The Only Light in London
Lily Graham
HBGUSA/Bookouture Pub
Feb 20th, 2024
The Only Light in London by Lily Graham is a heart wrenching story. It delves with loneliness, love, endurance and compassion.
The plot has a Jewish journalist, Sebastien, in Germany, needing to escape to London before he is captured. He must leave behind his sister and parents, hoping that they will join him soon. Alone and grieving his family left behind, he joins a local amateur dramatics group. When Sebastien enters the meeting place, he hesitates and plans to only stay for cookies and leave. But once meeting the host, Finley, he changes his mind. A friendship and eventually a romance blossom, especially after he becomes a lodger in her mother’s house.
Through each of the character’s eyes and thoughts, readers understand the terror, sadness, and hope that each seeks. A powerful quote by Sebastien’s sister, Katrin, reflects her feelings, ““They don’t have the right to make me feel I’m worth less than them just because I’m a Jew.”
This is a wonderful novel that will grab at readers’ emotions. At times it is heart-rending with all the pain and suffering, worry and despair, but there is also a hopeful ending showing the resilience of the characters.
Elise Cooper: How did you come up for the story idea?
Lily Graham: I got the idea during lockdown in the UK of 2020. We were told what was essential and what was not. All these theatres were shut down. Everything that enriched our lives was shut down including bookstores. I started thinking about what happened during WWII. I came up with my main character, Finley, who was an aspiring actress. She suddenly had a captive audience in the underground shelters.
EC: Was that based on something that really happened?
LG: I came across ads of that time. They were looking for actors, musicians, and others who could entertain people while they were taking shelter down below. From there the story deepened. I visited some of the shelters in my home turf. I walked down the streets and even placed Finley’s little theatre, The Glory, between two fictional cellars.
EC: Why only the two years of 1939 and 1940?
LG: I read this remarkable book, a true non-fiction diary, that described what her life was like in England during those years. I wanted to get across how they felt when war was declared and what it was like during the German Blitzkrieg. The idea of keeping calm and carry on, yet there was so much terror. This included needed to recognize certain bombs. The main reason I wanted to set the story then is because a lot of the Blitz happened in 1940.
EC: Did people really remain calm?
LG: People did have that stiff upper lip to carry on. Another diary I read started out with the woman being terrified at the start of the war, but three years later she watched the bombs being dropped. It was the spirit that they were not going to give in to the Gerries.
EC: How would you describe Finley?
LG: She is warm, sunny, loyal, a dreamer, funny, feisty, and looked on the brighter side.
EC: How would you describe Sebastien?
LG: He is lonely, caring, determined, and felt powerless.
EC: What about the relationship between Finley and Sebastien?
LG: They were affectionate toward each other. At first, they were friends, trying to avoid going beyond it. She seemed to not understand why he was willing to join the armed forces when he was now free. Finley also felt she was following in her mother’s footsteps, when her dad was killed after enlisting during WWI. Sebastien felt some sort of power in enlisting, wanting to finally do something to fight the injustice.
EC: Why the quote, “I can’t understand why any of the normal Germans are going along with it?”
LG: I read a diary about a young girl in Nazi Germany giving an account of being raised as a youth in Nazi Germany. Why did so many go along with it? I think we will always ask these questions. I wanted to show what the Germans did to their own Jewish citizens. This included making them sell their assets, invalidating passports so they could not leave the country, sending them to camps, and the Nuremberg Laws that prevented them from working and owning anything. Jews were scapegoated.
EC: Does Katrin, Sebastien’s sister, represent what the Germans did to the Jews?
LG: She was a younger Jewish person in Germany who became withdrawn and quiet. She had an inquiring mind but also had survivor’s guilt and nightmares. She finally escaped to England to join her brother. She was haunted by what happened.
EC: Why did the English take away Sebastien’s mom until after an inquest considering she was a Jewish refugee?
LG: This really happened. There was a sense that there were a lot of spies with people pretending to be who they were not. This did happen. Some German Nazis did pretend to be victims after they supposedly escaped. There was a mass outcry how they could take Jews and victimize them all over again. Plus, they were housed with actual Nazis while being investigated.
EC: Your next book?
LG: It is set in England and France, featuring a lady pilot during WWII. The female pilots ferried the planes. The working title is The Forgotten Hours and will be out this time next year.
THANK YOU!!
