A.D. CRITCHLEY

Q: What is it about your novel that you feel makes it particularly suitable for book clubs?

My first book explores a WW2 Soldier life during war and peace. It is factual event a cathartic writing experience for me. My father Arthur severed in the 1st parachute regiment and ended up as a POW. The book looks into his life during and after his demob and how he copes. How his own troubles affects his family.

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Q: Please tell us how you came to be a writer.

Purely by accident, writing his first book and he received good reviews of the manuscript and was encouraged to write more novels. People said his narrative was enthralling.

 

Q: Who gave you your first encouragement as a writer?

Good question I had to write at school an essay for being a naughty boy which had many edits! During detention. It was framed and placed in the main hallway next to the principles special cane as a deterrent. Its title was “Silence is Golden.’  I was described as the class clown, cracking to many jokes.

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Q: Twenty words on why your book should be a reader’s next read…

It allows people inside a family’s life and a man’s trauma, through war and peace. A personal emotional powerful journey.

 

Q: You generally write in the genre of (Literary fiction). What can readers expect?

My four books always have a truth base. The first book is factual. The other three literary fiction.

They all tell of people’s aspiration and of course as life, do they get there? For instance my third book delves into British convicts and their abuse floggings etcetera and escape. Weaved with a little humour. My forth explores two hardworking bricklayers who were abused by catholic priests in Australia most abused kids came out from UK as orphans. Laced with emotion and light humour.   

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Q: If you were trying to describe your writing to someone who hasn’t read anything by you before, what would you say?

Novels that depict human frailties the good and the bad of mankind hopefully laced with antidote’s that bring a smile to the reader.

 

Q: The protagonist in your (latest) novel is (Reece O’Malley). What five (ten if you prefer) words best describe him/her?

Strong, mentally & physically, driven to succeed and secretly compassionate.

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Q: Where is the book set and how did you decide on its setting?

Stockton-On-Tees UK and Arman Holland and Dresden Germany. The places depicted the settings of 

 

Q: Tell us a little about the major areas you had to research.

Dresden Germany I visited to find the POW area my father was interned in, I met with a German war historian Christina.

 

Q: What is the central conflict in your novel?

The impact of war on a man’s mind and how that trauma can influence family

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Q: With my own fiction, it’s often the parts in a story that are based on truth that the reader challenges as being ‘unrealistic’. Why do you think that is?

For sure truth is fiction in the minds of people and fiction can be truth later it depends how many times it’s in the news and of course in “Social media.”

 

Q: Did you incorporate any real life characters into your novels? If so how?

My military life has a glideslope of people to draw on for inspiration.

 

Q: What makes fiction ‘literary’?

Good question. As a novelist or reader, we read that gem in a book that resinates with both and it becomes fictional or truth. Using one of my quotes “All we see is not who we are.”

 

Q: Are you looking to entertain or illuminate your readers?

Illuminate the reader and hopefully entertain.