Sharon Cameron’s historical fiction books are equal parts thriller and history. Her most recent, Artifice, takes place in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, where high-ranking Nazis are buying up Vermeers and other Old Masters with a vengeance—not realizing that some of the works they’re acquiring are forgeries. Cameron spoke with PW from her home in Nashville about the importance of preserving individual stories, what they can teach us about making difficult choices, and how the organic nature of the writing process tends to take over her best-laid plans for a book.
Before writing historical fiction, you wrote a number of well-received fantasies. What made you decide to switch to historical fiction, and in particular to focus on non-Jewish characters helping save Jews during World War II?
My first two books, The Dark Unwinding and A Spark Unseen, were Victorian steampunk, and then I wrote a dystopian YA novel, Rook, set in a world in which we had lost our entire history. I followed Rook with two companion books, The Forgetting and The Knowing, which I would describe as light sci-fi. But I have always researched all my books as though they were historical. For readers, it might feel like I made a big jump from light sci-fi to historical fiction, where every single thing is absolutely true. For me, it was simply stepping into the next thing I was meant to do.
Stefania (Fusia) Podgórska, the main character of The Light in Hidden Places, my first historical fiction book, had been my hero throughout my life, and when I looked at the reality of her story, at all the things that happened to her, it needed no embellishment. I wrote about her because I wanted the world to be aware of the challenges of her choices. She hid 13 Jews in her attic in Poland during World War II, at great personal danger to her and her younger sister. I didn’t want to water any of her story down with my imagination in any way.
Researching and writing Fusia’s story led me to other forgotten experiences of the war, rescuers who chose to stand up against the hatred and cruelty of their time, people who simply believed in humanity, and whose choices still affect the world today. What these people did should not die with our memories. They are stories that need to live and be told. I want to grab these stories, give them new life, and bring them into the consciousness of now. The past is where we discover the real truth of human nature, and that, above all else, I think, is what really intrigues me.
Your previous two books take place in Poland and Germany/the U.S. during WWII. What led you to select Amsterdam as the setting for Artifice?
I chose Amsterdam when I discovered the stories of two very different men whose lives intersected there, and who made very different choices during World War II. As an art lover, I had known about the legendary art forger Hans van Meegeren, who made 28 million dollars in 1941 alone by conning the Nazis into buying fake Vermeers and other Old Masters. Then, while researching refugees after World War II for Bluebird, I came across the story of Johan van Hulst, who smuggled more than 600 Jewish children out of Amsterdam. I began thinking about what could have happened if van Hulst had been the one with 28 million dollars. I asked myself: how many more Jews could he have saved with that money?
Can you describe the process of researching the historical aspects of the art and forgeries market during that era?
When I research, I start broad and keep narrowing down to the stories of individuals during that time. I go straight to primary sources, relying on oral histories of ordinary people. These help me understand what the world was like at that time, and how it has changed.
I started the book already having an understanding of the art world at that time, and knowing about the Nazis purchasing art, and the agents they used to do so. They wanted very much to be considered cultured and effete. Then, when I went to Amsterdam to research the book, I fell in love with the city. While I already knew a good amount about my subject, coming to understand Dutch values and attitudes was very helpful to my writing.
In addition to researching in the Rijksmuseum—the curators there were wonderful!—and the Verzetsmuseum, the Museum of the Dutch Resistance, I toured a canal house that had been created from two houses. It was such a maze—everything there was a little higgledy piggledy. Seeing the house changed my plans as to where I set the main character Isa’s house; it became her home and her family’s gallery. I used the wallpaper and other details to create her home.
Sometimes research can inform a story that way. Here’s another amazing example. I was about one-third through my book, just getting ready to meet with the art historians in Amsterdam, when, through a friend of a friend in Nashville, I was introduced to a Dutch man in his 90s who had lived through the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam, hidden from the German forced labor program [like some of the young men in Artifice] along with his Jewish cello teacher. As I talked with him about his experiences, I learned that his father had been Hans van Meegeren’s accountant, and executor of his will! And he himself had visited Hans’s home when he was a boy. I hadn’t written the scenes with Hans at that point, so everything I came to write about how Hans talked, the clothes he wore, the descriptions of his home and art studio, all the paintings of beheadings that hung on the walls—all that is based on this man’s memories.
The suspense and intrigue are a highlight of Artifice. How did you go about plotting such an intricate mystery—did you outline all the events, twists and turns etc., or did they come about more organically as you wrote?
Writers tend to talk about being a planner or a “pantser” when it comes to plot, and I like to say I’m a “planser.” I plan, then let the plan go. As I write and get to know my characters, the ideas that pop out are so much better than what I started with. So I replan, replan, replan. I have a plot A, a plot B, a plot C… my brain is constantly thinking of twist after twist after twist. So even though I plan from the beginning, the writing becomes a natural process. Having a plan keeps me on track while the story takes on a life of its own. I have many files on my computer in which I tell myself the story over and over from beginning to end as it changes. Often these are not even in complete sentences, just “and what if…” over and over. So the story starts out relatively simple, but gets more and more detailed.
Knowing the true stories of van Meegeren, van Hulst, and other little-known heroes of the Dutch Resistance, I decided to write about Isa, a girl raised in the bohemian world of the Amsterdam art scene, a world destroyed by the coming of the Nazis. Where the art has been taken because it is degenerate. Where the artists have been taken because they are Jewish, or Communist, or gay. And what is Isa’s revenge? She will sell a fake Vermeer to Hitler himself, giving the money to a band of baby smugglers dedicated to saving the last Jewish children in the city. Making the greed of the Nazis pay for the rescue of the very children they are trying to annihilate—the idea felt delicious to me! But it’s a move that will make Isa look like a collaborator to one side, and a criminal to the other. Putting my characters in these impossible dilemmas forces the question, “How did the people of our past handle these choices? How would I handle this choice? What can I do right now to stand up against hate?’ By presenting the choices of yesterday, I believe and hope that we can all be challenged by our own choices today. And books are such an important way to do that.
I have the internal character arc in mind from the start, though sometimes even that changes and a deeper arc becomes apparent as I write. In Artifice, my original plan was to write about a girl rebuilding her relationship with her father. But as I write, spending time with my characters, getting to know them better and better, the organic nature of the writing process tends to take over all of my best-laid plans. Instead of a change in Isa’s father, I realized, the deeper, more realistic outcome would be a change in Isa herself, learning to accept the faults and mistakes of the people she loves, even when those mistakes are excruciatingly painful. Because when you learn to forgive others, then you can begin to forgive yourself. And that was so much better than the character arc I’d planned. All of my characters are on a path, a changeable path, laying the groundwork for who they will become next—as we all are. And just like in life, I find that the planning can only go so far. In the end, the choice of the heart is always the better, more meaningful path and for me, that is often found in the doing, rather than the planning.
Artifice by Sharon Cameron. Scholastic Press, $19.99 Nov. 7 ISBN 978-1-338-81395-1
