Featured Interview With Robert E. Hirsch
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born in Pusan, Korea, 1949 just before the war broke out… Mom was Korean, Dad was a G.I…. not married. After the devastation, Mom sent me to America at age five because half breed children were despised and she was starving to death (so was I, I suppose). My American father and grandparents took over (didn’t see Mom again for 40 years). Grew up then as an Army brat, mostly in the South, but wasn’t allowed in white public schools since I was half Asian and didn’t speak English when I started… so all of us brown kids in the South back then had to go to Catholic school… which explains why so much of my writing evolves around religion, cultural upheaval, and intolerance.
Dad got stationed in France in 1965, and decided to put me into a French school instead of a U>S Army/DOD school. That was tough, I didn’t speak French so here it all started up again: a foreigner in a foreign country! Loved France in the end… it was an eye-opener, and I learned to speak fluent French! Became a French teacher in fact for several years before going into administration where I served as a Dean of Discipline, Assistant Principal, High School Principal, and ended as the Superintendent of Ocean Springs Schools here on the Mississippi Coast (yeah… I forgave the South!).
In retirement, am writing full time, playing in a bluegrass band (Hound City Ramblers), and writing a newspaper column for the Ocean Springs Record. Freedom, which I never had in life until now, is FABULOUS.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I became a voracious reader in elementary school… because I was a day-dreamer (still am). I love ‘the story.’ I love writing even more because I see things, hear things, feel things, and imagine things that many people seem to pass up. Too bad for them! There is so much more to life than work, worry, money, and strangers.
My writing often centers around abandonment, dispossession, and being thrust into cultural/political currents beyond our control… yeah, guess I never got over the Korean war, losing my mother, France, or being forced into the military because my lottery number was 9 back in 1971 even though I had 2 kids and opposed the Vietnam War. Funny thing, my future was determined by a lottery number in a nation where gambling was illegal! But then, we live at the mercy of the privileged and the powerful, sad to say… and their compass generally determines the fate of the helpless and the common people. Yet, we HOPE, and we STRUGGLE, and at times even prevail. History is replete with such cases… which is why truth is stranger than fiction, and also why I love historical fiction.
My fist novel was Contrition (2012, JournalStone Publishing) : a mystery/suspense work tinged with the supernatural (God). From there I moved to historical fiction and am completing Book 5 of the Dark Ages Saga of Tristan de Saint-Germain. The entire series is being published by Argus Publishing, and Book 1 (Promise of the Black Monks) enters the market in March of 2016. The sequels include Hammer of God, A Horde of Fools, God’s Scarlet Fury, and Cup of Blood/ Bread of Salvation). The series is an accurate, searing epic about the close of the 11th Century in Europe, beginning with the Investiture War and ending with the outcome of the First Holy Crusade. If you’re into action, intrigue, complexity of the conscience and heart, and the struggle for reclamation and atonement – you’ll love the entire series!
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favorite writers revolve around French literature, which tends to be more psychological, more heartfelt, and more brutal (packed with inner struggle, injustice, and personal angst). Also, I respect the classical style, thus my favorite authors are Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Stendal, Voltaire, etc…
I do read contemporary authors from time to time, but far prefer the depth of plots and characters that are offered by the classics.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
Promise of the Black Monks (Book 1 of ‘The Dark Ages Saga of Tristan de Saint-Germain. ‘
Conceived in a marriage of French and Danish nobility, newborn Tristan de Saint-Germain is declared cursed at birth in 1066 by the superstitious pagan midwife delivering him. Seven years later the boy’s father is executed for treason against William the Conqueror, and he is abandoned with his four-year-old brother to the rigid, monastic world of the Benedictine monks of Cluny, France. While being transported to the monastery, Tristan happens by chance upon Mala, a ten-year-old Romani girl of mysterious origins who has escaped abduction by Vikings.
Arriving at the monastery, young Tristan falls beneath the tutelage of Grand Prior Odo de Lagery. Struck by the boy’s frightening intelligence and perception for one so young, Prior Odo grooms him into an academic and linguistic prodigy by age twelve when he becomes known as the ‘Promise of the Black Monks.’ In time, Tristan is dragged onto the merciless stage of continental politics, an arena driven by Church, Crown, the privileged, and the unforgiving. Thriving, he becomes vital to Benedictine intrigue and Vatican politics, inevitably becoming enmeshed in the visceral Investiture War between Pope Gregory VII and Emperor Heinrich IV of Germany.
Yet, even as Tristan rises and the fate of Church and Crown waver in the balance, he has never forgotten Mala the Romani, nor has she forgotten him. From the moment of their first meeting, and through several other rare encounters over time, each felt in the other a shared sense of dispossession and loneliness– one that would vaporously tether their hearts together despite distance, separation, and circumstance.
Born of French nobility but cursed at birth and abandoned to the Benedictine monks, seven-year-old Tristan is forced into the rigid, unforgiving monastic culture of the early Medieval era. His frightening intelligence and perception, however, allow him to rise academically to the point of becoming known as the ;promise of the Black Monks’ by age twelve. Eventually he becomes a primary player in Benedictine and Vatican political intrigue. Yet, even as he rises, he cannot forget Mala the Romani, a young gypsy girl of mysterious origins he met while being transported to the monastery as a boy… nor does she forget him. As each of them struggles to survive within their own sphere of culture and circumstance, they remain tethered by mutual feelings of dispossession, abandonment, and loneliness.
Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles