Costco Connection

book pıck
Verboten love

Author explores lives of Berlin
women during World War II

By Matthew Robb

When the Iron Curtain fell in 1991, the novelist
hopped a jet for the East German side of the
metropolis. “I knew there was a very small window
to find pieces of the old city from World War II,” he
reflects. “The Soviets hadn’t touched these buildings
for half a century. On one building, the facade had
been torn off and I could look up and see newspa-
per fluttering inside an apartment. Years later, I
used that imagery in City of Women. My main char-
acter turns the corner after a bombing raid and
finds that same building.”
ALL WRITERS RELY on their muses, yet David R.
Gillham traces many of his creative flashes to
the “dark corners of history.” In 2009, he tapped
into the jet-black abyss of World War II and found
“the ideal background for building characters,
exploring moral decisions and generating
suspense.” In late 2012, City of Women hit shelves.

Readers swooned. Sales soared. Master novelist Alan Furst hailed the New York Times best-seller as “extraordinary,” while Slate magazine feted it as “great … with a morally complex, intelligent heroine at its center.”

Speaking from his home in Amherst, Massachusetts, Gillham pro-fesses an almost lifelong affection for Berlin—he was in his 20s when he began the first of three novels on the “Millennium City.” The Kentucky native, now 55, tells The Connection, “In the 1920s, Berlin was this wide-open place with incredible contrasts of poverty and wealth, creativity and oppression. It was a very rich period for a writer, so I started to learn all I could about it.” Although all three of his manuscripts died on the vine, Gillham’s romance with Berlin blossomed.

LUDMILLA PAVLOVA-GILLHAM

Signed book giveaway

David R. Gillham

In 2009, Gillham threw himself into his City of Women project—all told, a three-year undertaking. When the stay-at-home dad wasn’t joining sing-alongs at parks with neighborhood mothers, he was capturing on paper the gritty, gut-wrenching terror of a German “war wife” swept up in a forbidden romance with a mysterious Jewish suitor in Hitler’s Berlin. To infuse his manuscript with the high-definition realism it needed, he researched the circa 1943 German capital—shattered by Allied bombers during World War II—right down to the neighborhood level. Once the city’s “blueprint” was complete, he began mentally prowling its streets in search of his cast of characters.

Gillham credits the intensive skills-building of
the University of Southern California’s graduate
program in screenwriting for helping him more
nimbly navigate the tricky terrain of storytelling,
from the book’s rich characters and crisp dialogue
to its twisty-turny plot and dramatic tension. He
says, “I still think like a screenwriter, even if I’m
writing a novel.”
Without doubt, City of Women is infused with
left-brain hyperrealism. Yet the Minneapolis Star-
Tribune praised it as “a beautifully told love story.”
Gillham agrees: “The general theme of my writing
is about trying to find love, looking for redemption
and dealing with the contradictions—indeed, with
the great moral choices—of life.”
Having grown up especially close to his elder sis-
ter, the novelist says it felt “very natural” to write for
Sigrid, his female protagonist. “I enjoy women, I
enjoy being around them and I enjoy talking with
them,” he says. “And I’m one of those writers who has
a very personal relationship with the novel’s charac-
ters. I sort of fall in love with the women, especially
with Sigrid in City of Women.” After spending so
many restless nights with his German heroine,
Gillham discovered that she was also his muse.

Gillham discovered that she was also his muse. this kind of giddy rush—that I just want to a

As a reader, Gillham confesses that his love for the written word hasn’t diminished. “I still feel this kind of giddy rush—that I just want to hurry into this world. If it catches me in the first three paragraphs, I charge into that novel and everything around me sort of vanishes.” C

FRANCE FREEMAN

Tablet or smartphone? Scan or click here to enter the giveaway (see page 5) in our digital newsstand and online ditions.

STORIES ABOUT war often focus on battles. What’s so fascinating about this month’s Book Buyer’s Pick, David R. Gillham’s debut novel, City of Women, is that he focuses on the people left behind.

By all accounts, Sigrid Schroder is the ideal German soldier’s wife: She dutifully goes to work, makes the most of rations and tends to her mother-in-law. And yet, with her husband shipped off to Russia to ;ght, she dreams of her former lover, an expert in gems and manipulation, who has removed the star from his lapel and gone underground.

Gillham does an unforgettable job of taking readers to 1943 Berlin. The city is ;lled with women who, although left behind, are forging ahead with their lives and wrestling with decisions that are heavy with life-changing implications.

(Available May 7; Item #756460)

For more book picks, see page 79.

COSTCO HAS 50 COPIES of David R. Gillham’s City of Women to give away. To enter, go to Costco.com, search for “MayBookPick” and follow the instructions. Or print your name, address and daytime phone number on a postcard or letter and send it to: David R. Gillham, The Costco Connection, P.O. Box 34088, Seattle, WA 98124-1088. NO PURCHASE, PAYMENT OR OPT-IN OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN THIS SWEEPSTAKES.

Purchase will not improve odds of winning. S weepstakes is sponsored by Penguin Group, 375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014. Open to legal residents of the U.S. (except Puerto Rico) who are age 18 or older at the time of entry. One entry per household. Entries must be received by June 1, 2013. Winners will be randomly selected and noti;ed by mail on or before July 1, 2013. The value of the prize is $16. Void where prohibited. Winners are responsible for all applicable federal, state and local taxes. Odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries received. Employees of Costco or Penguin Group and their families are not eligible.