Memories form basis for novels

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33783, 4 March 1975, Page 6

Memories form basis for novels

When the American author. Melanie Pflaum, dips into her “ragbag” mind, pulls out a memory, looks at it and says to herself: “Acs, this is just the right size and colour, it will do nicely.” it means she is about to begin another novel.

With nine novels published and another almost comnleted. Mrs Pflaum still has not exhausted her supply of memories although some are. she said, not very usable.

‘Perhaps they are too, fragmentary or unrelated to he rest of life,” she said. It is true that Mrs Pflaum's experiences have i provided her with the people as well as the plots for her novels. If being witness to a coup d’etat in Latin America or a political crisis in Hong Kong did not involve her with people the experience did not become a part of her “usable past." she said quoting Mark Twain.

However, ten novels are testimony to a “usable past” of considerable proportions and it was the experiences of this side of her life which

Mrs Pflaum recounted to members of the Royal Commonwealth Society yesterday.

In the decade before World War 11. she and her husband, a foreign correspondent, were in Europe. He had been assigned to cover the Spanish Civil War and she also was a war correspondent.

Mrs Pflaum, however, i soon began writing feature I articles rather than filing the minute-to-minute news stories that her husband was doing. These features included interviews with the King of Rumania's mistress, Madame Lupescu, King Boris of Bulgaria, with his toy railroad, I Spanish refugees and Alba- ! nian mountaineers. She covered weddings in the Baljkans and Ramadan, the feast and fast holiday, in Marra- , check. Mrs Pflaum's articles were | written for a syndicated serivice and appeared in about two thousand newspapers all over the United States. Sometimes the feature articles would suggest a short story which she developed and sold to magazines like “Vogue,” the “American Mercury” and the “Canadian 'Home Journal.” “Over the years, certain; individuals and situations ; occurred that remained in I my memory long after 1 had' used them as copy for newspapers or magazines,” Mrs I Pflaum said. “They puzzled! and intrigued me, and I: began to tell myself stories! ■about these people and; events, exploring motivation. I imagining , sequences, vis- 1 ualising scenes.” One of her novels, “The; Insiders,” was taken from an; event which happened when; the Pflaums were in Panama! many years before the novel I was born. They were there when the president was assassinated at a racetrack.

"I kept asking myself long after the event, who would want to kill the President of Panama? And why? “The unfortunate lad who had handled the machine gun was murdered on the spot, but he was clearly a catspaw of .someone else. But whose?” I Mrs PFlaum’s novel is a | reconstruction of the crime ,and a possible solution of it I within the framework of Panamanian society.

“It is possible that I may have been right. I'll never know.” "Costa Brava” is another novel taken from Mrs Pflaum’s experiences. It is set in a fishing village close to the Spanish border oh the coast of France where Mrs Pflaum lived with her two eldest sons (she has three sons) while her husband was covering the Spanish Civil War. “The Maine Remembered” was set in Cuba where the Pflaums were living during the first year of the Castro regime. They saw many of their friends imprisoned and narrowly escaped the same fate themselves. Mrs Pflaum’s most recent ! novel, “Lili” borrows from I her experiences during World War II when she was chief of the Iberian Section of v the American Board of Economic Warfare.

“In the course of my work I learned a great deal about how enemy agents operated. I learned about the various types of non-military intelligence and its importance in warfare.” Then Mrs Pflaum remembered a woman whom she had known for many years, in the United States and in Germany, and she was suddenly convinced that her mysterious life corresponded to that of an agent. Mrs' Pflaum said she carries these ideas around in her head for a long time and knows the history of every character before they get into the novel. “You have to do this or the reader never gets the sense of a complete character,” she said.