Jane Bow’s novel Cally’s Way was released in March 2014. She’s here to tell us a bit about the background to the novel Many thanks for being on A Writer of History, Jane.
Living on Crete’s south coast with a rambunctious seventeen-year old daughter for six weeks inspired my novel, Cally’s Way, about a woman in the Cretan Resistance during the Germans‘ brutal occupation in WWII.
Girls all over Greece overcame amazing odds, including their own families‘ ideas about the roles of women, to fight for their country’s freedom. On Crete, in the eastern Mediterranean, they helped save the lives of trapped Allied soldiers. My daughter and I read about the student who carried food past German patrols to two Australians hiding in the Koutaliotis Gorge, and about the girl who rowed a British soldier fifty miles out to Gavdos, an uninhabited island off the coast. Machine gun fire, strafing the boat from the air, opened the soldier’s side. The girl made him lie in the sea water flooding into the boat, to stop the bleeding and keep the wound clean.
Sixty years later, hiking on Crete’s mountainsides, we’d see old women dressed in black filling bags tied to their aprons with horta, edible greens. These women had been young during the Second World War. What was it like for them, we wondered?
Inevitably, my daughter met a young, handsome Cretan. Heart in my mouth, I had to watch her ride off into the evening with him on his motorcycle. She came home full of amazement about the mountaintop cemetery he had showed her, where oil-lit lamps on the tombs twinkled under the stars.
And one morning, while I was meditating, the plot line for Cally’s Way dropped into my head. The novel, which took the next twelve years to write, interweaves the 2002 story of Cally with that of her grandmother Callisto in 1941 – 1947. Cally’s Way was published by Iguana Books last March and is available at your favorite online retailer including Amazon.
What a lovely personal story, Jane. And gorgeous photos to inspire us all.
5 Responses
War, love and danger – all good writing ingredients for which we come back for more as history readers. The reference to old women in black reminded me of awful history seemingly etched into the faces of the elderly and middle aged in Prague on my visit there in the late 1990s. A stark comparison with the fresh faces of young, often very tall, Czechs.
Calley’s Way, a lovely book. A good story, well told. Terrific look at Crete present and past. I thoroughly recommend this book….terrific atmosphere.
Norma Harrs
Many thanks for stopping by, Norma. I’m sure Jane is pleased to know that you loved her novel!
This is a fascinating and tragic period but should be a great read!
Let us know if you read it, Jeanette!