Chopinic Attack! Issue 1
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Chopinic Attack!, and thank you to everyone who has subscribed. The idea is that this will be a quarterly thing, at least to start out. (The idea was also that the first issue would go out on September 1, and you can see how well that worked, so I can’t make any promises.)
I also can’t promise any thematic consistency, but there will be a few core features:
book/writing updates, along with occasional sneak peeks plus interesting historical tidbits from my research;
what I've been reading, watching, and/or listening to; and
most importantly, pictures of Mo.
Book Updates
Beyond Seven Forests comes out in less than five months!
I’m so incredibly excited to share this book with you. If you’ve followed my writing journey for any length of time, you know that I am a SLOW writer: It usually takes me a year at least to get a rough draft out, another year to revise, and then it’s another year before the book is actually on shelves. But I wrote the original draft of Beyond Seven Forests in three months. Of course, I then shelved it for two years before we found an editor for it, so it works out about the same—but the fact remains, the process of drafting Beyond Seven Forests was incredibly quick and easy for me. That’s how urgently this story wanted to be told. It’s the only story I’ve ever written that came into my head just about fully formed—usually it takes me a few drafts to find the real story. But my main character, Renata, and her voice were so immediately clear to me.
I do hope this book will help close a gap in the field of literature about the First World War. WWI hasn’t ever gotten the kind of attention that WWII has gotten—though I think this is slowly starting to change, given the parallels many are seeing between 1914 and our current historical moment. But even as more and more new books come out about WWI, most of the focus continues to be only on the Western Front of the war. The Eastern Front remains a no-man’s land, neglected in the narrative despite the millions of deaths—both military and civilian—and the impact the front had on the rest of the 20th century and up to our present day.
One example: The Siege of Przemyśl plays an important role in Beyond Seven Forests. The history of the siege is fascinating; it really crystallizes the way World War I was a clash between the old world and the modern. It was a months-long, medieval-style siege of an Austro-Hungarian fortress town (now in present-day Poland) by Russian forces, and it resulted in over a quarter million direct casualties, and more than a million casualties all told. But I had never heard of it until I started researching this book, and I’d venture to guess that a lot of you hadn’t either. (If your interest is piqued and you’d like to know more, Alexander Watson’s book The Fortress is excellent. Highly recommended.)
Anyway, Beyond Seven Forests is available for pre-order now—and I’d be so grateful if you would consider pre-ordering! It makes such a difference in a book’s sales trajectory. Plus, if you order through my local indie, Bound Booksellers, you’ll get 25% off list price, plus an exclusive character art print (art by me)!
I’ll leave you with a sneak peek of the opening few paragraphs.
Friday, January 7, 1916
Galicia, Austro-Hungarian EmpireMy courtroom is not a courtroom. It is the parlor of the manor house on the old Potocki estate just outside Lemberg. I’ve taken tea in this parlor many times, though not since before the war. There was some discussion, five or six years ago, of a possible match between the younger Count Potocki and myself, until he lost his life in a motorcar race in France. The elder Count Potocki paid protection money to the Russians, so the house and grounds remained mostly untouched during the occupation and then the retreat last summer. It didn’t do him any good in the end. The Austrians hanged him as a collaborator in July. They hanged a great many people as collaborators in July.
In any case, this house is almost certainly the only szlachcic’s house within thirty kilometers of Lemberg that still has four good walls and an intact roof. General von Linsingen, the German commander, has been using it as his headquarters all winter—and as the courtroom for his military tribunals, which is why I am here.
Most of those here this morning to witness my sentencing are officers of von Linsingen’s staff, but they’ve brought in a small contingent from the Polish Legions to handle the questioning itself. An acknowledgment of my Polish title, I suppose, and of my status as an Austro-Hungarian subject, not a German one. The Legions answer to the Austro-Hungarian high command.
I recognize Commandant Piłsudski, their leader, though I’ve never met him. He and his staff arrived just last night from an inspection of the front lines, one hundred and fifty kilometers to the east. He is impossible not to recognize. He wears a theatrical full moustache, wider than his face, to hide—so the story goes—two missing front teeth, his souvenir from a Russian prison.
I have no jury. No one, I think, is in any suspense as to what the verdict will be. Captain Baran—poor jealous, aggrieved Captain Baran—has brought the charges. General von Linsingen will decide my sentence, and Commandant Piłsudski will pronounce it.
The firing squad, most likely: This is a military tribunal, and that is the usual manner of execution prescribed by military tribunals. I am lucky to have this tribunal at all. There was no such courtesy for Count Potocki. The hangings in July were summary ones.
Reading/watching/listening
Read and enjoyed lately: The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden, The Jackal’s Mistress by Chris Bohjalian, Buckeye by Patrick Ryan
Watched: Abbott Elementary (if you need a cozy, feel-good show to binge, this is the one)
Listened: I bought Arctic Monkeys’ 2013 album AM for one song only (Do I Wanna Know?, which I tracked down after hearing it in a Peaky Blinders episode), but it has quickly become one of my favorites
Mo
Until next time,
Amanda