2019-10-01_Writer_s_Digest

42 I WRITER’S DIGEST I October 2019

WD INTERVIEW

THE

PHOTO ©

DEBORAH FEINGOLD

A

lice Hoff man specializes in magical writing

that tells the realest of stories. She published

her fi rst novel in 1977 while still at Stanford

University and has written more than 30

works of fi ction since, including the novels Th e Marriage

of Opposites, Faithful, Th e Red Garden, Th e Museum of

Extraordinary Th ings, Th e Dovekeepers, and the Oprah’s

Book Club book Here on Earth. She’s also written many

books for young adults, including Aquamarine, Green

Angel, Green Witch, and Incantation. Her books have

been adapted for fi lm and television and have been

translated into more than 20 languages.

Her fans love her style, which blends magical realism

and historical fi ction. She may be most known for her

bestsellers Practical Magic and Th e Rules of Magic. Th ese

novels follow the Owens family, strong women who use

their magical abilities for good, but who are cursed—

the men they love are all doomed to untimely deaths.

Readers have devoured this family saga, and there may

be more of it on shelves in the near future, as Hoff man

says she is working on a third book in the series.

Her most recent novel is Th e World Th at We Knew

(Sept. 2019, Simon & Schuster). Set in Berlin in 1941, it

weaves together the stories of three brave young women

who must summon all the love in their hearts and all the

courage in their bones to survive one of the biggest evils

ever perpetrated: the Holocaust. Th is beautiful, terrifying,

and heartbreaking story is shot through with what matters

most in life—family, friendship, and love. Th ese unforget-

table characters will stay with readers long aft er they’ve

closed the book.

Hoff man talked with WD about using magic and fairy

tales to tell harrowing real stories, her writing process, and

craft ing the compelling characters that her readers adore.

The World That We Knew was inspired by a woman

you met at a reading. What’s the story there?

It was years ago. I came out from a reading and there was

a woman waiting for me. She said, “I’d like you to write

my life story.” And I said, “I don’t do that. I don’t really

deal with reality and I don’t use other people’s stories or

even my own life.” She felt that if her story wasn’t told, it

would get lost. She said that she had been a child survivor

in the Holocaust, a hidden child in France. I had never

heard anything about that. She said she’d been in a con-

vent, and she really wanted her story to be told. I said, “I

just don’t feel like it’s my story to tell. But thank you.” But

I always thought about her and her story and I started to

research it. Th en I wanted to meet some people who had

been through that experience because they’re getting old;

they’re mostly in their 80s and 90s. I had a friend who

knew quite a few survivors and once I started talking to

people, I got really interested in the situation that these

children were in. And the whole idea about being sepa-

rated from your parents really resonates right now.

I didn’t feel that I could write about World War II in

a realistic style for a couple of reasons. One, because so

much has been written, both nonfi ction and fi ction, that

people feel like, “I’ve read that.” Th e other thing is, I always

felt when I was young that the deepest emotional truth

came from reading fairy tales; that there was a way to get

to the real core emotion of the situation, whether it was

tragic or joyous, dealing with it in a mythic way. So that’s

what I decided to do with Th e World Th at We Knew.

This book is a mix of historical fi ction, magical realism,

and fairy tale. How did you hit on that synthesis of ele-

ments to tell this story? How can writers use magical

elements to get across the most harrowing stories?

Fairy tales oft en are harrowing stories. What I realized was

especially aft er I looked into this original woman’s [story],

that her story was kind of the core fairy tale of a lost child.

Fairy tales very oft en were about young girls or women

who had to rescue themselves. So that’s where I began. But

I also think that to write about things that are so tragic and

illogical and inhuman and evil—it’s hard to write about

them realistically because it’s hard to believe that people

would act in the way that they acted. To get to the heart of

it, I had to get a symbolic form of writing about it.

This book tackles some of the absolute worst of

human history. It was heartbreaking but beautiful to

read. How painful is it to dive into these kinds of sto-

ries, and why is it critical that we keep telling them?

It really is critical to keep telling them. History gets lost.

Th is woman said to me, “If you don’t write about it, it