been established really well and I have soft spots for Mary and Zachary

I am new to Chris as an author, but will definitely look up his other books as I like his writing style. I would like to ask if Chris has a favourite out of the books he has written so far and if so, what makes it such.

Thank you Mumsnet for hosting this chat! My name is Max Nichols. I am fifteen years old and joining from the US! I have just started Everyone Brave is Forgiven and I am really loving it!

As an aspiring author, I have two questions for Chris Cleave:

1. How do you get into the heads of your characters?

1. What are the advantages/disadvantages of having multiple points of view in a novel?

Thank you very much Mr. Cleave!

[quote mom2010]Thanks so much for sending the book. I enjoyed it and have posted a review on my blog. Looking forward to the chat tonight.

onerightword.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/everyone-brave-is-forgiven-chris-cleave.html[/quote]

@ mom2010 – I read your review and wanted to thank you very much for such a generous and useful appraisal. I wish more reviews were like yours – it really helps to answer the question “is this the kind of book I’d enjoy reading?”

@boo2410

I'm not sure that I will be around tonight so I'd like to know when Chris's next book will be out? I'm sure I read somewhere that he is researching it as we speak, has the title, it's following on from this book and it's going to be in 5 years. Now, I don't know whether I did read this as I can't remember where to check, or if in fact I dreamed about it!! Please could you put me out of my misery 😄. Thank you.

@boo 2410

Hi, I’m so sorry it takes me so long to write each book! The problem is the research, which (a) I enjoy, and (b) I probably enjoy too much. I really hope the new one won’t take 5 years, though! I’m hoping to turn in my first draft by the end of this summer. Thanks for caring!

Jinx barricade!

You have previously been successful with the books that you've written. Did you worry that using your grandparents' wartime letters as a basis for this particular outing as a risk? As a reader who has read the finished article, it clearly was not a risk, but do you worry about whether a book will do well when you start writing?

@todormirchev

Thank you Mumsnet for the opportunity to read this wonderful book. I am a huge fan of historical novels, and "Everyone Brave Is Forgiven", meet my expectations on every level. I've previously read "The Other Hand" and although the books are set in different time, in both cases I found myself immersed in the story and unforgettable characters, created by Chris Cleave. My question to Chris Cleave is - What are the challenges of writing historical novel?

@ todormirchev
Thanks for your very kind words about the books. In answer to your question, I found that historical fiction has three significant challenges.

(1) It’s evident that as a writer you have to do an enormous amount of period research, even before you can start to understand how much you don’t know. It wasn’t until a year into it that I even began to start asking what were, I think, some of the right questions. Then the challenge is not to just regurgitate in the novel everything you’ve learned in the research. I tried to wear the knowledge lightly, and to have it be implicit in the decisions the characters made and in what they said & didn’t say. And even when you get that right – after years of work in document and audio archives, in interviews with veterans, and in visits to the locations, you can still destroy a whole carefully-crafted scene by getting one detail wrong. One example is that I had my characters using hairspray, which wasn’t wisely available until after the war. I fixed that for the paperback, but it went into print in the hardback and was embarrassing.
(2) When you’re writing about something as enormous as WWII, it’s a challenge to limit the scope of the novel. I tried to tell a big story through the lives of a small number of characters. It was very tempting to make the cast of characters bigger and bigger. Keeping it small is a key difference between historical fiction & history, I think.
(3) Because you’re talking about a real tragedy – a global cataclysm – there is a duty to honour the war’s real victims and to do justice to their memory. In any kind of historical fiction I think this is a unique duty that other novels don’t have. I certainly felt the weight of it for this novel in a way that I haven’t with my more contemporary books.

Having said all that, there are also some huge advantages in writing historical fiction. The main one, I think, is that the stage is already set. The well-informed reader is already aware of the theatres in which the action will take place. And so as the writer you don’t need to spend 100 pages building your stage – you can go straight to the actors and the dialogue. I found that historical fiction gives with this freedom as much as it takes with those above-mentioned constraints. It was a joy to write, really.

You said you enjoy researching your books, so did you talk to your grandparents (presumably in the past) about their experiences in the war? Also, are your grandparents reflected in any specific characters in the book?

Good Evening Chris

I am enjoying reading your book. My question is related to the killing of a character on an un-exploded bomb. Was this just a shock tactic to demonstrate the horrors of the second world war to the reader. Or was this a clever way of linking current wars and the risks of ieds that the troops face to the horrors of world war two ?

@SallySwann

You have previously been successful with the books that you've written. Did you worry that using your grandparents' wartime letters as a basis for this particular outing as a risk? As a reader who has read the finished article, it clearly was not a risk, but do you worry about whether a book will do well when you start writing?

@SallySwann - Thanks! I never think about whether the book will do well. I just blithely assume that if I'm really curious about the subject matter then other people will be, too. I do so much research that I have to be completely obsessed, otherwise I'd get bored or exhausted and run out of steam before the project was even halfway complete. So I must admit I didn't think it through at all. I just fell in love with my grandparents' lives & their letters, and couldn't stop thinking about them. I just kept wondering whether I could have endured what they did. And that curiosity just carried me away into the novel. And then before I knew it I had a story. It was only afterwards that I thought it had maybe been an odd thing to do, to fictionalise the real lives of family. Luckily, my family were very understanding and generous about it.

Can I ask which bits of the novel you found hardest to write? Was it particularly difficult to write the harrowing descriptions of the wounded airman or the boy whose house was bombed?

Thanks for your kind words Chris.

Your love for the city comes across beautifully: in its suffering, in its attempts for restoration. More applicable now than ever (recent news). Are you in love with London?

Hi Chris

What a wonderful book. One of my kids has been doing WW2 for a project so it was interesting for me to be reading this along at the same time. The characterisation was very realistic with reactions to events and behaviours and I often thought things were about to happen but then the story went off in a different direction.

I found the racist language used very difficult to read and it brought home to me how far we have moved on as a society in a relatively short time. I don't think many other authors would have thought about this aspect when writing a novel; my question is was this always in from the first draft or did it come later and how did it make you feel when using it?

@lalamcbride

Good Evening Chris

I am enjoying reading your book. My question is related to the killing of a character on an un-exploded bomb. Was this just a shock tactic to demonstrate the horrors of the second world war to the reader. Or was this a clever way of linking current wars and the risks of ieds that the troops face to the horrors of world war two ?

@ lalamcbride Thank you. I did want to show that war doesn't kill people because they do or they don't morally deserve it. Death in the book is quite cold & arbitrary, and I hope it isn't too badly foreshadowed either. People didn't know they were going to die in ten pages' time, and so neither should the reader, I hope, if the writing is good. And yes, I did want that scene to call to mind what the participants in our current conflict are having to face. I think that the technology of war changes, as does the rationale for it, but the psychological agonies of the participants are the same now as then. On the home front as well as the battle front.

Loved Mary's character and was really touched by the things she went through and her innate ability to lighten the mood. Really love the way you make the characters in the book come alive. What or who inspired you for creating her character?

I'll be honest I had never heard of you before I was given this book - I normally read crime books. I just want to say a massive thank you to Mumsnet for introducing me to you. I really enjoyed this book. My favourite book as a child was Goodnight Mr Tom and this reminded me of this so much - but an adults version. As someone mentioned previously I too found the racism really uncomfortable, but it does show how far times have moved on. I plan to read your other books now. Thanks Chris.

Sorry I'm late, Cubs overran!
I've just realised that I haven't written my review so I'll get round to that in a bit.

I was wondering whose story you found easiest to write, of the main characters?

@mom2010

Thanks for your kind words Chris.

Your love for the city comes across beautifully: in its suffering, in its attempts for restoration. More applicable now than ever (recent news). Are you in love with London?

@ mom2010 Ah, thanks! Well, clearly you can read me like a book. I do love London. All my books are about this city. Because I think it represents something irrepressible in the human spirit. It just doesn't know when it's beaten. Also, it's sufficiently big and complex that all life, and all morality, can be lost and found in its maze. And I admire the way it continually reinvents and reinterprets itself. It is a character in all my work. Not always a benevolent one. It has a very dark, very old energy that you can sometimes glimpse through the effervescence of its continual rejuvenation. London, eh? You can't look and you can't not look.

Hi Chris, loved your book, my favourite sentence was "Expect me at around five past the end of the war..." How long did it take you to write the book? Wish there was a sequel to come !

Thanks for taking the time to respond Chris. Much appreciated.

@MonsieurBing

Sorry I'm late, Cubs overran! I've just realised that I haven't written my review so I'll get round to that in a bit.

I was wondering whose story you found easiest to write, of the main characters?

@MonsieurBing I hope Cubs was fun. I am a big fan. I found Tom easiest to write, as his anxieties map onto mine pretty much 1:1. Especially that section where he is afraid to let Mary walk away into the morning (p94-98 in the UK PB). Hilda is very like me, too. Alistair & Mary were much harder. Both more refined than yours truly.

London, eh? You can't look and you can't not look.
Love the spirit! Love London in its every mood!