Interview with Derek B. Miller, author of The Curse of Pietro Houdini

As Derek B. Miller sat down to put in writing his seventh novel, The Curse of Pietro Houdini, one thing magical occurred. “I wrote a great first sentence that somehow embedded the whole book,” he says, talking from his house in Spain. “This is the only time this has ever happened to me.”

Miller had already chosen the setting for this spellbinding historic saga—a Benedictine abbey close to Montecassino, Italy, throughout World War II. In 1944, American pilots dropped extra bombs on this hilltop sanctuary than some other single constructing, mistakenly believing it to be occupied by German forces. While tales abound in regards to the invasion of Normandy, few Americans are acquainted with this army operation.
“I have a Ph.D. in international relations,” Miller notes, “and I didn’t know about it.” Part of the rationale, he explains, is that “it’s just not a good old-fashioned American hero story. The battle went on for months and months and killed a lot of people.” What’s extra, the abbey had been housing hundreds of irreplaceable manuscripts and artwork, despatched there for safekeeping in 1943. Thankfully, evening after evening, a German and an Austrian officer, with the assistance of the monks, loaded this treasure trove into carts and moved it to Rome earlier than the Allied destruction started—a secretive mission described in his e book. “I don’t think an abbey has called out to have its own story since The Name of the Rose,” Miller provides, referring to Umberto Eco’s famed homicide thriller.

“I just love big, opinionated, risk-taking, take-no-prisoners central characters.”

Miller was launched to the Montecassino abbey whereas engaged on a earlier novel, Radio Life, which was impressed by the acclaimed 1959 science fiction basic A Canticle for Leibowitz, a post-apocalyptic story about monks who shield books throughout nuclear conflict and its aftermath by hiding them in an abbey. The e book’s author, Walter J. Miller (no relation) was a radioman and tail gunner whose function within the Montecassino abbey bombing left him with post-traumatic stress dysfunction and undoubtedly impressed Canticle. Now, Derek Miller wished to discover the setting of the abbey itself, however he was having hassle deciding what story he wished to inform. “This isn’t nonfiction,” Miller says. “I didn’t want to be an academic. I wanted to be a dramatist. And I wanted to find the story within the story that could be mine.”

The plot lastly started to emerge when Miller wrote that first sentence—“Pietro Houdini claimed that life clung to him like a curse and if he could escape it he would.” Instantaneously, one of the novel’s two primary characters sprang into focus. As his identify implies, Houdini is a larger-than-life character who will not be what he claims to be: a “master artist and confidant of the Vatican.” “I just love big, opinionated, risk-taking, take-no-prisoners central characters,” Miller says.

“Once the name popped out,” Miller continues, “once I had Houdini and a curse, and the abbey all sort of there, I realized that interrogating the curse mattered. And I was wondering who else was there? Who was he talking to? Who would care about something like that?” Before lengthy, Miller envisioned an orphaned 14-year-old—Massimo—whom Pietro finds mendacity battered and crushed in a gutter. The two stroll up the hill to the abbey, setting into movement a vibrant, well-crafted story that’s wealthy in historical past, drama, intrigue, tragedy and well-placed doses of humor—at which Miller excels. Ultimately, he has created a narrative about each the heroics and the horrors of conflict, in addition to the highly effective bonds that may kind within the midst of calamity.

Massimo’s first-person narration convincingly guides the e book, and it’s framed by an introduction and conclusion written from Massimo’s grownup perspective many years later. “When I’m writing,” Miller explains, “I really have no idea what’s going to happen next. I only had milestones and a chronology [of historical events] that I decided to stick to seriously, partly because I’m a scholar.” Many readers, the truth is, could also be reminded of Anthony Doerr’s beloved World War II novel, All the Light We Cannot See. “This is going to sound shocking,” Miller says, “but I haven’t read it yet.”

Similarly shocking comparisons had been made after the publication of his award-winning novel, Norwegian by Night: People complimented him on doing such a beautiful job writing Scandinavian crime. “I said, ‘That’s interesting, I’ve never heard of it.’ I thought I was writing a story about an old Jewish guy running through the woods in Norway. But apparently, it was part of an entire genre that I was unaware of, even though I was living in Norway at the time.”

“I haven’t really written love stories as such—you know, boy-meets-girl, that kind of thing. But there is, very much with Pietro and Massimo, love.”

Both Norwegian by Night and The Curse of Pietro Houdini function an grownup and baby paired as primary characters. “A lot of my books are really quite multigenerational,” Miller says. “It gives me tremendous scope for wisdom, dialogue, humor, misunderstanding and competing interpretations. And it’s fun, because old people being frustrated with young people, and young people being frustrated with old people is just hilarious.”

Miller additionally describes the pairing as a “useful literary device,” saying, “It’s always helpful for somebody in the know to have somebody to talk to who’s not in the know for the benefit of the reader. And in my books, there’s a lot going on.” Such a wonderful embarrassment of riches is actually the case in The Curse of Pietro Houdini, during which many of Pietro’s discussions of artwork, historical past and the conflict with Massimo function important backstory offered in an entertaining style. Miller factors to the ability of the connection that these characters set up, saying, “Being alone and then finding someone to connect with in the midst of that loneliness is essential in the human experience. I haven’t really written love stories as such—you know, boy-meets-girl, that kind of thing. But there is, very much with Pietro and Massimo, love.”

“Writing is a full-contact blood sport,” Miller concludes. “It’s a crazy way to make a living—almost an impossible way.” He began making an attempt his hand at fiction throughout a quantity of unscheduled months spent ready for his Ph.D. program to start in Switzerland, and he continued with the craft alongside his research. He finally revealed his third manuscript, Norwegian by Night, in 2008, after 12 years of writing. That e book got here collectively when he elevated Sheldon Horowitz, who had been a minor character in a draft manuscript, to a central character. He turned out to be such a beautiful persona that Miller later wrote a prequel about his childhood, the suspenseful tragicomedy How to Find Your Way within the Dark.

Now Miller is engaged on a e book set within the late Fifties on the coast of Spain, the place Salvador Dali had his home in Cadaqués. Miller and his household stay about an hour south of Barcelona, after residing and dealing in Norway for a quantity of years (Miller’s spouse is Norwegian). “I needed a change and it’s an adventure for the kids,” he says. “Life is short, so you take some bold decisions, if you’re so inclined.”

At some level, Miller hopes to lastly go to the Montecassino abbey, which has been rebuilt for the reason that World War II bombing. He says, “My deep, deep hope is that I can get The Curse of Pietro Houdini translated into Italian and that I have an excellent reason to go.”