The French Gift is a work of fiction. But like all my books, it is inspired by true snippets of history.
A paragraph in the excellent nonfiction book The Riviera Set by Mary S. Lovell lit my imagination. She described a decadent party arranged by a famous hostess, where one of the guests was (faux) murdered and the local police were roped in as part of the game.
What fun, I thought! What if I write a book about a decadent murder party … and then it goes wrong.
But I also wanted to write a story inspired by the ordeal of women in World War II who were forced into labour in factories. We know so little about their history, and I stumbled across a translated version of a memoir by Agnès Humbert.
If you read her memoir—Résistance—(expertly translated into English by Barbara Mellor) you will see Agnès Humbert was part of the Resistance, a founding member of the subterfuge group that called itself the Cercle Alain-Fournier and is now known as the Musée de l’Homme network, with whom she co-founded the clandestine newspaper Résistance. Betrayed and arrested, she spent a year in brutal Gestapo prisons in Paris before a military show trial found her guilty of espionage and sentenced her to five years’ hard labour for the Third Reich. Sent to Anrath prison near Krefeld, she endured forced labour at the Phrix Rayon Factory.
During her trial, she managed to record her thoughts in an edition of René Descartes’ Discourse on Method, and she herself hinted (though this was never confirmed) that ‘the Resistance file, with its 400 names and addresses’ lay quietly hidden under her stair carpet throughout her arrest and interrogation by the Gestapo and subsequent incarceration. A committed socialist with a sense of justice, compassion and the absurd that never failed her, she formed life-saving bonds of mutual support with her fellow prisoners, both in prison in Paris and at the Phrix Rayon Factory, and even elicited the admiration and support of some of her gaolers.
Unlike my heroine Joséphine, Agnès Humbert was a key figure in the liberation, and stayed in Germany to assist the American troops as they hunted down escaping Nazis. Her story does not end at the Phrix Rayon Factory, for at fifty-one years of age she returned to a liberated France and to work and writing. She was also a devoted mother to her younger son Pierre, who lived with her in Paris, and daughter to her elderly and ailing mother, at whose hospital bedside she was arrested by the Gestapo, and who did not survive her captivity.
Agnès Humbert was an extraordinary woman. It has long been my quest in historical fiction to draw attention to forgotten pockets of history. Agnès Humbert’s English translator—Barbara Mellor—has captured with accuracy and visceral reality a type of reportage, a female first-person experience of the Resistance which shines a spotlight on the forced labour factories used in World War II that have long been overlooked in history. We are indebted to the work of Humbert and Mellor.
But make no mistake, my heroine Joséphine Murant is fictional. In no way must the reader mistake Joséphine’s internal musings for those of a real person. You must go to the source (and there are many listed in Further Reading) for a true account of all these places and people.
In my heroine Joséphine I wanted to capture some of that resilience and inspiration of wartime women. To honour the women who were forced to work in atrocious conditions, and whose stories have largely been forgotten.
Joséphine is young, educated and sassy. The crux of the book is her abiding friendship with Margot and their working together to unpick the mystery at the heart of the story.
There were many clandestine newspapers in Paris during the Occupation, including Combat, Défense de la France, L’Humanité, and Franc-Tireur as well as Résistance, and Joséphine could have worked for any of them.
Lastly, I wanted to call attention to how women through the generations have often served as the emotional ballast for their families. Also, how trauma is passed and healed through generations.
The atrocities of the Phrix Rayon Factory and the systemised use of forced labour in factories were documented and recorded in the French government report I refer to a number of times in the novel: Collection Défense de l’Homme, Les témoins qui se firent égorger, Editions Défense de la France, 1946.
La Maison Rustique is a real-life botanical bookshop I stumbled into quite by accident in Saint-Germain-des-Prés well over a decade ago and it has lived in my heart ever since. My fictional version is vastly different, of course. But if ever you are in Paris …
Marseille Museum is fictional, but there are many fine museums on the Riviera if you care to visit.
As with all my books, I have taken some liberties with historical record and places, shifting events and combining others to serve the story. Some war timelines have been condensed or changed.
I wrote this book in a months-long lockdown when the COVID-19 pandemic was circling the globe. The present day I write about is COVID-free. This was a deliberate choice as to include it would not have served the story (Hugo and Evie in Paris lockdown? Going nowhere. Watching Netflix. Baking sourdough … ). But, mostly, I wanted to switch off for a moment when I was writing. Also, to hold a space for the reader to have a reprise from the news. I hope this book gives you a few enjoyable COVID-19-free hours.
Any mistakes are my own.