There are a number of things that pop into my mind when I
think of the Netherlands or Dutch history. First of all - windmills, the slow
and steady turn of the old sails as they grind the flour to make those delectable
pastries, the flaky and sugary texture as it touches your lips sending one into
a moaning mess of pleasure, ignoring the calories running to your hips as your tastebuds
dance in rapture. Or perhaps the clank of the wooden clogs jumps to your mind
as you see blonde, busty women in little maid outfits such as I now wear for
Oktoberfest, and while not likely historically correct, it is still what first
jumps to mind. 
Second to that is Amsterdam, and all its red light fun! One
of the (if not the only) places in the world where cannabis and prostitution
are legal. The home of live sex shows and the ‘Red Light District’ a place
where, if one is so inclined, can for 30 Euros, find pleasure in the arms of a
willing woman before talking the walk of shame, the whistles and cat calls
following you as you exit your lovers door and zip up your fly, all before the
eager eyes of the tourists smoking and drinking in the cafes.
Yet like any place or moment in time, it was not always as
you see it today.
There is a dark and somewhat chilling history surrounding a
place that is now known to house such willing pleasure. A murky past during the
Holocaust, Anne Frank’s diary is a chilling reminder of that, as well as the
poverty that was faced by the lower and middle classes in the days gone by.
For some reason when I think of the struggles of poverty, I
conger up images of Oliver Twist asking for more, his smudged cheeks and
tattered clothes at the
forefront of my mind. Was this always the case? I don’t know but I wanted too. It
was then I found a fellow author, R. A. Padmos who actually writes Dutch
historicals. She was kind enough to lend me some insight by allowing me to
review her latest manuscript, UNSPOKEN. She was also nice enough to allow me to
interview her, see below;
You’ve set your
latest release UNSPOKEN in 1935, in a unnamed ‘Dutch city’. What motivated you
to write about that time and place?
R: Simply told, it’s
where I grew up as a child in the sixties, my own grandparents are roughly of
the generation of the main characters. Though the characters, and their story,
are of course as fictional as can be.
What research did you undertake and did you try to focus on the history
and accuracy of the time, or did you let your creative mind as an author rule
the world you produced in UNSPOKEN?
R: I actually didn’t have to do much
research for this story. As I child and teenager I heard countless stories of
my grandparents about the Depression and the German occupation (they always
called it “the war”) And what they most talked about, of course, were the
details of daily life and how they managed with a growing family and my granddad
out of work half the time.
As for the gay part: I always thought it’s
important for any gay person to be aware of our history, so by the time I was
ready to write this story, I had most knowledge I needed already in my head. It
goes without saying that this is a work of fiction, not one of science, and
I’ve taken some liberties for the sake of the story.
You main characters resolve around the
Dutch working class, with your hero actually commenting on how close he and his
family were to starvation, how his body looked malnourished. Why did you choose
to focus on this class of people adverse to the commonly portrayed gentry, like
so many other authors?
R: I come from a working class background. I
studied social history. And as a gay woman I can’t help but notice that working
class people seem to be underrepresented in (romantic) historical gay fiction,
except as “rough trade” or as more “authentic”, but also somewhat primitive
“real” men, observed and lusted after by the more refined, but also less manly middle
and higher class men. Both, of course, tell only half of the truth.
As for the poverty: the Doffer family
manages to keep themselves fed and clothed, thanks to Marije being a hell of a
housewife and Stefan handing over every cent he brings home. But it’s on a
level that’s always one or two steps away from real hunger. Things like paying
the rent on time, making sure the family was properly dressed was a matter of
pride. There didn’t seem to be much envy of what the middle class could afford,
but to deteriorate to the level of the ones who had already given in to their
poverty was a constant fear. You don’t want to know how often my grandmother
corrected even the slightest improper or incorrect use of language of her
children and grandchildren, and she had left school when she was 13.
At
first the German occupation didn’t seem so bad and even with a complex system
of rations, there was enough food for everyone. But that changed after a while
and became downright dramatic during the winter of 1944, when no food, fuel or
medication was allowed into the western part of the country as retaliation
against a big railway strike against the Germans. Later the canals and rivers
were frozen and it was simply impossible for the inland ships to get food to
the people, even when the Germans allowed it.
The relationships in your story UNSPOKEN
are so complex. You show us the struggle the hero found when he discovered
desires towards another man. Did you find this aspect difficult to write,
weighting the ‘expected’ behaviour for a man of the time in addition to the
hero’s love and responsibilities towards his family and devoted wife?
R: You’re right, they are complex, because
reality is complex. Homosexuality was for the most part invisible in those
days. There was a strong idea that a homosexual man was essentially female in
nature, so any man who didn’t recognise himself in that picture might well have
thought he couldn’t be “that way”. Combine that with the tendency for working
class men to marry young and it’s no surprise Stefan finds himself in a
marriage without even having the slightest idea about his true sexuality until
he actually meets a man he feels so attracted to. He learns there’s a huge
difference between the amicable, but essentially passionless relationship with
his wife, and what he feels for his male lover. He fights that knowledge, but
in the end, there’s no denying the facts.
What have you found, as a published author,
to be the hardest hurdles in writing an historical romance?
R: In this case, translating very specific
Dutch situations and words into something outsiders hopefully can relate to. Not
only the physical stuff, but also the way of thinking, the culture.
I wonder if we, with internet and TV making homosexuality
so visible for so many people, can truly understand how deep and total the
silence was for the majority of (working-class) gay men. For that reason, I
can’t say in honesty that Stefan is bisexual or gay-for-that-one-man. Had he
been of his grandchildren’s (my) generation, he would have known as a teenager,
experimented a bit with a few boyfriends (perhaps even one time with a girl) to
finally meet the love of his life. And I bet he and Marije would have been the
very best of friends.
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WIN ME!
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