Crossing the Line opened up lots of questions for me, and reading it I felt sad that I did not know your family story during the years when our daughters were friends. I hope it does not sound greedy to let you know that if you have any interest at all in continuing to tell the story of this story, I would love to talk with you. Your book had many moments that were important to me, but I especially appreciated your final words: "No one was left unscathed. No one." I hear that statement resonate not only through the book's characters, but also through you and me, a generation removed.
My questions include, how has this unbidden legacy affected your own life? The secrecy that enveloped your mother's and her sister's lives must have been part of the weave of your own family. Did you always know that you wanted to write this book? What made you decide to write it now? How did your family pass these stories down to you--was it a constant, or did they come out in fragments? Did you want to hear the stories? Or did you dread them? They must have been fascinating and frightening--and also deliver a weighty moral responsibility. Did you choose to share them with your kids? Was writing the book healing? Traumatizing? Both?
I also appreciated your account of repeatedly asking your grandfather how he could repeatedly, steadily risk everything--including the lives of his children. I have asked that same question my entire life. I hear your grandfather's response to you--that he had no choice--and the episode in which he rows the spies while weak with fever attests to his fierce sense of duty. But I wonder, what other hypotheses do you have to account for his moral compass and bravery? He is shown going to church--was religious faith an important component of his strength?
The book is a generous gift to the world, complete in itself. Please do let me know if you would like to extend its conversation, but I want to be clear that you owe nothing else to me, your curious reader.
Again, thank you for bringing this important story to us.
Done good kid. Finished reading “Crossing The Line” by your distant cousin. Once I started, couldn’t stop. Elizabeth is right about the parallels to today’s society. Hitler gave his supporters Swastika armbands. Trump gives his MAGA hats. Hitler’s scapegoat: Jews Trump’s: Immigrants Hitler shut down & eliminated government employees - Trump is attempting to do same. Hitler & Trump’s revenge mentality drives their actions. It just continues . . . Thank you, Jon, for suggesting this historically based, extremely well-written novel. I can only hope that our country deviates from this pattern.
