Nazi Noir writer Philip Kerr’s will talk about his newest book ”A Man Without Breath” 7 p.m., Wednesday, April 17 at Schulers in Okemos. Kerr who writes in a variety of genres including children’s literature has developed a successful series featuring a German policeman during the height of Nazi Germany.
The detective, Bernie Gunther is a hard drinking, skirt chasing cynic as he pursues his duties of solving unpleasant murders against the backdrop of Nazi Germany. It’s not lost on Gunther that while he’s solving individual murders often committed by Nazi officers everyone seems to not notice the larger crimes of the Holocaust. Kerr’s Gunther books have stretched from the 1930s to postwar Germany and are not written in chronological order. In the latest book, he is sent to investigate a mass killing on the Eastern border right before Russia begins its major counteroffensive. Most of those close to Hitler know for all practical purposes the war is over and Gunther who is not a party man crosses paths with a few officers who are attempting another plot on Hitler’s life.
As usual the suspense is at its highest level in a Kerr book as Gunther once again realizes that solving the murders may result in his own death. Kerr’s book series which began in 1989 is an unusual success story since after writing three Gunther novels in succession he took nearly 16 years off before writing his next five crime novels.
Kerr is Scottish and after reading law at a British university he took extensive post graduate work in German 20th century history specializing in you guessed it -the Nazis. It’s this background that makes his crime novels so real and atmospheric. You almost feel that there was a Bernie Gunther and he left a diary behind.
In addition to his crime novels, Kerr has written a fictionalized version of the life of Sir Isaac Newton, several screen plays including a feature film on Diana and eight children’s books as P.B. Kerr. Kerr who now lives in London does most of his primary research for his Gunther novels at the Wiener Library, a well-worn but little-known library (outside of select circles) specializing in first-person accounts of anti-Hitler resistance and anti-Semitism.
Kerr was quoted in a recent interview in the Daily Telegraph that “after finishing each book I felt I needed a shower.”
Although much more dark, Kerr’s books have been compared to Allan Furst’s atmospheric historical spy thrillers which revolve around the run up to World War II. Those lucky enough to have HBO may have caught the recent two part mini-series “Spies of Warsaw” based on Furst’s book of the same. Nazi Noir seems to have found an avid fan base and the writings of both Furst and Kerr are reminiscent of the greats Graham Greene, Eric Ambler and John LeCarre.
The following is a Question and Answer by email with Gunther from London:
Q. How do you and where do you do your research to create the “sights and sounds” the-deep atmosphere of your Bernie Gunther books? Do you visit the actual locations or has the web made that unnecessary? Was there ever a character similar to Bernie in the German milieu? Or could there have been? He is so believable. So much has been written about the era by historians; who do you trust the most?
A. I try to visit the locations wherever possible and read as much as I can about the period. Sometimes I can’t do more than find an old map and some old photographs. With A Man Without Breath (AMWB) I was lucky in that I found an SS map of Smolensk from 1943. The Germans had renamed all of the streets – German names, of course – so this made my job a lot easier. It meant that the Smolensk I was writing about would be almost unrecognizable to someone from Smolensk today. For all of the research that I do the most important thing is the research that I do in my own head; in other words, with my imagination. Over the years I’ve learned to trust this and whenever I’m researching something I put my own imagination in there too, in order to try and feel what I’ve learned, a bit like a DeNiro figure, method-acting.
Q. Was there a Bernie? Probably. Himmler certainly employed a private detective when he suspected his sister was being cheated on. And certainly Berliners have the black sense of humor shared by Bernie. He’s a kind of Flying Dutchman figure really.
A. With history I try to work between the lines of know history – in other words I only make up what isn’t known. I wouldn’t ever make up something that contradicted the known facts. Historians are limited by facts. I am liberated by their absence. For my money the best account of the Battle of Waterloo is a novel and not a work of history: that book is Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Sometimes the best ‘history’ is that which has been imagined.
Q. In addition to your academic background relating to the rise of Nazism have you talked with Germans who lived through that era? When doing your research is there one piece of discovery that stands out among all others? One piece that was so serendipitous that you just couldn’t believe you were discovering it?
A. I’ve talked to many Germans and receive many emails, too. I travel to Germany a lot. In the past twelve months I’ve been to Berlin once and Munich four times. Everytime I research a new book I come across something that surprises me. The period is full of surprised; as a great American President Harry Truman used to say ‘There is nothing new in history, there is only the history we don’t already know.’ With AMWB I soon discovered that the man who was officially credited with the discovery of the bodies of Polish soldiers in Katyn Forest had tried – twice – kill Hitler in the previous four weeks. That seemed like serendipity and still does. Too good a discovery not to use.
Q. Bernie seems to be a metaphor for Germans during ww II who faced often terrible moral decisions. Was that one of your goals in creating Bernie? Is part of Bernie’s message to us not be so self righteous about war and that we don’t know what we would do until we are there?
A. Exactly. I like to paint Bernie- and by extension myself – into a corner in order to ask myself what would I have done? That is the overriding question with all the books: what would I – could I – have done? It’s an easy question to answer if you are an insurance salesman or a shop clerk. It’s not s easy to answer if like Bernie you were a cop. And a good cop, too.
Q. Do you have time to read any American crime fiction? Who, if so?
A. I used to read quite a lot of it. Chandler of course. Hammett. James M.Cain (much underrated). Donald Westlake and Elmore Leonard of course.
Q. What’s your take on the status of children’s books (picture); are they overall better worse or more creative than they were a half century ago? You seem to write your children’s books for the sheer pleasure of it. Is that correct?
A. I love writing for children. It’s pure creative writing – the chance to let go and allow one’s imagination carte blanche. I’m not sure if they are better today because I don’t read any children’s literature, ever. I have children of my own and what I’ve written was originally an attempt to connect with them. It’s the most important writing that any writer can do and the emails I get from kids – especially boys – that say I turned them onto books are some of the most important achievements of my writing career.
Look forward to your visit and enjoy yourself. University of Michigan has a great children’s book collection and MSU Library has maybe he best collection of comic books in the world. Did you ever read comics growing up.
I read a lot of comics from the age of about 5-12. British comics that you would never have heard of. Then Fantastic 4 and the Avengers for a while. Alan Moore was at the same school as me – a couple of years older. I am a great admirer of his. I especially admire his ferocious independence and contempt for ‘the career novelist’.
