I’ll be having a book signing for Legacy Road on Saturday, May 19, 1 p.m. at the Family Christian Store in Alpharetta, 6350 N Point Parkway STE 610 Alpharetta GA 30022. Hope to see you there!
I spent some time talking with the Johns Creek Herald regarding the book and writing in general. Link to the article is HERE
Before we moved to Seattle from Alabama in the early 1990s, we visited the city, including a stop at the Space Needle. Nearby was an exhibit that just on the composition wasn’t much to look at – a huge slab of concrete with graffiti sprayed all over it in another language. Its history held its significance. It was a piece of the Berlin Wall, torn down only a few short years before.
Fortunately, that was as close as I got to the Cold War, to the oppressive Soviet rule over Eastern Europe. Other weren’t so lucky.
Bruce Judisch was in Berlin when the wall came down, and a particular moment during all the chaos had a tremendous impact on him. It was the starting point for research into his book Katia. He was gracious enough to answer a handful of questions I had about that moment, about history, and about how other people’s success and struggles have an impact in our lives.
Tell me a little bit about the photograph that inspired Katia.
Bruce: On November 10th, 1989, the first full day after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I hustled my family onto the U-bahn (subway) to Checkpoint Charlie to ensure we all got a full taste of this historic event. After greeting East Germans pouring through the checkpoint, unhindered for the first time in 28 years, we walked northward along the Wall through the celebrating crowds toward the Brandenburg Gate. We were approaching Potsdamer Platz when I noticed a gentleman standing on the street corner with a piece of paper held high above his head. Oblivious of the crowds milling about him, he stood there for the longest time. I discreetly moved around toward the front of him and read the name “Katia” scrawled in red marker on the paper. The curiosity, even intrigue, of who Katia might be, and who the gentleman was, prompted me to snap his picture. I never approached the man. To this day I don’t know his name, or who Katia might have been. However, the poignancy and uniqueness of the moment stuck in my mind and eventually became the seed for the story.
How do you think history can be even more impactful through the eyes of an individual person?
Bruce: I think individual people are the carriers of history. Some witness it; some research it. But boiled down to its finest point, it’s the individual mind that decides to preserve it. There are those who preserve it poorly, whether by lack of skill or personal agenda, and there are those who do it well—as intellectually and morally honest as they can. I hope I fall into the latter category of people, as my story, albeit fiction, carries truth that I think is worth preserving and transmitting. Ultimately, only my readers will decide that, though.
Why is it so important for present generations to learn from the past? What do we lose if we lose that perspective?
Bruce: I’ll avoid the overused adage about being destine to repeat history forgotten, and instead appeal to Scripture. Judges 2:10 reads, “All that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel.” (NASB) The book of Judges depicts a downward spiral in a bleak period of Israel’s history, and I believe it starts with that verse. Israel failed to teach its progeny the fear of the Lord, and they suffered the consequences of it. You can pair Hosea 4:6a with that, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge,” and the handwriting is on the wall (no, I won’t chase that rabbit to Daniel…sorry J) Israel lost the perspective of its history with God, and we can just as easily lose perspective with our history of the Cold War and the lessons to be learned from it. As a note, the sequel to Katia, For Maria, to be released next month, provides even a stronger reminder of an event that should never ever be forgotten.
As the journalist in your story is uncovering more of Katia Mahler, she begins to learn more about herself. Why do you think other people’s lives can influence ours like that?
Bruce: We see ourselves in other people, perhaps even look for ourselves in other people—something to esteem. Sometimes that reflection comforts us, sometimes it grieves—or even annoys—us. For Maddy, our young journalist, Katia and Oskar come to represent something Maddy longs for, although she didn’t realize it until she spends considerable time with them. The influence others have on us is an essential reason why it’s so important whom we spend our own time with. Even more weighty is the realization that we also influence other people who are looking at us for the same reason. Scripture holds us accountable for that influence.
There was a quote at the end of a biography written by Stephen Ambrose about Dwight D. Eisenhower that has stuck with me (or at least the paraphrase as I no longer have the book):
Biographies often tell you more about the biographer and his or her views than of the actual person being written about.
You need only to peruse the current events section of a bookstore to see evidence of that. How many books are written about a president in a positive light? Negative light? And when you get to popular case studies like Lincoln or Caesar – and especially Jesus – then you can practically start segmenting the biographies into categories.
You can see it filter into news stories and headlines. Is someone “pro” this, or “anti” that? Are they “defending” something, or “taking a stand” against it? How we use those words is often reveals how we feel about the issue.
I think it’s important for us to recognize the lenses we use to filter our opinions of people. That doesn’t mean we make excuses for them when they make stupid or hurtful decisions, but what were their motives? What are our motives?
That was one aim in writing Hero’s Tribute. Here you have this decorated war veteran and football star who was a hero to many, but also a villain to a few, and whose motivations weren’t entirely transparent until he tried to reveal them by opening his life to a complete stranger. Yet that stranger, too, had his own filter, and how he went about the investigation affected the answers he got. It also affected what he did with those answers, which is what I explore in Legacy Road.
Image courtesy of Roger H. Goun. Work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License
Legacy Road, the sequel to Hero’s Tribute, has officially released. It’s available for order now at online book sellers such as Amazon. It will also start trickling in to bookstores. Hero’s Tribute was available at Barnes & Noble, Books a Million, Family Christian Bookstore, etc., so if you see it on the shelves of any of those stores let me know and I will spread the word.
I’ll be doing promotions and book giveaways in the coming weeks at my website and facebook page so look for this in the coming days and weeks. Also, once you’ve read it, I’d love to get your feedback and would much appreciate any reviews you could post at websites such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Goodreads. If you’re involved or know of any book clubs or small groups who’d be interested in reading this and even asking me some followup questions I’d love to do that as well.
Some links:
Book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFCw8UnVxJc&feature=related
Today marks my wife and I’s 8-year wedding anniversary. I figured I would try and do an estimate of it by the numbers. That’s…
And on and on goes the measurable stuff. But what about the immeasurable stuff? Hugs, laughs, cries … My heart’s been filled with joy, over and over again, with a life I don’t deserve and a family I did nothing to earn. I can honestly say not a page of Hero’s Tribute or Legacy Road would have been written were it not for my wife, who is as much an inspiration in her example of grace than any person I’ve ever known.
“A good woman is hard to find, and worth far more than diamonds….” — Proverbs 31:10
When I was 16, my family packed two cars full of suitcases (and a dog, and cat, and bird), shipped the rest of our belongings on a moving truck and embarked on a two-week trip from Seattle to Atlanta. We were returning to more familiar surroundings. We’d lived in Seattle for about 5 years; in Southern states for the other 11, but it was still going to be an adjustment moving to a small town outside of Atlanta. I’d be changing schools my junior year of high school; getting used to sweet tea and Southern twang again; getting used to having the sun out for more than a brief reprieve.
We crossed the Cascade Mountains on the first day and stopped close to Spokane, Washington, on the first night. I can remember waking up in an unfamiliar hotel room and looking outside to a sunrise in an unfamiliar landscape and thinking – I can’t go back.
Sometimes change is gradual. Other times it’s quick, and final. One minute we’re in one spot, then we turn around and realize that the path behind us is gone. How did we get there again? Where in the world are we going?
The story in Legacy Road begins where Hero’s Tribute ends. Wes Watkins has just witnessed an act of grace so powerful that it leaves him reflecting on his own life and relationships. He can’t go back. I think grace has that kind of impact. It’s disarming, when we see it leap from a mere word or definition and into the actual application in someone’s life. Wes explores that shift in Legacy Road, and it’s not an easy one. He has relationships from his past that he hadn’t planned on revisiting. He has to deal with failure – people failing him, and Wes failing them. We’d like to think that grace and forgiveness is this neat and tidy thing, but it’s not. It’s messy and chaotic when you consider the human element, yet beautiful when you understand that grace is God’s to give.
