John Andrews is an award-winning author who writes across the genres of historical, young adult, military, and animal/pet fiction to create his Novels of the Great War Series. He is a retired critical care medicine physician who also served as a volunteer firefighter, EMT, and volunteer fire department medical officer. He lives in Arvada.
SunLit: Tell us this book’s backstory – what’s it about and what inspired you to write it?
John Andrews: Medical journalist Alice Simmons’ quest to become a war correspondent is blocked by the misogynistic walls of the US Army and the American press corps. Her last chance to stay in France is a nursing job in a Red Cross military hospital where she discovers the scoop of her career and the key to her heart. This is a story of courage, humility, determination, compassion, and hope during the last year of World War I.
UNDERWRITTEN BY
Each week, The Colorado Sun and Colorado Humanities & Center For The Book feature an excerpt from a Colorado book and an interview with the author. Explore the SunLit archives at coloradosun.com/sunlit.
This novel was inspired by the courageous nurses in the American Red Cross and the US military, whose role in World War I has garnered little prior attention. I wrote it in honor of the many excellent women nursing and medical professionals I’ve worked with during my career.
SunLit: Place the excerpt you selected in context. How does it fit into the book as a whole and why did you select it?
Andrews: This excerpt is from Chapter 14 of “An American Nurse in Paris.” It is also the first scene from its companion novel “Our Desperate Hour.” Each version is shown from a different viewpoint. Medical journalist Alice Simmons is equivocating between continuing her struggle to report on the war or joining Red Cross Nursing.
The scene opens as Alice talks with her best friend, nurse Trudy Cunningham. Trudy’s father, Ira, is Alice’s journalistic mentor. He is meeting Major Ab Johnson for breakfast in a nearby café. Ira and Ab both rejoined the army in their 40s. The scene takes place on Memorial Day, 1918, when the German “Paris Gun” lobs shells at random throughout Paris. Among the other characters, U.S. Navy surgeon Arthur Beck is a major character, along with Ab, in “Our Desperate Hour.”
“An American Nurse in Paris”
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SunLit: What influences and/or experiences informed the project before you sat down to write?
Andrews: “An American Nurse in Paris” and “Our Desperate Hour” started out as one novel, inspired by my sons, both US Marines, and their comrades. My initial mission was to create fiction for Marines to read on deployment that takes them into a key USMC battle that they know by name only. The Battle of Belleau Wood is iconic in USMC lore and yet many young Marines know very little about it.
This was a complex series of battles that was a challenge to distill into a single novel. In the end, I had three novels looking at the battle and some of its effects on those fighting it, the civilians displaced by it, and the medical personnel taking care of those injured in it.
My experiences as a critical care medicine physician and fire department EMT formed the basis for the medical aspects in all three novels. Both of my sons are US Marines, one now living in the civilian world after a decade in USMC special operations and the other still serving in USMC aviation. I’ve wept beside other parents whose Marines died in battle and have felt the anxiety of the home front while sons fight overseas. Those experiences are ever-present in the novels.
SunLit: What did the process of writing this book add to your knowledge and understanding of your craft and/or the subject matter?
Andrews: I had steeped myself in USMC history and lore for over a decade before I decided to write the first word of these novels. The process of writing took me on a deeper dive into military and medical history, including two WWI battlefield tours in France. I did extensive research into medical and trauma care by the American Red Cross and the US military medical organizations during the same time.
Going from a practicing physician to a fiction writer involves a steep learning curve. My early efforts were creatively rewarding though the writing was naïve at best. The craft of fiction writing is one of continuous study, practice, and improvement. There is no single way to become an effective fiction writer, though I think we all share a few characteristics: persistence, patience, and humility (or at least a very thick skin).
SunLit: What were the biggest challenges you faced in writing this book?
Andrews: Weaving the actual history and fictional narrative together to form a cohesive whole that readers will love.
SunLit: What do you want readers to take from this book?
Andrews: I want readers to have an empathic experience in which they follow a flawed, traumatized character through a journey of profound character growth. The novel explores aspects of post-traumatic stress syndrome/disorder, its origins and effects and the ways in which people can plumb the depths of their experiences to find resilience and hope.
Alice has been emotionally stunted since a traumatic childhood event. The reader will see her confront this and reach beyond limits she had created, to see her heart open to new emotions and experiences.
SunLit: What themes run through your “Novels of the Great War” series?
Andrews: The range of human responses to extreme stress has long been an interest of mine on both personal and professional levels. Each novel places characters into stressful situations involving physical and emotional trauma. The characters struggle with events that do or could cause PTSD, including the death or reported death of a loved one, combat, and the effects of false, slanderous, accusations.
Their character journeys follow different paths but some of the themes they have in common include courage, commitment, honor, resilience, humility, and determination to find a way through the darkness to self-forgiveness and hope.
SunLit: Tell us about your next project.
Andrews: I’m currently working on “A Dog’s Gift”, which is the “next chapter” in the story that began with “Dogs Don’t Cry.” The central question in that novel is: “What if a corrupt judge sent two orphaned teens and their dog to the wrong home?” Both are dog novels wrapped in coming-of-age stories about two orphaned French WWI refugee teenagers and their dog. They cross the following genres: Young Adult Fiction/Animal/Pet Fiction/Historical Fiction/War Fiction.
A few more things
Currently on your nightstand for recreational reading: “West With Giraffes” by Lynda Rutledge. I’m also taking a slow trip with “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” which, as a paperback, is not on my nightstand but on top of my dresser.
First book you remember really making an impression on you as a kid: “Winnie the Pooh.” The next book I remember is “The Hobbit,” though I was probably 12 or 13 by then.
Best writing advice you’ve ever received: This from John Garner’s book “The Art of Fiction”: “…create a kind of dream in the reader’s mind and avoid like the plague all that might briefly distract from that dream . . .” In my own words: the fiction writer invites the reader to share a dream and it is the writer’s responsibility to not interrupt the reader’s experience of that dream.
Favorite fictional literary character: I’m hard-pressed to list only one favorite. Ove, from “A Man Called Ove,” The Fool in “King Lear” and Enzo from “The Art of Racing in the Rain” come to mind.
Literary guilty pleasure (title or genre): Frederik Bachman’s novels. I wish I could write humor like him.
Digital, print or audio – favorite medium to consume literature: I love the feel of a paper book. Most of my recreational reading is on my eBook, since it’s easier to read it in bed and while traveling.
One book you’ve read multiple times: “The Art of Racing in the Rain,” by Garth Stein. I love Enzo.
Other than writing utensils, one thing you must have within reach when you write: One of the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor collar pins my son Mike wore in Iraq. It reminds me to stay on my mission.
Best antidote for writer’s block: I’m not sure I’ve ever had “writer’s block.” When I need to contemplate a difficult writing decision, I like to take a drive alone within sight of the mountains and talk to myself. Having Siri on my iPhone makes me worry they’ll send mental health workers to do an intervention.
Most valuable beta reader: My wife, Sue