The S S Athenia: I chose a different way to write about this tragedy.

When I decided in 2010 to write about the Athenia tragedy (see blog post “Origins of a Book, Part 1, Sept. 1, 2016), my first step was to find out what had been published on the subject.

There were two non-fiction books written about the sinking: Tomorrow Never Came, by Max Caulfield, published in the U.S. in 1959, and Three Days in September: The Last Voyage of the Athenia, by Cay Rademacher, published in Germany in 2009. The older book was no longer in print (though copies were for sale on the Internet) and there were no plans to publish the German book in English.

And so the journey for a new book on the Athenia began.

To differentiate my effort from the previous books, I determined to write a historical novel about the sinking. I thought fiction would be the best way to make the emotional connection with readers that I sought.

I began by reading the Caulfield book. Then I scoured the Internet, where I found a great deal of material, including many first-hand accounts of Athenia’s sinking.

Rather than invent my characters, I decided to fictionalize the experiences of real people, imagining their thoughts and conversations as they experienced events before, during and after the torpedoing by a German submarine. Following 18 months of research I settled on ten people – eight passengers, the Athenia’s second-in-command and the submarine commander – whose experiences would allow me to tell the most complete story of Athenia’s last voyage.

With two years invested in my project, my heart sank late in 2012 when I opened a catalogue and found a new Athenia book had just been published: Athenia Torpedoed: The U-Boat Attack That Ignited the Battle of the Atlantic, by Francis M. Carroll! I ordered a copy and discovered an up-to-date, concise, thoroughly researched and well-written non-fiction account of the attack on Athenia and its aftermath.

Had I chosen to write a non-fiction book on the subject, like the Athena, I would have been sunk!

Thankfully, my idea for a historical novel remained afloat. All I had to do was write it….