:00:00. > :00:00.visitors are directors, thank you for being with us on BBC News. That
:00:00. > :00:00.is a look at what the economy has on hold, now it is time for Meet the
:00:07. > :00:14.Author. Chris Cleave knows
:00:15. > :00:16.how to spin a story. His novels Incendiary and Gold
:00:17. > :00:18.were huge bestsellers, gripping thrillers that
:00:19. > :00:20.were also psychological studies. His new novel, Everyone Brave
:00:21. > :00:22.Is Forgiven, takes us back to the early years
:00:23. > :00:25.of the Second World War, to the London of the Blitz,
:00:26. > :00:28.at a time when no one quite knew It is the story of unlikely,
:00:29. > :00:33.enduring love, a picture of society pulled apart by the threat
:00:34. > :00:35.of destruction, and an account of the human cost of war
:00:36. > :00:37.and human resilience. Chris, many people have written
:00:38. > :00:59.novels set in the Second World War. What made you want to
:01:00. > :01:08.do it one more time? I'm always writing about the time
:01:09. > :01:11.that we are living in now. I became really interested
:01:12. > :01:14.in the idea of unity, and the idea of the country coming
:01:15. > :01:16.together and putting aside its differences to face down
:01:17. > :01:21.an existential threat. And the last time that we did that
:01:22. > :01:26.really was the Second World War. And so I thought if I could go
:01:27. > :01:29.back into that period, and research it with fresh eyes,
:01:30. > :01:33.trying to understand how it had felt at the time,
:01:34. > :01:35.at the outbreak of war, when people weren't sure
:01:36. > :01:40.whether it was the right course of action to take,
:01:41. > :01:42.when the country was still, at the beginning, disunited
:01:43. > :01:45.about whether we should appease Hitler or whether we should fight,
:01:46. > :01:52.that difficult time at the beginning of the war is a period that I think
:01:53. > :01:59.is really unexamined. Those of us who were born
:02:00. > :02:02.after the war like you and me tend to forget how uncertain
:02:03. > :02:10.that time was. Most people felt strongly
:02:11. > :02:12.about the threat, and strongly about people who had been caught up
:02:13. > :02:15.and decided to go and fight, but We now look at the war movies
:02:16. > :02:27.and the war novels and they tend to show these very stoical figures,
:02:28. > :02:29.square-jawed and brave. They take these insane risks and it
:02:30. > :02:33.always pays off for them. But in real life, these
:02:34. > :02:35.people were frightened You tell the story through
:02:36. > :02:38.the interlocking stories of I suppose four people really,
:02:39. > :02:41.so it's through them It's through an individual that
:02:42. > :02:47.you get a picture of London? Because I wanted to immerse
:02:48. > :02:51.the reader in their experience of becoming part of that fighting
:02:52. > :02:55.machine. It's the becoming that I found more
:02:56. > :02:59.interesting than the being. I think that a muscle
:03:00. > :03:05.is the best model for courage. At the beginning they were nervous,
:03:06. > :03:12.they were frightened and they had And of course, bravery, your title
:03:13. > :03:17.Everyone Brave Is Forgiven is a beautifully ambiguous and sort
:03:18. > :03:21.of penetrating title in the sense it makes you wonder,
:03:22. > :03:29.what is this book really about? But you reveal how bravery comes
:03:30. > :03:33.in all shapes and sizes. It means different things
:03:34. > :03:39.to different people. To stand up in peace time
:03:40. > :03:44.against a policy of one's own government might be construed
:03:45. > :03:47.as a brave action but in wartime that is cowardice,
:03:48. > :03:51.that is treachery, that is betrayal. That transitional period between
:03:52. > :03:55.peace and war is interesting. Not just people's ability
:03:56. > :03:59.to be brave changes, but the notion of what bravery means
:04:00. > :04:02.changes and it changes with each individual at different
:04:03. > :04:07.speeds and I like that. One of the ways you get
:04:08. > :04:09.into that is to cross social The woman we meet at the very
:04:10. > :04:14.beginning of the book comes from a particular
:04:15. > :04:15.segment of society. Finishing school but didn't finish
:04:16. > :04:18.it, I think you put it somewhere. And you meet people in different
:04:19. > :04:22.walks of life and you've got a very acute sense of where those
:04:23. > :04:28.boundaries were and however, I like the fact that the boundaries
:04:29. > :04:32.haven't changed either. You could be living in 1939 and know
:04:33. > :04:39.exactly where the fault lines in society were between the haves
:04:40. > :04:42.and the have-nots, where the racial That society is very recognisable,
:04:43. > :04:55.and as a writer, something I have often done is to look at things,
:04:56. > :05:01.where are those fault lines in our society and how can I voice
:05:02. > :05:04.people on both sides of those, and try to show the enormity
:05:05. > :05:07.of the fractures in our society. They don't heal,
:05:08. > :05:10.they haven't healed. And yet it's not a book
:05:11. > :05:14.that is driven, it seems to me anyway as a reader,
:05:15. > :05:16.by anger or bitterness or envy from one side
:05:17. > :05:24.of society to the other. It's a very generous
:05:25. > :05:26.book in that sense. I mean, you're quite inside yourself
:05:27. > :05:29.I think, almost sentimental? I wouldn't write about people
:05:30. > :05:44.unless I really liked them. I like people who have reinvented
:05:45. > :05:49.themselves, who have been hurt. I think everybody has been hurt
:05:50. > :05:52.by the time they are grown up. I liked the fact that people don't
:05:53. > :05:55.just stay on the mat. They do get up and they do help each
:05:56. > :05:59.other and they do help each other across those fragmentation
:06:00. > :06:00.lines in society. I write about people because I do
:06:01. > :06:03.think there's an enormous You're talking, in telling
:06:04. > :06:06.the story of these people, That seems to be the characteristic
:06:07. > :06:11.you find most inspiring I think it was amazing
:06:12. > :06:20.the way people dug in. We know now, we can watch a war
:06:21. > :06:24.movie or we can think back to the Second World War and think,
:06:25. > :06:27.they only had to tough it out until 1945, and some
:06:28. > :06:30.people as long as 1946. They didn't know what
:06:31. > :06:35.they were embarking on. They didn't know how
:06:36. > :06:37.long their suffering would continue. I liked the sense of humour
:06:38. > :06:42.that was starting to develop. I wanted to show that the sense
:06:43. > :06:50.of humour that my grandparents had, I remember talking to my grandfather
:06:51. > :06:53.about his first parachute jump. He said in the back of the plane
:06:54. > :07:03.the Sergeant Major would cheer us up and he said, never mind, lads,
:07:04. > :07:06.if your parachutes don't open, you can just take them back
:07:07. > :07:08.to the packing shed! They joked their way through the war
:07:09. > :07:11.because they were terrified and that's what I liked about that
:07:12. > :07:14.generation, and that's what I liked and still like actually
:07:15. > :07:16.about British people. The more frightened we are,
:07:17. > :07:20.the funnier we get. That for me is a very
:07:21. > :07:24.civilised response to fear. I don't want to talk about the plot
:07:25. > :07:27.in any detail because it will spoil it for people,
:07:28. > :07:30.because it is a story which I think needs to keep its secrets
:07:31. > :07:36.until the end, but we are talking in a way, you are talking
:07:37. > :07:39.in the book about emotions that are released, really,
:07:40. > :07:40.because of the threat, because of the darkness,
:07:41. > :07:44.because of the uncertainty. And like the fact that
:07:45. > :07:57.people's choices had to made in a split second,
:07:58. > :07:59.and they were made, I think that's what
:08:00. > :08:02.life does to you. It tests you when you are least
:08:03. > :08:06.expecting it and the answers that you come up with,
:08:07. > :08:08.that you reveal about your character are not always pleasant,
:08:09. > :08:12.are not always expected, but are the inevitable result
:08:13. > :08:14.of all the little habits you have What would you most like people
:08:15. > :08:20.to take away from this story? Most of all I would like them to be
:08:21. > :08:24.immersed in that experience of what we call the golden
:08:25. > :08:27.generation, and to come away with a fresh appreciation of what
:08:28. > :08:52.they did and what we could still do. Good evening. It has been bitterly
:08:53. > :08:54.cold for many parts of the country today, and especially under the
:08:55. > :08:55.cloud.