The Missing Voice
I had to wait a while for some other idea to come around and attach to all this…That’s sort of how my books happen: you have idea X, and you’re waiting around for idea Y to collide with it, like atoms making a molecule.
-Justin Cronin, author of The Ferryman
Let me take you back in time, to January 2022.
I was getting ready to publish the first novel in my series, Darkness Below. The story had been through many versions. It had been professionally reviewed by no less than three separate editors. They all liked it. Still, I wasn’t satisfied. Something was missing from the story. The atoms still weren’t forming a molecule.
Then I picked up a book called The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz. It was a fascinating true-life tale of Denis Avey, a British soldier who traded places with a Jewish inmate so he could experience the horrors of a concentration camp firsthand and report what he saw to the Allies. The premise floored me. Who would head willingly into such a hell hole? To embark on a journey that might end in a crematorium?
After I read Denis Avey’s story, I had a vision of a woman showing up at the gates of a concentration camp, eyes flashing with rage. She demanded to be let into the place others were so desperate to escape. Because she thought she could make a difference. Because she wanted to fight fire with fire.
Ivan Leibowitz was already in my story at this point, but he was a ghost, a spectre with no real substance. As I thought about the strange woman nagging the Nazi guards, I realized she was Ivan’s mother. And to understand Ivan, you needed to understand her. I knew I had to be careful introducing a new element into an almost finished story. But Ivan had already written two letters to my main character, so I thought, “Why doesn’t he write more?” “Why doesn’t he tell Ellen his side of the story?”
The new additions, scattered through Darkness Below, amounted to only a handful of pages. But like a dash of salt, it changed the flavor of the story. It fleshed out what had previously been a cardboard character.
Now, I find myself with a different problem. Ivan has become such a strong character I’m tempted to put him in other books in the series. I’m not sure if I will heed his call.
Only time will tell…
Click here for a timely interview with my real life inspiration, Denis Avey, recorded shortly before his death at the age of 96.
