Eve Karlin, Track 61
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[1:13]Eve Carlin is the author of Track 61. She is also the author of City of Liars and Thieves, which was published by Alibi, a digital imprint of Random House in January of 2015.
[1:23]Track 61 was inspired by the Nazi saboteur landing on Long Island in the summer of 1942.
[1:29]Eve lives in East Hampton, New York, with her husband and triplets, and is a bookseller at Bookhampton, where she runs the book love and the local author program.
[1:37]Welcome, Eve. Thank you so much for coming on Momstone of Time to read books to discuss Track 61.
[1:42]Thank you for having me, and thank you for welcoming me into your beautiful home.
[1:47]No, it's so nice to do something in person after so long, especially out here in the summer and so fun.
[1:52]This is a thing I used to do it like this all the time, and now it's like, yeah, it's nice to look someone in the eye as well as to a computer screen.
[1:59]I know, there must be some benefit, right? Being away from screens.
[2:03]I think so. Okay, Track 61, tell listeners please what your book is about and what inspired you to write it.
[2:10]My book is historical fiction. It is based on a true event, the Nazi saboteur landing in Amigance at New York, which happened in the summer of 1942, 80 years ago this past summer.
[2:24]I grew up in Amigance, so I'd always known about this outrageous story of four Nazis disembarking a U-boat off the coast of Amigance at a summer community.
[2:37]And as I started to look into Grand Central, which also really interested me and some of the history there, beautiful site in Manhattan, I found this connection that really inspired me.
[2:50]Well, and you also weave in the story of not Greta, how do you pronounce it? Greta, Greta, even though there's any, okay.
[2:57]So Greta meets Peter Berger early in your story and she is watching this parade, which sounded crazy. Can you describe the parade? Did that actually happen?
[3:05]Yeah, that parade happened. And when I do talk, so I actually show the footage from the parade. It was the largest military parade in US history.
[3:13]And there are about two million spectators. LaGuardia was there, the mayor of New York at the time. It's amazing. The floats are amazing to look at.
[3:23]And also the patriotism at the time in New York marched up to that new.
[3:28]And this is 1942.
[3:29]42, six months after the US entered the war. Oh my gosh. But then there was like swastikas on the.
[3:36]Right. There's one, there's one float that I find particularly amazing. And it kind of has a Norse man plunging a sword into a swastika.
[3:46]There's also the rising sun and whatever the symbol is for Italy and fascism there.
[3:52]Yeah, but it was kind of a bizarre say.
[3:56]Mind if skipped the avenue that day if I was living there at the time. Oh, there were so many people out. So it seemed like the perfect opportunity to create this kind of fictionalized event.
[4:06]Yes.
[4:07]For a real life character based on Peter Berger, who was actually at the parade that day, arrived in Manhattan.
[4:14]took the train with his three co saboteurs into New York City arrived in New York City, saw the parade.
[4:23]And I fictionalized a meeting for a character who was loosely based on my grandmother to meet to meet Peter at this parade.
[4:31]Wow.
[4:32]And he kind of like touches her. She looks at her kind of in, you know, interest, not interested. That's right. Maybe like borderline inappropriately, but then they recognize something in each other.
[4:43]Right. So did your grandmother meet somebody to parade ever? Perhaps she was very out of that.
[4:50]But not not him, not there. But they felt this connection. Right. Right. Right. I think that, you know, it was really great to be able to weave my personal story into this or my grandmother's story.
[5:00]And so she, she I know as an immigrant to this country kind of felt like an outsider. She was very popular and outgoing in Germany.
[5:10]And she, you know, like so many others had her life uprooted. So I think that she sensed this other characters outside.
[5:21]And that they bonded. That is the premise for the book. Interesting. And in the book you gave the backstory of Greta and how her family thought about moving they knew about like they could sense what was going on in Germany.
[5:35]So many others. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, not actually factual as well. So that's true.
[5:41]So that's factual as well. Interesting. Okay. So they're at the parade and not only does she meet Peter, but he's like, I have to make a pit stop at Grand Central.
[5:49]with my friend George. Right. And then you find out that what they're doing they're like up to no good essentially in Grand Central, but she doesn't know this at first.
[5:58]So talk about that whole subplot and how this becomes like the basis of the whole story.
[6:03]Well, the truth of the matter is that or at least most people believe that the target of the saboteurs was Grand Central.
[6:10]Yeah. And a secret sub basement, which still exist called M42, which housed rotary converters that supply power to trains that was were running up and down the East Coast.
[6:23]And it would have taken very, very little to sabotage that power station and had they succeeded trains.
[6:31]So that's why we've supplied would have stopped as well as the power from there also supplied power plants to build aluminum, which built airplanes.
[6:41]And if those electrolytes had been stopped, the aluminum bass would have frozen. And it really would have been detrimental to the war effort. So M42 was most likely one of the targets.
[6:55]And I started to look into Grand Central. I also noticed or saw this track called kind of abandoned rail track called track 61 that FDR often used or used during the war to come to the city for security and also to hide his disability.
[7:12]So it seemed like a really logical kind of target.
[7:16]So crazy that there was a private way into the city.
[7:20]There still is.
[7:21]I mean, when one of the questions someone asked me and I was like, Oh, good question was when was the last time this track was used and from what I can gather it was shortly after 911 when Bush and Condoleezza Rice from the US General Assembly.
[7:36]It's a potential escape route from the city.
[7:40]From the UN.
[7:41]Yeah, well from Grand Central, but for had they been OK UN General Assembly, it potentially could have escaped by it.
[7:49]I don't know. There's so much traffic.
[7:52]I don't know.
[7:54]I don't know.
[7:56]I don't think so. I think that would have been like forget about point.
[8:00]I guess I was like, oh, there's an escape route from the UN.
[8:04]So like that, that would be an interesting route.
[8:07]But interesting. So this place, 10 stories underground still supplies powered all these places are not.
[8:13]It's no longer an operation.
[8:15]Although the pictures are kind of awesome and they do remind me of stranger things.
[8:19]Yeah. Oh my gosh.
[8:20]Crazy.
[8:21]So, okay.
[8:23]Let's go back to you.
[8:24]So you discovered the story being an am against a resident and knowing the history of this.
[8:29]Then you have your grandmother, but now why write a whole book about it.
[8:32]Like, where did you tell us your background and how you came into writing a novel historical novel to begin with?
[8:39]Well, this is my second.
[8:41]And my first was kind of like an eerie, really eerie connection.
[8:45]It's about a well that still exists on Spring Street in New York City.
[8:50]A well in which a young woman's body was found in 1800.
[8:53]And the man accused of murdering her was defended by Hamilton and Burr working together in the only criminal case that they ever
[9:02]worked together on.
[9:04]I had lived across the street from that well when I was young.
[9:07]And I had been the same age as the murder victim when I lived there.
[9:11]That was, you know, 200 years after the fact.
[9:14]But I was so amazed by all these connections.
[9:17]Yeah.
[9:18]Like when I looked into Hamilton and Burr, there's a restaurant in New York called One at the byland where my husband actually proposed me.
[9:24]Oh.
[9:25]And it used to be Burr's carriage house.
[9:28]And so it's just like, and so I felt like there are all these stories that surround all of us.
[9:33]So I was searching for another one.
[9:35]And I, one of the places I looked was grand central because I love grand central.
[9:39]And when I found this connection to the men who landed virtually in front of the house where I grew up and I'm against it.
[9:46]I knew I had like that personal connection to the story.
[9:49]So what do you do once you have these ideas?
[9:52]You just dive right into research or tell me your process.
[9:55]I do.
[9:56]I look to see what's what's been written on this.
[10:00]subject. And as far as I know, this is the only historical novel. There are nonfiction books.
[10:06]There's also a 3,000 page transcript from the saboteur's military tribunal, which was released
[10:15]in the 60s. So I read through that. I mean, it's really fun. Yeah, it's a little repetitive,
[10:21]but yeah. And after a while, I stopped printing because it was, yeah, much of age.
[10:25]but it was, it's actually really interesting. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And then you just
[10:31]die. You create the characters enough. You go, it's basically how you do it. Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
[10:37]I mean, when I thought about it and I thought, oh, where's the conflict, you know, you kind of want
[10:42]to conflict in the story. And I thought about, oh, gee, there's my grandmother watching my sister and
[10:46]I on this speech. It seemed like the conflict of her as a German Jew, meeting someone who she
[10:54]thinks is an ally and then discovering what something about him seemed really like a good conflict.
[11:02]And the more I looked into it, the more interesting the conflict became because Peter Berger
[11:08]is just a really interesting character. He too. Yeah, he was born on the wrong side of history,
[11:13]basically. So you can say what one does when put in those shoes. You never really know. That's true.
[11:21]Well, you also have a line in there when Greta was introducing herself. I think this is when it was
[11:26]and she said she was German Jewish and someone said I didn't know you could be German and German.
[11:30]Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's definitely something my grandmother experienced. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, crazy.
[11:37]I am part German Jewish. So I feel like there's so many German Jewish people, but I guess fewer than
[11:43]well, I think when she came to this country, obviously there were a lot of German Americans at the time.
[11:48]Yeah, but you know, it was definitely different in the early 40s. Wow. So in addition to your
[11:56]writing career, you're a bookseller at Bookhampton. Yeah, tell me about that. And when did you start
[12:01]doing that and how long? Why I was related to your podcast, moms don't have time to read or even
[12:06]choose a book. That's why I listened to the podcast because it helps me curate when I'm going to read.
[12:12]And so I have triplets and when they went off to college, I decided, well, I was living
[12:18]near the bookstore and I had worked in publishing. So it seemed, you know, they were advertising and
[12:23]then I said, oh, well, that sounds great. I'd love to, you know, be involved with books again.
[12:28]So it's always like been a dream of mine to have bookstores. And like that, what is it actually
[12:32]like day to day working in a bookstore? Is it as great as it seems? Or like, what, what, what
[12:36]it would we not know from the outside? Well, I think this community is a bit, you know,
[12:41]odd because it's such a summer community with so many different types of people,
[12:46]there are lots of really, really great things. I mean, every day when you open up boxes and see
[12:51]the books, it's like Christmas, you know, what's coming in, what to read, there's so much to read.
[12:56]So I think in general, it's really, really great. That said, retail has its own, you know,
[13:01]challenges, but it's always, it's been wonderful actually. It's a really great and interesting
[13:07]place to work. And how much do you enjoy chatting with like, how much time do you spend like
[13:13]on the floor, like chatting with the customers and recommending books versus behind the counter?
[13:18]I know this is like ultra specific, but I'm like really curious a lot of time.
[13:21]Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it depends on the season. But right now,
[13:26]I think people appreciate, you know, the handsell and when it comes to books and people like to
[13:32]chat about books and that's definitely the most wonderful part of the job. So nice. Amazing.
[13:38]Do you have any part in acquiring the books or do you get visibility into that process or
[13:44]visibility? Meaning, yeah. I mean, at one point, I worked for Random House and I was a sales rep
[13:49]and my territory was down south. So I do really understand the process. Yeah. Which of course
[13:55]has evolved a lot since I was a sales rep. Yeah. But no, do I, do I buy and my frontless buyer?
[14:00]No, I'm not. So let's go back. You're born and am against it. You lived in Spring Street.
[14:06]Oh, yeah. What happened between then and working? So I worked in publishing for many years.
[14:12]Okay. Doing what did you wear? Um, I worked in sales at Random House. I moved down south for a bit.
[14:18]If we're Random House as a sales rep, I met my husband. We came back to New York.
[14:22]Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob. We had triplets. I left publishing to raise the three of them and now they are
[14:30]more or less on their own. They're 24 triplets. You have four kids. Yeah, I know, but still
[14:36]all at the same time. Yeah. I mean, I think they're, again, pros and cons, right? Because they all
[14:41]have the same level. You have interests more or less. So, you know, you're dealing with the same
[14:46]books, the same potty training, the same this and that. Are they the same? Are they the same gender?
[14:52]Two boys and girls. Two boys and girls. Wow. Oh, my gosh. Well, you have twins, right? I know.
[14:58]You really get there. I know. I know. Just one more. But that's like when people are like,
[15:04]isn't really that much harder having four than three. And I'm like, it's another person.
[15:07]I know. It's a whole other person. Yeah, other kid. Yeah. Like more tuition. Another meal.
[15:13]The doctor's appointment. It's like, you know, my last kid I like realized I had forgotten all his
[15:18]checkups for months. And I was like, wait a minute. Wasn't I just to go like every month when he's
[15:23]maybe, you know, but he's fine. Yeah. Yeah. You know, he might be better for it. He is. He's so chill.
[15:30]It's, it's, he can go anywhere. It's like, I wish I was a fourth child maybe the night.
[15:35]You know, again, yeah, I think there's a lot. That's the problem with having three first
[15:39]children. But I think it's good too, because, you know, pacifier falls in the dirt, whatever.
[15:44]Yeah. Yeah. And were you able to read it all? Like, did you read it when you hit?
[15:49]Yeah, I did a lot of things because I think it was like, got to go and running the marathon. Got
[15:54]to train. Did you really run the marathon? Oh my gosh. Because it was like private time. Yeah.
[16:01]It has to be some escape. Right. I just saw this tote bag. I was at this store. And on the shelf,
[16:06]there was this huge bag and a huge bowl of letters. And she said escape. And I was like,
[16:11]why am I so drunk? I don't need another true bag. All these things. And it was just the idea.
[16:17]Like, what does that mean? What would I put in to really help me escape? But it would be books that
[16:21]it would be like, I don't know. But actually escape. Anyway, yeah, maybe I should go back and buy
[16:25]books are wonderful. Obviously, you know, and they're, we're fabulous to get away from the day to day.
[16:31]So what kind of, what kind of books do you like to read? I'd gravitate towards fiction or memoir.
[16:36]I really enjoyed your memoir so much. Thank you. And I really love princess charming.
[16:41]Thank you. It was really cute. So yeah, I mean, I do run the book club. And I think
[16:48]tends to be on a more literary side of fiction. Yeah. So what do we read lately? Any other books?
[16:55]I am just rereading because we're discussing it for our book club. A French writer. She's named
[17:01]a Valerie Parran. If I'm pronouncing, she wrote fresh water for flowers. Okay. She's a beautiful
[17:07]somebody was just raving about this book. The new one is called three. No, it was the fresh water
[17:13]for flowers. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot to rave about. It's a really, it's a terrific book.
[17:19]Right. And the new one she has, yep, which we will be discussing in our book club is three,
[17:23]which is also really interesting. And do you get to pick the books? I do. Which is a lot like
[17:29]choosing a meal for like 10 people or people and saying everyone will eat this. Yeah. So, you know,
[17:35]that does not go well here. That is like the hardest thing. It's probably harder to do a meal
[17:41]for 10 people these days than a book. It's very hard. What you've been in publishing forever
[17:45]in one way, shape or form. If you could like change a few things, like what do you think needs
[17:50]changing? Oh, I think that, you know, I always think publishers are a bit like Monday morning
[17:59]quarterbacks. You know, there are trends and that's terrific. But I think people need to trust
[18:06]that got a little bit more and what they acquire and not be so concerned with what, you know,
[18:13]how to present it, where it will be shelved. Oh, this book is a bit of an outlier. I don't know
[18:19]where we're going to put it where it fits. So, I would like to think that people would be just
[18:25]a little bit more, put themselves out and what they purchase, what they buy, what they're willing to
[18:31]represent. You know, publishing, it's a hard business. I was just having a call this morning with my
[18:37]publisher, but all these different things that we're doing. And I'm like, so do you think we're ever
[18:40]going to make any money? It's like, because it's just, I'm like, if you sell about, I mean, how,
[18:45]anyway, I mean, yes, if we grow some growth, it's hard. Well, yeah, I don't even, I mean, just getting
[18:52]your book out there is really, really hard. I see when, really, I mean, I like to think I've
[18:58]seen the publishing process from, you know, G, editorial acquiring a book, sell, selling the book,
[19:04]book from the publisher side. And now from an independent bookstore, so many books come in. How do
[19:11]you, how do you distinguish that book? The worst part of my job is returns when you have to send
[19:17]a book that hasn't sold back to the publisher. And you think, gee, this author works so hard.
[19:24]They really deserve to be placed here. Regardless of the book, you know, writing a book is really
[19:32]an effort of love. Yeah. So what, I mean, I feel like discoverability is so hard. And even in
[19:38]book Anton, which is the best books, you know, it's hard. I mean, it's some like how, how do you,
[19:46]what do you do if you are one of those authors? Like, what if you have like what you're lucky to get
[19:51]into a bookstore, right? And you have one book on a high show? Like, what can you do as an author?
[19:55]Like, the advice I got when I did like my first anthology was like, no, no, no, do not talk to books.
[20:00]like don't go in. Don't do anything. Leave them alone. They're already overwhelmed.
[20:04]Every author came in. It is their business. But I mean, I have to say, and you've been
[20:09]so, so lovely. You get your voice out there with a wonderful person like you who speaks to so
[20:15]many authors and they're doing it. Do so much for them. I've learned so much from listening to
[20:20]your podcast about individual authors and not just about their book, but about the process.
[20:24]I think it's fabulous. So that's one way. Booksellers, are they overwhelmed? Sure. Taking a book
[20:31]reads, reading a book takes like what? Three, four or five days, maybe longer. So it's a lot. It's
[20:36]an investment in your time. But, you know, it's the reason why we write. It's the reason why we read,
[20:42]and it's the reason why we love it. So I think that, you know, it's really worthwhile. It's hard to
[20:48]get your voice out there, but I think you have to keep on plugging at it. I hope, I like to think.
[20:53]I feel like the people who write, and you probably relate to this, it's like you have to do it.
[20:58]Is it? Right? Yes. Do publicity not necessarily, right? No, yes. Not publicity. No, no, no. I mean,
[21:05]the urge to do it, because it doesn't always make sense. Oh, it makes no sense, especially for
[21:12]novel. I mean, you know, nonfiction you can sell on proposal, hopefully, fiction. It's just,
[21:18]you know, it's a leap of faith. Yeah. I think for many, many people, but you've, you know, yeah,
[21:25]it's wonderful. Yeah. People who love books are good people. Yes. I just did this book fair in LA,
[21:32]and somebody was like, are you having any security? I'm like, who's going to like come rob a book fair?
[21:37]Do you like, or even a bookstore? Or even a bookstore? I mean, maybe. There's books. Yeah,
[21:41]again. I am right there. Big or target. I mean, I shouldn't say that, but, you know, I mean,
[21:47]great. You want to sell it. You want to steal a book and read it? Be my guest, you know,
[21:51]not really, but I mean, I mean, well, we live in a weird world right now. Yes, you know,
[21:56]but what advice would you have for aspiring authors? I mean, I think that many authors can,
[22:03]you know, I don't know, phone in and give me advice and a happy girl. My advice would be just
[22:08]to stick with what you to trust yourself. Yeah. Trust your instincts. It's a long process.
[22:14]I've been in a couple writing groups where people just, you know, they can't stick it out.
[22:20]It's important to try to do that because there's so many bumps on the way to publication.
[22:27]There's so many near misses. There are so many ups and downs. I think for whatever level you're at.
[22:34]So I mean, I just believe in your project, I have faith in it and hopefully, you know, trust
[22:39]yourself and it will, it will come out. One way or another, the project will come to fruition
[22:44]in people's hands. People will come in. Which is also really weird when people come into the book
[22:50]story for you back. I mean, do they really? Oh, about your book. The other day I was there and someone
[22:56]said I was recommending books and honestly, I don't, I don't recommend life because it's kind of
[23:01]weird, but it's sitting there. And someone said, Oh, and I just finished this and she pointed to my book
[23:06]and I was like, did you like it? What did you say? Well, it was good. It was good, but it was
[23:15]you know, they say if you're a lawyer, you shouldn't ask a question. You'll know the answer.
[23:18]I guess it was like that show like undercover boss. It's like, yeah, you should do that.
[23:24]It just, although they're mostly undercover anyway, because nobody even knows.
[23:27]I think that's a great premise for a show. An author in bookstore selling their book, listening
[23:32]to feedback. Yeah, it'd be funny. We should just actually, I should just do it with you. I
[23:38]should just comment and film you doing it one day. Oh, you should film me. You're already doing it.
[23:48]You're already worth there. It's perfect. That's so funny. So what is your next project?
[23:53]I, I do, I've started to really get the research bug and I'm learning to be a little bit more
[24:00]pushy out pushy. Just, you know, I didn't initially know how do you research? How do you do this?
[24:05]Yeah. I mean, the internet is amazing, but there are a lot of other resources. So I'm just looking
[24:12]into a project also in historical fiction about two sisters and then hat and women who were live.
[24:18]Well, they, they were born around 1900 and they lived into their 80s. Interesting.
[24:23]Well, I feel like next time I stumble on like, you know, a pothole with a plaque or something.
[24:28]Oh, take your picture and like send it here. When you go to the reservoir for my first
[24:32]book and you learn the history of like the Manhattan day. Oh, yeah. So interesting Manhattan
[24:37]water company. There was some place recently. I feel like in East Hampton and there was a plaque on
[24:42]the wall and it was just like, you know, so and so used to sit here all the time. It's in the parking
[24:46]lot. Do you know what I'm talking? I'm going to send you a picture in the parking lot. I swear,
[24:49]maybe I'm remembering this room, but there's like this tiny little thing that's like so and
[24:52]so used to sit here. I'll find it and I'm going to send you a picture. I mean, you know,
[24:56]you're like, who is this guy? But I think it's true. And I just drove by a new thing that
[25:00]was de-cooning's home, but everywhere, everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. Scrape the surface. And
[25:06]there's so many amazing stories. Yeah. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
[25:13]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to
[25:17]follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also sign
[25:22]it for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of
[25:26]authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the
[25:31]sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and