Spymaster Alan Furst on Spies, Sex and Memory

Mary Ann Gwinn - Seattle Times

Who would brave the traffic of Seattle's suburbs on a balmy weekday evening to show up for an author reading? The devotees of Alan Furst.

At Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park last Thursday, the world-famous spy novelist read from the paperback version of his novel "The Spies of Warsaw" (Random House, $15). The independent bookstore was hopping -- in its main gathering spot, local student authors were reading aloud from their final works of the year. But in the reading "den" 90 Furst fans, drawn by virtually no publicity other than the bookstore calendar, listened to a writer who truly has lived the dream of those would-be authors in the next room.

A quarter century or so ago, Furst made his living here -- he wrote for the Seattle Weekly and worked for Bumbershoot. Now his home is the Hamptons, and by his own estimate there are a million copies of his books in print, published in 17 languages, including Croatian, Flemish and Catalan. Set in Europe between World War I and II, these books are textured, suspenseful and passionate, peopled by seductively appealing characters, most of whom are facing a terrible doom.

(If you want to try just one, a good bet is "The Polish Officer," which Furst said "is the best novel I'll ever write").

Dressed for the heat with Hampton-esque sockless loafers, Furst read from the first chapter of "The Spies of Warsaw," a witty and erotic scene of seduction into both sex and spying. "Spies" is in part a story of industrial espionage, which led Furst and fans into a back and forth about how he constructs his books.

How did he recreate pre-World War II Warsaw, when the war destroyed the city? "The Poles wrote about their experiences ... the Poles wrote books and got them translated," he said. "They really flourished between the wars. It was terrible, they were destroyed [in World War II], and again at Yalta. But they came back in 1989. It's nice there now." Where does he get his lore on the dozen or more intelligence services that spied in Europe between the wars? Intelligence histories, he said: "for something that's supposed to be secret, these people write books every 10 minutes."

Then someone asked the question on everyone's mind: How does he do it?

"The way I work: I pick a country," he said. "I learn the political history -- I mean I really learn it; I read until it sinks in. Once I read the political history I can project and find the clandestine history. And then I people it with the characters."

Furst takes obvious delight in the bright bits he weaves into his creations; a 1930s recording of Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhart and violinist Stephane Grappelli. The story (true?) of a Jewish violinist playing schmaltzy songs for the Gestapo, trying to prolong his life.

He is an entertainer, but the driver of his plots is the pitiless engine of history. A grandson of Latvian Jews whose relatives probably perished in World War II, he says he writes so he and his readers will remember: "When people were victims, when they died, when they were executed -- they all said, 'remember me. Please don't forget what happened to me.' "

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