Opa Nobody * Order Information
Readings & Events * Q & A about the Book * For Teachers

Questions about Opa Nobody

Q: What does the title mean?
A: "Opa" is grandfather in German, and "Nobody" refers to the fact that my grandfather's political life was invisible, at least to me, when I was growing up.

Q: What genre would you call this? I notice it's called a "nonfiction novel," a "memoir," and "creative nonfiction and fiction."
A: I wrote an early draft of this project as a creative nonfiction graduate student. I love writing creative nonfiction, and the parts of this book that are about my life are clearly creative nonfiction. Nonfiction can also include any parts where we share our honest fantasies with a reader. When I start a paragraph with, "I imagine..." and then proceed to wonder about the lives of Germans in WWII, that's entering a shadowy zone. It's fictional, and yet there's a present and consistent nonfiction narrator showing you the scenes in my head. After awhile I drop the "I imagine..." and slip into these imagined scenes. Some readers will be perfectly comfortable with this because they will feel I've already set up a "contract" with the reader that that's the game I'm playing. Others won't like it that I do that, period. So for the sake of clarity, I'll call this mixed genre.

Q: What is creative nonfiction, anyway?
A: I tell my students in my creative nonfiction classes that as long as the reader understands that what's on the page is what really happened in your world in some form, you're still in the realm of reality. The word "nonfiction" is funny, because it implies that our facts are things we can prove, observe, and categorize, yet so much of what we take to be bedrock truth might not be true for everyone or true in all times and places. But I'm not saying that "truth" is nonsense. All we can do is aim for truth, and that aiming is important. The "creative" means we use the formidable tools of literature (description, scene, narrative) to make literature about true things. It doesn't me we have license to lie to the reader.

Q: What was your research process?
A: I read quite a bit on German history of the region (the Ruhr in the northwest of Germany) where my mother's family is from. I took courses in German history, and finally went to Germany to interview family members and to conduct research at archives in Bonn and Amsterdam. A few books I needed were only available in German, so I had to translate them slowly. You can see some of the online archives and other research tools I used here. I also found it helpful to compile a spreadsheet that matched family events with historical events; this also helped me to see how the small details of family life (such as the conception of a child) followed larger historical trends and events (like the beginning of a war, a break in military service, or an outbreak of a disease).

Q: Are you fluent in German?
A: My mom was born in Germany and emigrated here at age 16. I heard German from her growing up and took courses in high school as well as a study-abroad program in Berlin in college. I'm competent to hold a conversation after spending about two weeks in Germany.

Q: How did your family react to the research process, and what was it like for you?
A: I posted a blog article at the University of Nebraska Press blog about that.