Giving a French region its due

For some, Alsace is a backwater. Tucked in a remote corner of France, next to Germany and Switzerland, it is a region often overlooked by travelers and guides. It is a land that time forgot.

Strasbourg, its largest city, pales next to Paris. The Vosges, its mountain range, pales next to the Alps. Even its vineyards do not compare to those in Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Champagne. Alsace is, in many ways, the Rodney Dangerfield of France. Yet, for me right now, this crossroads of Europe is the most important place on earth. It is the primary setting of my latest work in progress.

I picked Alsace, the Vosges, and the nearby city of Saint-Dié as settings several months ago. I did so mostly for practical reasons. All three venues played vital roles in both world wars. All supported the narrative in Duties and Dreams, the third and last novel in the Second Chance series. Each place seemed appealing and interesting.

But it wasn't until I started writing the book that I realized how interesting they were. I soon became immersed in learning about places I have never seen and had not studied until recently.

Among other things, I learned that Alsace is almost as German as it is French. Germany conquered and annexed the region in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. It gave it up after World War I, grabbed it again in World War II, and surrendered it in 1945.

That created both possibilities and problems for me. On the plus side, I was able to set compelling stories in two distinct eras. On the down side, I had to deal with different spellings of placenames. For much of the time period between 1871 and 1945, Strasbourg was Straßburg, Villé was Weiler, Lièpvre was Leberau, Sélestat was Schlettstadt, and Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines was Markirch.

Some of these places, all featured in the novel, also have Alsatian names – names that might have appeared on maps and road signs of the times – but I did not bother with them. I wanted to keep things as simple as possible for both readers and myself.

Of course, in D and D, I will do more than explain the names of places. I will describe their features. I will take readers to an abbey in Mont Sainte-Odile, a railroad crossing in Leberau, an isolated cottage in Weiler, and the conical sandstone peak of Climont, home of the "Fountain of Youth." I'll give them a taste of Alsace.

I hope to complete the first draft of Duties and Dreams in the next six weeks. I plan to publish the novel itself in December.

Photograph Note: Climont mountain (top image), Strasbourg in three languages (bottom). Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.