Why Dresden?

It's no secret that I've written and #amquerying a thriller set in Dresden, Germany. But a lot of people ask me why. Is it because of Slaughterhouse-Five? I'd like to say that my answer is "unstuck in time."

Kurt Vonnegut's account of the 1945 firebombing of Dresden left an unforgettable mark on anti-war literature. It's cheeky and genre-bending, and it paints a bleak picture of what the author dubs a modern-day "Children's Crusade." Suffice to say, this book is one of my all-time favorites. And yet, I finished it with an unquenchable curiosity about "Florence on the Elbe." It was — in Vonnegut's own words when writing home to his family after witnessing the attack firsthand — "possibly the world's most beautiful city."

I became fascinated with how the city rebuilt.

What defines a place, really? If you repair its skyline, brick by brick, does it cease to be real? Or does a ghost rise from its ashes? Can a city, culture, or person ever be truly reborn? Saved? Forgiven?

These were the questions which inspired my novel, Protogeist.

In this series of blog posts, I hope to show (rather than simply tell) why this city means so much to me and share pictures from my research trip to Germany. Because my novel might be set in a dystopian future — but it's an important story we are all living today.

Prost!