:00:00. > :00:14.Chris Cleave knows how to spin a story. His novels have been huge
:00:15. > :00:19.bestsellers, gripping thrillers they were also psychological studies. His
:00:20. > :00:22.new novel, Everyone Brave is Forgiven, takes us back to the early
:00:23. > :00:27.years of the Second World War, London during the Blitz, when no one
:00:28. > :00:31.quite knew who was going to win in the end. It is a story of one likely
:00:32. > :00:36.Love, a picture of society pulled apart by the threat of destruction,
:00:37. > :00:56.and on account of the human cost of war and human resilience. Welcome.
:00:57. > :01:04.Chris, many people have written novels set in the Second World War.
:01:05. > :01:11.It is a very familiar scene. What made you want to do it one more
:01:12. > :01:14.time? I'm always writing about the time we are living in now. I became
:01:15. > :01:20.really interested in the idea of unity and the idea of the country
:01:21. > :01:23.coming together and putting aside differences to face down and
:01:24. > :01:28.existential threat. And the last time that we did that really was the
:01:29. > :01:32.Second World War. And so I thought of I could go back into that period
:01:33. > :01:37.and research and with fresh eyes, trying to understand how it felt at
:01:38. > :01:40.the time at the outbreak of war, when people were not sure whether it
:01:41. > :01:45.was the right course of action to take, when the country was still at
:01:46. > :01:54.the beginning disunited about whether we should appease Hitler of
:01:55. > :01:59.other to fight, that difficult time at the beginning of the war is a
:02:00. > :02:04.period that I think Israeli unexamined. Those of us who were
:02:05. > :02:08.born after the war like you and me ten to forget how uncertain that
:02:09. > :02:13.time was. Of course people felt strongly about the threat and felt
:02:14. > :02:16.strongly about people who had been called up or have decided to go and
:02:17. > :02:23.fight, but there was uncertainty in the air. Uncertainty, and a lot of
:02:24. > :02:29.fear. We now look at the war movies and the war novels and they tend to
:02:30. > :02:33.show these very stoical figures, brave... They always went! Yes, they
:02:34. > :02:39.take these insane risks and it always pays off for them. But in
:02:40. > :02:45.real life they were frightened, they were young. You tell the stories of
:02:46. > :02:52.four people. It is through them you see the war, through an individual
:02:53. > :02:56.you get a picture of London. Yes, I wanted to immerse the reader in
:02:57. > :03:01.their experience of becoming part of that fighting machine. It is the
:03:02. > :03:07.becoming that I found more interesting than the being. They
:03:08. > :03:13.weren't brave to begin with. I think a muscle is the best model for
:03:14. > :03:16.courage. It is something that develops to use. At the beginning
:03:17. > :03:21.they were nervous and frightened and have very different agendas. Your
:03:22. > :03:28.title, Everyone Brave is Forgiven, is a beautifully ambiguous and a
:03:29. > :03:33.sort of annotating title, it makes you wonder, what is this book about?
:03:34. > :03:38.But you reveal how bravery comes in all shapes and sizes. It means
:03:39. > :03:47.different things to different people. To stand up in peacetime
:03:48. > :03:50.against a policy of 1's own government might be construed as a
:03:51. > :03:56.brave action, whereas in wartime that is Tardis, that is treachery,
:03:57. > :04:02.betrayal. That transitional period is interesting, not just people's
:04:03. > :04:05.ability to be brave changes, but the notion of what bravery is changes,
:04:06. > :04:09.and changes for different individuals at different speeds. I
:04:10. > :04:14.like that. One of the ways you get into that is across social
:04:15. > :04:20.boundaries in a deliberate way. One woman we meet at the beginning comes
:04:21. > :04:24.from a segment of society, not finishing school, and you meet
:04:25. > :04:27.people at different walks of life. You have an acute sense of where
:04:28. > :04:32.those boundaries where and how everyone knew where the line was
:04:33. > :04:37.drawn. I like the fact that the boundaries have not changed either.
:04:38. > :04:42.They are recognisable to us? Absolutely. Don't you think? You
:04:43. > :04:46.could be leaving in 1939 and know exactly where the fault lines were
:04:47. > :04:52.in society between the haves and the have-nots, where the racial divides
:04:53. > :04:56.were in society. They are still with us. That society is very
:04:57. > :04:59.recognisable. And as a writer, something I have often done is to
:05:00. > :05:08.look, where are those fault lines in our society? How can I voice people
:05:09. > :05:11.on both sides of those and try to show the enormity of the fractures
:05:12. > :05:17.in our society. They don't heal. They have not healed. And yet it is
:05:18. > :05:23.not a book that is driven, it seems to me, by anger or bitterness or
:05:24. > :05:30.envy for one side of society to the other. It is generous in that sense.
:05:31. > :05:36.You're quite inside yourself, I think. Almost sentimental. I like
:05:37. > :05:41.people. I would not write about people unless I really like them. I
:05:42. > :05:45.like survivors, people who have reinvented themselves, who have been
:05:46. > :05:50.hurt. I think everyone has been hurt by the time they are grown up. I
:05:51. > :05:55.like the fact that people don't just stay on the mat. They get up and
:05:56. > :06:00.they do help each other, and they help each other across those
:06:01. > :06:03.fragmentation lines of society. I write about people because I do
:06:04. > :06:07.think there is an enormous amount to hope for still. In telling the story
:06:08. > :06:12.of these people you are talking about enormous resilience. That
:06:13. > :06:17.seems to be the characteristic that you find most inspiring about what
:06:18. > :06:23.happened during the war. Yes, I think it was amazing the way people
:06:24. > :06:27.dug in. Because we now know, we can watch a war movie I think back about
:06:28. > :06:33.the Second World War, and we can think, yes, they only have to tough
:06:34. > :06:37.it out until 1945, 1946 for some. They did not know that. They did not
:06:38. > :06:42.know what they were embarking on, how long their suffering would
:06:43. > :06:47.continue. And I like that about them. I liked the sense of humour
:06:48. > :06:50.that started to develop. Really, it is a funny book. I wanted to show
:06:51. > :06:53.the sense of humour that my grandparents had. I remember talking
:06:54. > :06:59.to my grandfather about his first Irish jump, he was very scared. And
:07:00. > :07:05.he said, "In the back of the plane the Sergeant Major would jeer us up,
:07:06. > :07:10.and he said, never mind, lads, if you parachute and open, you can just
:07:11. > :07:15.stick them back to the shop!" They joked their way through the war
:07:16. > :07:18.because they were terrified. That's what I liked about their generation,
:07:19. > :07:24.and that's what I still like about British people. The more frightened
:07:25. > :07:29.we are, the funnier we get. And that for me is a very civilised response
:07:30. > :07:33.to fear. I don't want it to the plot because it would spoil it for
:07:34. > :07:38.people. It is a story that needs to keep its secrets to the end. But in
:07:39. > :07:45.a way you are talking in the book about he motions that are released
:07:46. > :07:51.because of the threat, the darkness, the uncertainty. Somehow emotions
:07:52. > :07:57.are heightened. People behave differently in war. I like the fact
:07:58. > :08:02.that people's choices had to be made in a split second, and they were
:08:03. > :08:06.made often from the gut. I think that is what life does to you. It
:08:07. > :08:10.tests you when you are least expecting it, and the answers you
:08:11. > :08:15.come up with, that you reveal about your character, are not always
:08:16. > :08:18.pleasant or expected, but are the inevitable result of all the little
:08:19. > :08:22.habits you have built up during your life. What would you most like
:08:23. > :08:30.people to take away from the story? Mostly I want them to be immersed in
:08:31. > :08:32.their experience of what we call the golden generation and to come away
:08:33. > :08:37.from it with a fresh appreciation of what they did and what we could
:08:38. > :08:38.still do. Chris Cleave, thank you very