Are there any books or authors that inspired you to become a writer?
So many childhood books inspired me to write, especially the Little House on the Prairie and the All of a Kind Family series. Books that inspired me to write Hidden in Plain Sight include Three Minutes in Poland, Paper Love, and Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure.
As a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?
I wanted to be a writer and a mother and live in the mountains in Vermont.
Do you prefer ebooks, printed books, or audiobooks most of the time?
I do much of my “reading” with audiobooks while I’m driving or walking. I really enjoy them, especially when they are read by the author or a talented actor. There’s nothing like having a paperback on my nightstand or tucked into my bag. I like being able to mark passages and go back to them. I’m a visual learner, so I think that’s how I best retain details. I can picture where a passage was on the page. I’m appreciate ebooks for travel and to save resources.
How long did it take you to write this book?
In some sense, I think this book was percolating for a long time. I’ve been collecting family stories since I was a little girl. But I started in earnest in 2017, when my younger daughter left for college and I had the time and energy for the research and the writing. So it was seven years between the first draft and the finished manuscript.
How much research did you need to do for your book?
I had to research both my family story and the history of the Jews in Serbia. I pulled and translated documents which have only recently become accessible and learned new details about the past, including the date my grandfather was killed. I interviewed family members, particularly my dad whose early childhood memories were the basis for the book. I was writing to understand how he had survived World War 2 in German-occupied Belgrade, Yugoslavia, as a young Jewish child. I needed to learn how the short, vivid memories he had and the stories my grandmother told him fit into the larger narrative of the Holocaust in Serbia. Very little has been written about that history, which made the project challenging and also underscored its importance. For example, in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s bookshop, where books are organized by country, there was not a single book on Yugoslavia. You need survivors and descendants to tell a story and in this case there were hardly any. So it felt imperative to write and now the Museum will carry Hidden in Plain Sight!
If you could meet your characters, what would you say to them?
I never knew my grandparents and through the research and writing of this book, I got to know them. I’d love to meet them and fill in gaps, the questions that will have to go unanswered. I want to know about little things too, likes and dislikes, that make up a personality. I’m 54, older than either of them got to live to. So while they are technically my elders, when I think about what they lived through and remember how old they were at the time, it’s almost like thinking about a younger sibling.
What is a significant way your book has changed since the first draft?
I didn’t originally set out to write a memoir. I wanted to tell about the experiences of my family and the larger Jewish community in Belgrade during the war. But the consistent early feedback was that I needed to be a character narrating the discoveries and giving the context so the reader could follow along and see events through my eyes. I became a reluctant memoirist initially, but I’m pleased with the results.
What characters in your book are most similar to you or to people you know?
Hidden in Plain Sight is a family memoir so I’m in it and I know all the characters in real life.
What part of the book did you have the hardest time writing?
The hardest parts were where I wanted to write about details and events that are unknowable. I do some imagining in Hidden in Plain Sight, where I wonder aloud if it could have gone this way or that. But I’m clear with the reader about when I’m hypothesizing. For example, I describe what my father’s bris might have been like, based on documents and what I know about the ritual. But there’s no one alive who can remember it. My father was born in 1938, so I wonder who the guests were and how many of them were alive when less than four years later, the Nazis declared Belgrade judeinfrei, free of Jews.
What is the most valuable piece of advice you’ve been given about writing?
Don’t give up! Writing a book is not for the faint of heart. Keep going and bit by bit your efforts will add up.
Website: https://www.juliebrill.com
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/221314017-hidden-in-plain-sight
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Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-brill-26226021/
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B00W47N360/about