The Butterfly's Daughter #author David Ryan

In the darkest days of the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam, Vlinder faces an unimaginable choice: surrender her newborn baby to a complete stranger or risk both their lives in a brutal prison camp. What she chooses will ripple through the generations, establishing a legacy of secrets, lies, unspoken grief and lost identities.

Decades after the war, Vlinder’s granddaughter Evangeline’s quest to understand her grandmother’s actions and her family’s painful past reveals that there might be more to this legacy: a story of love and sacrifice, and a truth that has lain buried for over seventy years.

Spanning from the horrors of Auschwitz to the quiet suburbs of Melbourne and the magnificent Scottish Highlands, The Butterfly’s Daughter is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and a confirmation that the echoes of history shape who we are. Asking what it means to truly survive, this family saga will push the limits of hope and fear as it ponders the lengths we are willing to go to for those we cherish.

To connect with David ...
https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-ryan-author/
https://hemburybooks.com.au/book-author/david-ryan/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Good afternoon, David Ryan. Welcome to Yellow Shelf, David.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Thank you, Joe. Really pleased to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Oh, pleasure to have you. Congratulations. Your book, The Butterfly's Daughter, is out now. David, tell us all about the book.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

The story begins in Amsterdam during the uh Nazi occupation. And Valinda, um, Dutch word for butterfly, and her baby daughter, are waiting to be interrogated in uh in the Commandant's office, potentially be deported to one of the camps. And as she's sitting there with the baby daughter, a woman comes out of the Commandant's office uh and walks up to her and says, I've just been given papers that are going to help me escape from Amsterdam with my child. I don't have a child. Would you like me to take your baby as my child? And the book starts with Valinda having to make uh an incredible choice of does she hand over her baby to a stranger or does she face the prospect with the daughter of being sent to one of the camps with the possibility possibly of both of them losing their lives? So the story is based then around that decision that she actually makes. Uh, it it moves forward then to when her granddaughter, some decades after the war, decides that she wants to find out more about what actually happened, what was the decision, what were the ramifications, and in the process of doing that, discovers a whole lot of secrets, uh, a whole lot of events, and a much better understanding of why her grandmother behaved in the way that she actually did. Um, and along the way, in writing the book, I guess what I was particularly interested in was exploring more uh, you know, the the uh the emotions and the psychology of the people, you know, what were the motives? Uh before Valinda was uh arrested, uh her husband had already been deported to uh Auschwitz, and so some of the story also talks about his experiences and what he had to do to try and survive during that period of time. So I'm I'm starting to make it sound a bit like it's a fairly morbid sort of book. It's actually quite uplifting, you know. But it's a book that looks at what are the what are the lengths that people will go to uh to survive on the one hand. Um what what what lengths will they go to for the people they love and and how they might protect the people that they actually love? And so it explores uh a lot of that in an intergenerational sort of way. So it it moves between um uh Amsterdam, uh Auschwitz, uh sets some of it in Melbourne, around my uh hometown in Melbourne, and one of the uh main characters is in a uh an aged care home in Scotland, in uh a wonderful little place in Scotland that I managed to visit a few years ago. So the books uh really try to understand uh motives, trying to understand emotions, trying to understand, as I said, the sort of lengths that people will go to uh in all for the people they love and also for their own survival. Um and and that comes with some gritty, you know, sort of uh uh emotions and and and behaviours. And I'd like to think that as people are reading the book, they they could be questioning those things. Uh, you know, I I I went to uh Ho Chi Minh a few years ago to one of the museums over there, one of the war museums, and I was in the call-up, I managed not to miss the call-up, had photos of GIs, Member GIs holding up the part bodies of Viet Cong, and I had to leave because I I couldn't bear the thought that although I believe I'm a pacifist, in those circumstances, could that have been me? You know, could I have been in that situation? And so the book sort of explores some of those, you know, would I how would I behave if I was in some of those sort of situations?

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Yeah, very thought-provoking book, David. David, do you want to tell us a little bit about you as an author and anything we need to know? I guess if we're watching you for the first time and um curious about this book, tell us about you and your writing journey.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Well, um, this all happened. The the first thoughts of writing uh what became the Butterfly's daughter occurred in 2010. So uh it's been a book that's had a gestation period about the same as seven uh generations of elephants, I think. Um but it started when my mother-in-law encouraged me to go to the Holocaust Museum in Melstonwick near the corner of where I live. And I managed to have the opportunity to talk to some survivors who were very keen to talk their story, as uh really hoping that people could learn from them about what they experienced. And uh that got me particularly interested. And then uh the next year in 2010, uh I was due to go to Vienna and I landed in uh in Vienna. That's the last plane before they closed Europe because of the Icelandic volcano. And I'd booked a trip to Auschwitz and Birkenhau in Australia before I left, and when I got to the camps, I discovered I was the only English-speaking tourist. And I had the opportunity to wander for five hours in a one-on-one uh tour, as it were, uh, with an associate professor of history with a dedication to understanding Auschwitz and Birkenhauer and the behaviours that occurred there. So that really stimulated me, the combination of listening to what some of the survivors, you know, the stories that the survivors told, and a really intimate knowledge of Auschwitz. You know, it's not one of those things where you don't walk behind an umbrella or a or a flag. We we could talk about anything we liked. And I found that to be uh both confronting and uplifting in many ways. And so the book really evolved uh from that. Um as to me as an individual, uh I have a very strong passion for and a little sign on my computer that says uh you don't stop learning when you get old, you get old when you stop learning. And uh, so I've actually got an honest degree in chemical engineering, I've got a graduate diploma in applied psychology, and in 1975, in 19 uh, at an age of 75, uh I managed to uh acquire a PhD in uh creative writing. So it's been um quite quite a journey from uh you know that if if you go back into into creative writing, I guess the show and tell. I started life as a teller and and I'm now evolving into hopefully a shower um in terms of being a writer. So it's been a a really uh challenging but uplifting sort of uh journey.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Oh, and David, it just sounds like you know, your your life and your career and your journey and your travels, you know, you're always um embracing new. And that's that's incredibly, incredibly powerful, incredibly inspiring. Um can I just check? Is this your first book?

SPEAKER_01 7:08

This is my first book. Um I have a second one coming out in uh July, early July, uh called The Medal. Uh there's there's a couple of pictures behind behind me of the covers.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

I'm gonna get you back onto Yellow Shelf when your next book comes out.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Okay, yeah, well that's the new room on July the 6th. So uh but this is the first one. I mean it as I said, it took 16 years basically to write it. Um and it's been a really interesting journey. The one of the interesting things about it, for people who may be interested, is it was actually edited by my daughter.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

And my daughter is actually a three times published uh novelist. She's um What's her name? Uh Anna Spargo Ryan. Um she recently published uh uh her memoir called A Kind of Magic. And as a parent, she so she's my writing inspiration. Um and when I decided that I was gonna do more with a butterflies, the butterfly's daughter, than just leave it in the hard drive and leave all my characters to wonder what on earth they're gonna do with their life, uh, I asked her to help me by editing it. And um, it was an interesting exercise in terms of how we confronted um the challenge for her of how do I give uh my writer feedback as a sync from my dad, you know, that that that issue around uh you know, do I be harsh and objective, or do I, you know, recognize I'm I'm editing my father? And so we've had a very interesting time. And and one of the things that she taught me for for just for interest, she she always said to me, Look, if you're gonna write a character-driven novel, write as the character, not about the character. And and I found that really challenging for a person, I mentioned already, I I've been a teller all my life as an engineer, um, to actually get inside of your characters and and and to try and really immerse myself. And I found that really challenging, particularly with a topic like um survival in Auschwitz and making critical decisions, as Valinda had to do, to get inside a character like that, um, I it caused me to ask a lot of questions about myself, you know, leave aside uh about them. Uh to try and understand and immerse yourself in those people uh it was really rewarding.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Yeah. Well, David, it's been fabulous hearing about uh the butterfly's daughter. Congratulations. Enjoy this time of releasing a book, but it sounds like you're just gonna roll into the next one, the medal.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Well, that one's that one's coming, and there's a third one which is on the way uh as well. Um and and I have a passion for football.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

The the Australian I saw that I read that.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Yeah, the yeah, the medal uh is is a football-based story, and the one I'm writing at the moment's called The Sting, and it's a week in the life of a country town uh which has a major football scandal, and and and how that actually uh occurs and is uh resolved.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

So uh that's it sounds like it could be a real story. But listen, David, I'm I'm gonna want you to come back, and when those books come out, I'd love you to chat again and we can share those. Um thanks for joining us. All the best, David. I just want to leave it if anyone's watching and curious about you, about your career and your journey and your writing and all these wonderful things you've done, and about the books. Yep, where do we where do we go to find more? Are you on socials or on LinkedIn?

SPEAKER_01 10:40

LinkedIn. So uh if people want to look up me look me up on LinkedIn, I'm certainly on there.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Um I will put a link into your LinkedIn profile.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Okay, yeah. And I've got an email address if people wanted to uh to do that as well. So you could put that. I think you've obviously got that yeah, I can do that as well.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

I think um I think there'll be people who are really interested in you know your journey and your story. I'd love to talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

I I uh in in my acknowledgements, I think I'm the only author that's acknowledged a volcano in my uh acknowledgments uh because I owe a heck of a lot to that Ice Landing volcano. I've got to tell you indeed. You're good to do that.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

But hey, it's been lovely to have a chat with you. Oh, pleasure. I'm sure we'll chat again in the coming months. David, all the best.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Thank you very much for that, Joe. Cheers, bye-bye.