Author was struck by story of mixed-race orphans behind 'Keeper of Lost Children'

Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. You know, with all the books and movies and documentaries made about World War II and its aftermath, you'd think that by now there'd be nothing new to explore. And yet, I'd never heard of Mabel Grammer until I listened to today's interview. She was a journalist who went to Germany after the war and found all these mixed-race children in orphanages, children who were not being adopted because of their skin color. The author Sadiqa Johnson also had never heard of Mabel Grammer until she went down a random Google rabbit hole and discovered the subject of her new novel. It's called The Keeper of Lost Children, a fictional story based on Grammer's life. Here, Mabel is the basis for her character Ethel Gathers. This is Johnson's first historical fiction novel. And she spoke to NPR's Emily Kwong about the responsibility she felt working in the genre. This message comes from WISE, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart. Get WISE. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. When writer Sadiqa Johnson gets an idea for a story, the hairs stand on the back of her neck. And that's exactly what happened when she learned about Germany's Mischlingskinder, the thousands of biracial children with German mothers and Black American GI fathers born during and after World War II. Many of these children were abandoned to orphanages until one woman decided to intervene and find them homes. And that history inspired Sadiqa Johnson's new novel, The Keeper of Lost Children. She joins me now. Welcome to All Things Considered. Thank you, Emily. It's so great to be here. What's striking about this novel is it's told from three vantage points by three characters. Who are they? And what are they each struggling with? We have Ethel Gaithers who is inspired by the real Mabel Grammer who is a journalist who was a journalist who went over to Germany And she discovered these mixed orphans a little consequence of World War II in orphanages And she decided that something needed to be done And then we have Sophia who is a young girl living on a farm. Her story takes place in 1965 and she's in a family that she feels just doesn't love her. And she's offered this very rare opportunity to go to a boarding school on scholarship. And when she gets there, she realizes she's one of the first African-American students there. And that comes with a host of issues for her. And then we meet Ozzie Phillips. He's a 19-year-old black American in South Philadelphia. He really wants to go to college, but he can't afford it. And so he volunteers for the U.S. Army as a way to elevate his life. When he gets to Germany, he's there during the occupation. and he realizes that freedom in Germany is something very different than the Jim Crow laws that he experienced in America. It is amazing you tackled all three of these characters. Actually, when you list them out like that, they each could be their own book, but they're in fact woven all together. Yeah, they really could have been their own story. I mean, there were certain times where I had to cut chapters because I was going a little too far with Ozzy or I was going a little too far with Sophia. And I had to remember the heart of the story is Ethel's story, which is inspired by this amazing woman, Mabel Grammer, who, you know, is just a footnote in history. I was really taken aback that she was someone who I didn't know about. Yeah. Tell us about Mabel T. Grammer. How did you come across her? So Mabel Grammer, I came across her by accident. I was tucked away at a writing retreat working on my previous novel, The House of Eve, and I popped into my Google search, orphans, unwanted children, and up popped the story of Mabel Grammer. And she was an American journalist. She married a chief warrant officer in the United States Army She went over to Mannheim Germany with him He worked a lot and she didn speak the language so she felt isolated She also could not have children because of a childhood illness And she stumbled across a bunch of nuns who invited her to this orphanage And there she saw a gaggle of mixed race children. And she decided that something needed to be done. And so she and her husband adopts 12 of these children themselves. and she's responsible for moving over 500 into loving American homes. And you had never heard of this person? Never heard of her. And those are the stories that really, as you mentioned, get the hairs on my arms standing up because I see myself as the person who is supposed to go into these dark spaces of history and bring back these women, these ambitious women who have been footnotes, who have been marginalized, who have been erased, who have largely been forgotten. Those are the stories that I like to write about. Yeah, there's those stories. And then there's stories that haven't even been written down in a way. And it makes me think about you reveal at the end of the book that Ozzie, the service member, he was inspired in part by a conversation you had with your great uncle Edgar at a family reunion who served in the Air Force. What did you learn from him? Yeah, when I was talking to my Uncle Edgar, you know, I had already knew that I wanted to write this story. And I realized that he had served around the time that Ozzy would serve in my novel. And, you know, I really just picked his brain. What was it like living in a foreign country where you had more freedom and you didn't have that freedom here in America? I have a question. I haven't read your other books. This is just randomly popped into my head. Is this your first time writing from the historical perspective of a man? It is the first time, which was really scary for me. Ozzy was the character that I felt I needed to write because oftentimes the black man gets left out of the story. There are thousands of World War II movies and books and you don't see them. And I know that they were there because they related to me and they related to my readers And so it was really important for me to hone in on who he was and paint him as a three character The good, the bad, and the ugly. I think that was one of the most moving parts of the book for me was without giving too much away, when Ethel reflects on how she, the woman who, you know, helped these babies find homes, that she hadn't considered the perspective of the servicemen who, for one reason or another, lost touch with their children. Yeah, that was a powerful moment for me as well. And that was one of the moments of the book that I sort of didn't see coming. It touched me probably as deeply as it touches the readers. Yeah. How do you see your responsibility different than that of a writer who is not writing historical fiction? Oh, I take it really seriously, especially now with everything sort of being erased and monuments being taken down. And I think that what I'm doing is sort of leaving a roadmap for the younger generations. I always tell my kids, if we don't know where we came from, we have no idea of how to make sense of the times that we're in now. I see historical fiction as a way to make our American history a little bit more palpable, you know, it's easier to swallow than a textbook. And so I'm giving you all the facts. I'm giving you all the truths, but I'm sort of mixing in the sugar of fiction that makes it a little bit easier to swallow. The sugar of fiction. Sadiqa Johnson, her new novel is Keeper of Lost Children. It is out now. Thank you for speaking with us. Thank you so much for having me. This was such a joy and a pleasure. And just a reminder that signing up for Book of the Day Plus is a great way to support NPR's book coverage and public media. And you'll get to listen to every episode sponsor-free. So please go find out more at plus.npr.org slash book of the day.