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Historical fiction at its finest, set in Poznań, Poland

15th December 2019

When We Fall  by Carolyn Kirby, historical fiction at its finest, set in Poznań, Poland.

Historical fiction at its finest, set in Poznań, Poland

Author Carolyn Kirby, in her second novel, has woven a meticulously researched story, with strong characters and an almost tactile sense of place and time, around the infamous Katyn massacre of 1940. Here, in a Russian forest close to today’s border with Belarus, 22,000 Polish officers and intelligentsia were executed by Russian forces.

The opening short chapter – ‘Air‘ – is set in Bournemouth in April 2010. In real life, a plane with the Polish President, his wife and 95 other military officers and dignitaries on board has crashed in Smolensk, killing them all as they were on their way to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. A woman in Bournemouth remembers a flight of her own, in an old bi-plane, being flown by a man with the initials SB….

The core of the story starts at an airfield in Essex in Spring 1943, with the chapter heading ‘Stratus‘. Vee Katchatourian, desperate to get more flying hours under her belt, is forced by cloud and fog to land at RAF Bradwell Bay, where she meets enigmatic Germanic pilot Stefan Bergel.

In Posen – the occupying German name for Poznań, in western Poland – Ewa Hartman serves officers of the Reich at her father’s Guest House whilst secretly helping the Polish resistance movement, the AK. In the absence of her lover, Stefan – unseen for three years – she is drawn to Obersturmführer Heinrich Beck, a newly arrived German officer at the Guest House.

In a flicker of indecision Ewa wonders whether to be truthful, to say no, it was given to me by a Polish officer I once loved. But even if she were to justify the relationship by explaining more about Stefan’s background, she would still be opening a box of nasty and perhaps incriminating complications. It is so much better that they all think she is an innocent girl, and as German as one from Hamburg or Leipzig.’

Autumn 1943. ‘Cumulus’. Ewa knows she is becoming reckless, and is shocked when Stefan miraculously reappears in Posen. But where has he been for the last three years…and what is he hiding? And the first hint of the atrocities that took place in Katyn are beginning to be uncovered…

Beneath larch trees, workmen in side-buttoned shirts begin to pull the empty men out of the earth. There is clearly no weight to these toy-like humans. They emerge easily, dust-covered and shredded, but still in one piece. And then, one of the peasants, a wizened old man in a brimless cap, takes up a hacksaw and sets about one of the empty men’s arms. Sawing. Through the raggy sleeve and into the arm…

Summer 1945. ‘Cirrus‘. The war is coming to a close. Loyalties are blurred. The fate of Stefan, Vee, Ewa and Obersturmführer Beck finally converge and dark secrets are uncovered.

Officially published in May 2020, to coincide with the 75th anniversary of VE Day and based on the WWII atrocity of the Katyn massacre, When We Fall is a moving story of three lives forever altered by one fatal choice. And for lovers of TripFiction, the sense of desolation, fear and betrayal in war-torn Poland is particularly palpable.

Highly recommended.

Carolyn Kirby’s first novel was The Conviction of Cora Burns. Set in Victorian Birmingham, this compelling and well researched book tells the story of a young girl born in a gaol and raised in a workhouse, and who has always struggled to control the violence inside her. TripFiction followed Carolyn and Cora on location in Birmingham and with our friends at Great Escapations made a short film to bring the novel to life. You can read how this film project evolved and watch the film here.

And we are wondering how feasible it might be for TripFiction and Great Escapations to come together again and make a short film to bring When We Fall off the page and on to your screen. Poland here we come! Watch this space….

Andrew for the TripFiction Team

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