Discussion Questions 1.
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Vera makes an impossible decision that changes her family dynamic forever. What would you have done if you were in Vera’s position with the knowledge she had at the time? Did you learn anything new about World War II from Vera’s, Lucie’s, and Sasha’s points of view? If so, please discuss. What do you think it means to be a good mother? Do you feel Vera represented your idea of a good mother, or is she different? What do you think Sasha’s perspective brings to Those Who Are Saved? What do you think are his strengths and weaknesses in his relationship with Vera? Did you enjoy 1940s Hollywood through Vera’s and Sasha’s eyes? If so, what in particular did you enjoy? On page 385, Vera recalled a line from the poet Anna Akhmatova: “Motherhood is a bright torture. I was not worthy of it.” What do you think this phrase means? Who is your favorite character in the novel and why? How do you think fate plays into Lucie’s journey during World War II? Was there a moment you felt her story would lead down a different path? What does the title, Those Who Are Saved, mean to you?
10. What were your thoughts on the ending?
A C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H
Alexis Landau THOSE WHO ARE SAVED I S Y OU R S E C ON D N OV E L. DID T H E W R I T I N G P R OC E S S D I FFE R I N A N Y WAY FR O M YOU R P R E V I OU S E X P E R I E N C E ? Yes, the writing process differed greatly in that the novel went through many more iterations and edits; there were more cuts but also more scenes added to the novel as I worked with my amazing editor, Tara Singh Carlson, to really crystallize the most important aspects of the story, tightening where it was baggy and giving other scenes and characters more space to breathe and fully come to life.
“ I R E ALIZED TH E I NT EN SITY AN D E MO T I O N A LITY OF T H E S T O RY WAS A LL ST E MM IN G FROM T H E R E L ATION SH IP B E T W EEN LUC IE A ND V E R A AN D TH E H E A R TBREAK OF T H E I R D ISTA N C E A ND SE PA RATION .”
THE N OV E L E X A M I N E S T H E I N T E N S E P OW E R OF M OT H E R H OOD . W H Y D I D Y OU WA N T T O W R I T E A BO U T THIS T H E M E ? I didn’t at first realize that the book is really about a mother and her daughter, because in the beginning stages of writing I was more focused on the love affair between Vera and Sasha. As I gained perspective on the story I was actually telling as opposed to the one I thought I was telling, I realized the intensity and emotionality of the story was all stemming from the relationship between Lucie and Vera and the heartbreak of their distance and separation. It made me reflect on my own experience as a mother and the distance that sometimes arises between a parent and child, even when they are in the same room; sometimes this psychological distance feels just as painful and as difficult to bridge as physical distance; so in a way, Lucie and Vera’s separation can be read literally in a historical sense, but also in a more abstract metaphorical sense. I also realized while writing the book that Vera’s journey as a mother mourning the loss of her daughter, how she utterly shuts down and is inconsolable in her grief, echoes the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone. Persephone is captured by Hades and is taken to the underworld; her mother, Demeter, roams the earth in search of her daughter and in the process, she punishes herself and the world by stopping all life with eternal winter. Demeter’s alienating and all-encompassing grief stops time, and stops the agrarian cycle of planting, growth, and harvest, and this obliterating sorrow reminds me of Vera’s experience; until she finds Lucie, she cannot really live.
Author Photograph © Daniel Sahlbeg 2020
THOSE WHO ARE SAVED A L S O P R OV I D E S A N I N -D E P T H E X P E R I E N C E O F SUR VIVORS’ JOURNEYS DU R I N G T H E H OR R OR S OF W OR LD WA R I I . HO W D ID YOU PER F ORM TH E R E S E A R C H FOR T H I S H I S T OR I C A LLY DETAIL ED N OVEL ? In regards to research, if you just think of World War II in general terms, it is such a vast and intimidating block of time that to write anything interesting or new about it, I had to focus on what exact aspects of the time period I wanted to capture. For example, I was very drawn to exile culture in Los Angeles and the artists and political refugees who fled here from Europe in the late 1930s and early ’40s; but even within that culture, there were those who loved their newfound paradise, and those who hated it. So this is one world the novel focuses on, and all the research for that aspect of the story led me to books and memoirs by various exiles who immigrated here, such as the Feuchtwangers and Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Adorno, Stravinsky, Billy Wilder, Salka Viertel, etc. For Sasha’s character, his arc reflects an entirely different body of research, covering an infantryman’s experience during D-Day, life on the Lower East Side in the ’20s and ’30s, and Hollywood’s Golden Age. And for Lucie, I read many books about hidden children during the war, what it felt like to not remember your parents’ faces, the places where these children were typically stowed away, and the problems that arose after the war, in which many children didn’t want to return to their former lives because they had no recollection of them. These three main areas of WWII research needed to then cohere into one universe in which the character arcs and details of their various worlds intermingle to create a compelling narrative. HO W D ID YOU CREATE VER A’S C OM P LE X C H A R A C T E R ? W H AT D O Y OU THINK A R E TH E ESSEN TIAL Q U A LI T I E S T H AT V E R A E M BOD I E S ? Vera’s character is based on my own experience as a mother. All the anxieties and guilt I felt raising my children, especially when they were little, while still trying to write and teach, went into Vera’s character. But her experience as a mother is greatly heightened by the sudden and painful separation from her daughter and the life-and-death consequences of war. Nonetheless, a few years ago there was a threat against my kids’ elementary school, and every day when I dropped them off, despite various assurances that it was safe, I questioned myself, often parking in front of the school after drop-off, racked with fear and guilt, wondering why we live in a country where children practice lockdown drills and school shootings happen regularly. Vera is self-lacerating and guilt-ridden over her choice, and she has empathy for everyone except herself. She also has a lot of rage over what happened, how these uncontrollable events unfolded and spirited her daughter away, and I think her lack of control is what stokes her rage the most and alienates her from her husband and from her community. Her sorrow and rage is so immense, it blinds her from really being able to see that her husband is also suffering but in a very different way than she does.
W H AT WA S Y OU R FAV OR I T E S C E N E I N T H E N OV E L T O W R I T E A N D W H Y ? I loved writing the scenes from Lucie’s point of view because I had never written from that perspective before, and the simplicity combined with the intensity of her observations captured how children tend to have an intuitive understanding of what is happening around them that is often much more perceptive and emotionally true when compared to adults, who are much better at lying to themselves and others.
“ V E RA I S T H E H E ART O F T H E S T OR Y, AND S H E S E E S T H E WO RLD T H RO U GH ALL T H AT WAS LO S T—T H E ART I S T I C EX P E RI ME N TAT I O N AN D I N T E LLE C T U A L VIBRAN C Y O F E URO P E , T H E D RE AM OF A S S I M I LAT I O N , AN D T H E FRE E D O M T O INH ABI T S I MULTAN E O US I D E N T I T I E S . ” W H AT WA S T H E M OS T D I FFI C U LT OBS TA C LE W H I LE W R I T I N G THOSE WHO ARE SAVED ? The most difficult obstacle was writing the relationship between Vera and Sasha because they come from such different emotional places, and from such different socioeconomic backgrounds and yet, he represents hope, the future, movement, and energy, whereas she is bound to the past, paralyzed by guilt and fear. The challenge was to show how their contrasting energies balance each other out, similar to yin and yang, in that they would make each other whole while at the same time, individually undergo a psychological transformation and seek their own path forward.
WHY D ID YOU CHOOSE TO WR I T E T H I S S T OR Y FR OM T H E P E R S P E C T I V E S O F VER A , SASH A , A N D L UCIE ? W H AT D O Y OU T H I N K E A C H V OI C E B RINGS TO THE NOVEL ? Each of the characters’ perspectives brings an entire world with it, an entire trove of research and history, which was part of the appeal to include all three points of view: Vera is the heart of the story, and she sees the world through all that was lost—the artistic experimentation and intellectual vibrancy of Europe, the dream of assimilation, and the freedom to inhabit simultaneous identities (French, Jewish, Russian, a female artist, and mother). Sasha sees the world as something that can still be won and fought for: acceptance and social mobility, the Greatest Generation’s vision of post-war America, the success of the underdog fueled by chutzpah and ingenuity. And Lucie is the one who was left, and I wanted to experiment and test the limits of a child’s point of view that naturally shifts and matures over the years. Lucie starts the book as a four-year-old, and at the end she is nine, and it was interesting to track how the changes in her point of view would manifest on the page. IS THER E ON E TH ING IN PART I C U LA R Y OU W OU LD LI K E R E A D E R S T O TAKE AWAY F R OM THOSE WHO ARE SAVED ? That’s a hard question . . . but I think the idea that even when the whole world turns dark, light and hope are never fully extinguished and at the same time, when history appears to be taking a progressive turn and we feel triumphant and hopeful, darkness and evil never die either; we must remain conscious of the ongoing tension between darkness and light, evil and goodness, life and death. WITH OUT GIVIN G ANYTH ING AWAY, D I D Y OU A LWAY S K N OW H OW T H E STO RY W OUL D EN D ? Yes, I always knew the ending, but I didn’t necessarily know how I would get there. WHAT’S N EXT F OR YOU? I am currently working on a feminist noir thriller set in Bulgaria. It is contemporary, but the plot is rooted in ancient Greco-Roman history involving the mystery religions, specifically the cult of Eleusis. I also plan on writing the sequel to Those Who Are Saved, set in Paris and Stockholm in the late 1960s, dealing with intergenerational trauma, second wave feminism, and Vietnam. I will continue Lucie’s story, now in her early thirties and struggling to be taken seriously as an artist, as well as the story of her half brother (Vera and Sasha’s child), who defects to Sweden in protest of the war and how this causes him to question his identity as an American.
Sugar Cookie Recipe INGREDIENTS 3 cups all-purpose flour ¾ teaspoon baking powder ¼ teaspoon salt 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 egg, beaten 1 tablespoon milk Powdered sugar, for rolling out dough
1 cup sugar
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Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. Place butter and sugar in large bowl of electric stand mixer and beat until light in color. Add egg and milk and beat to combine. Put mixer on low speed, gradually add flour, and beat until mixture pulls away from the side of the bowl. Divide the dough in half, wrap in waxed paper, and refrigerate for 2 hours. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Sprinkle surface where you will roll out dough with powdered sugar. Remove 1 wrapped pack of dough from refrigerator at a time, sprinkle rolling pin with powdered sugar, and roll out dough to ¼-inch thick. Move the dough around and check underneath frequently to make sure it is not sticking. If dough has warmed during rolling, place cold cookie sheet on top for 10 minutes to chill. Cut into desired shapes, place at least 1 inch apart on greased baking sheet, parchment, or silicone baking mat, and bake for 7 to 9 minutes or until cookies are just beginning to turn brown around the edges, rotating cookie sheet halfway through baking time. Let sit on baking sheet for 2 minutes after removal from oven and then move to wire rack to complete cooling. Serve as is or ice as desired. Store in airtight container for up to 1 week. Recipe from Alton Brown, FoodNetwork.com foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/sugar-cookies-recipe-1914697