INTERVIEW with author HILAY KAISER, March 2011

Many of you know that I wrote a novel about an ‘email-order’ bride [in Odessa], a woman who left everything behind in hopes of finding love and a better life in America. I was very interested to learn that Hilary Kaiser, a fellow writer in Paris, had written about another kind of immigrant — war brides, French women who married American soldiers they’d met during World War II. Hilary’s book on war brides sounds absolutely fascinating.

Born in New York City, Hilary Kaiser grew up in San Francisco, but moved to Paris for the first time at the age of 15, when her father joined the U.S. diplomatic corps. Her university studies later took her back to the U.S. and to Ireland.  Following her marriage to a French Fulbright scholar who was studying in the U.S., she returned to Paris, where she continued her graduate work at the University of Paris, from which she obtained a Ph.D. in Anglophone Studies. 

Hilary has just published her first ebook in collaboration with Summertime Publications: WWII Voices: American GI's and the French Women Who Married Them.  She is also the author of French War Brides in America and Veteran Recall: Americans in France Remember the War, both of which were also published in French.

A former associate professor at the University of Paris, Hilary is a cross-cultural trainer, a researcher, an oral historian, a lecturer, a world traveler and a humanitarian volunteer. Today, we talk about her inspiration, research, and advice to other writers.

JSC: Hilary, what keeps you in Paris?
I have dual American and French citizenship and have lived in Paris for more than 40 years, so it’s really “home” for me. I was married to a Frenchman for 28 years and have 3 bicultural sons and a baby granddaughter. My family is one reason I remain in France, but I also love my apartment, my friends and my activities. More recently, I’ve been returning to my “roots” in San Francisco, spending part of the year there.

JSC: What was it about the War Brides that interested you?
I admired their “spunk”. It wasn’t easy back then to pick up and leave one’s native land to marry someone from another culture. They didn’t have our modern communications to keep in touch with their families back home. And many of them had hard lives in the U.S. They suffered from the bad reputation of French girls at the time, had difficulties with their in-laws, and marital problems with their husbands, who often turned out to be alcoholics and suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

JSC: Can you tell us about the process of researching the Brides?
I love interviewing people, and I also love to write, so after completing a first book of memories of WWII veterans, I got the idea of interviewing the French women who married GI’s. My first interview was with the mother of a friend of mine. Following that interview, she gave me some names of other French war brides, and they, too, gave me the names of others. Just as it had been with the veterans, there was a real “snowball effect” of word of mouth recommendations.  I also started advertising through several offices of the Alliance Française in the U.S. and through newsletters of various French consulates. At the same time, I started reading any books that existed on the war brides phenomenon in general. And I began doing archival research, both in France and in the U.S., to be able to put the war brides’ stories into a historical context.

JSC: What advice would you give to struggling writers?
Insofar as writing where research and interviewing are concerned, I would say if you have an idea, go for it. Do the interviews, the reading and the research, collect all your data, then sit down and determine where you want to go with it, what your “big picture” is.  After that, break it down into sections and chapters that are manageable to write on a day-to-day basis.

JSC: What is the best advice you have ever received?
In general, probably “Be true to yourself.” As for writing, I guess it was “Find your own voice.”

JSC: What’s next?
I've been interviewing French residents in California for a possible new project. I'm also writing essays for my blog "Thoughts and Travels of a Franco-American" (link: http://hilarykaiser.wordpress.com) and a number of full-length and short plays. And I've also started a novel.