Today it is my great pleasure to welcome writer Lisa Bigelow to Feathers of the Firebird as part of her blog tour for her debut novel, We That are Left. Set in World War Two, and inspired by family history, it is a moving portrayal of the impact of war beyond the armed forces. In this guest post, Lisa writes about the lived reality of history.

Keeping history alive

by Lisa Bigelow

Blue willow china, lemon delicious and floral carpet; history isn’t just about war and famous people in funny costumes. History is in the great aunt’s lounge room that you visited as a child, that time capsule of tin toys and steamed puddings and jewellery that held memories of lost loves and departed siblings. Reaching back into those memories brings a treasure trove of detail to a writer’s storytelling.

As a child of the seventies, I was becoming aware of my surroundings just thirty years after the end of the second world war. When you think of thirty years back from now, you land in the mid-nineteen eighties era of shoulder pads and Michael Jackson’s Thriller album. It doesn’t seem so long ago, does it? So it was surprisingly easy to imagine some aspects of houses and shops and streets in Melbourne and out in the country, during the war.

Having lost my grandfather on the HMAS Sydney II in 1941, I personally felt the weight of responsibility to accurately portray events in the story of this tragedy. Only a few facts were blurred such as the timing of Harry’s final shore leave and sighting of the decoy target off WA. Rather than adopting the old journalism maxim, “never let the truth stand in the way of a good story”, I feel that the truth enhanced this story, along with a dusting of period detail to transport readers to their not so distant past.

We That Are Left by Lisa Bigelow is published by Allen & Unwin, RRP $29.99, available now.

More about the book:

Melbourne, 1941. Headstrong young Mae meets and falls head over heels in love with Harry Parker, a dashing naval engineer. After a whirlwind courtship they marry and Mae is heavily pregnant when she hears that Harry has just received his dream posting to HMAS Sydney. Just after Mae becomes a mother, she learns Harry’s ship is missing.

Meanwhile, Grace Fowler is battling prejudice to become a reporter on the afternoon daily newspaper, The Tribune, while waiting for word on whether her journalist boyfriend Phil Taylor, captured during the fall of Singapore, is still alive.

Surrounded by their friends and families, Mae and Grace struggle to keep hope alive in the face of hardship and despair. Then Mae’s neighbour and Grace’s boss Sam Barton tells Mae about a rumour that the Japanese have towed the damaged ship to Singapore and taken the crew prisoner. Mae’s life is changed forever as she focuses her efforts on willing her husband home.

Set in inner Melbourne and rural Victoria, We That Are Left is a moving and haunting novel about love and war, the terrifyingly thin line between happiness and tragedy, and how servicemen and women are not the only lives lost when tragedy strikes during war.

More about the author:

Lisa Bigelow’s life revolves around story-telling. An avid reader from age five, her career as a journalist and communicator has been all building and delivering compelling stories about water resources, climate change and any issue that interests her audiences. She recently completed a Masters Degree in Communication and aims to use her writing to illuminate ongoing issues and make them accessible to a wide readership. We That Are Left is her first novel.

Get in touch with Lisa!

• Website: http://lisabigelowauthor.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Lisa-Bigelow-Author-1611562128888785/