Historical Happy Hour

The Last Assignment by Erika Robuck

• Jane Healey • Season 1 • Episode 83

Share episode

Bestselling author Erika Robuck joins host Jane Healey to talk about The Last Assignment: A Novel of Dickie Chappelle, her biographical novel about trailblazing war photojournalist Dickie Chappelle, who embedded with Marines and bore witness to Cold War flashpoints from Hungary and Cuba to Vietnam. They explore Dickie’s fearless calling to show civilians the realities of war, her complicated personal life and refusal to be tied down, the deep archival research at the University of Wisconsin that brought her story to life, and how Erika balances fact and fiction when writing about real women in history. The conversation also dives into Erika’s writing process, the strange “alchemy” of research, and a sneak peek at her next projects, including a new intelligence heroine and a Southern Gothic historical horror novel drawn from her own family’s past.

Jane:

Welcome to Historical Happy Hour, the podcast that explores new and exciting historical fiction novels. I'm your host Jane Healey, and in today's episode, we welcome back. Bestselling author Erika Robuck to discuss her latest, wonderful novel. The last assignment, a novel of Dickie Chappelle, which released August

19th. Welcome back, Erika. Thank you. I'm so

Jane:

happy to be here again. I've really been looking forward to this. Yeah. So happy to chat with you. So I'm gonna do a quick bio about you and then I, like I said, I have probably too many questions. Great. About this book and this woman's life. So Erika Robuck is the national bestselling author of historical fiction, including Sisters of Night and Fog, the Invisible Women and Hemingway's Girl. Her articles have appeared in writer Unboxed, crime Reads and Writer's Digest, and she has been named a Maryland Writers Association, notable writer of 2024. A boning enthusiast, amateur historian, and teacher. She resides in Annapolis with her husband and three sons. Again, welcome back. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Thank you. Talk about the extraordinary Dickie Chappelle. Is it pronounced Chappelle? Do I have that right? You have it right? Yes. Yes.

Erika:

She is extraordinary. Just one of these people. I can't believe I had never heard of her before I started the research process.

Jane:

Exactly. And so how did you first. Discover her. And what made you decide, oh, this is, she's gonna be the topic for my next novel.

Erika:

Dickie had been haunting me for years, ever since I started working on books about women in the shadows of war and intelligence history. I'd written about Virginia Hall, who was a spy some of the other spies and resistors, a codebreaker, and in writing about women in war. In the past, they were either spies, inte. Sometimes nurses and combat correspondence. And so Dickie would come up in that capacity in various books that I read, or articles that I read. And I had some familiarity with her work because I have a, just a personal interest. Obsession with Vietnam. And so I have a lot of war photography books. And so when I was looking through those, I was, I even saw some of Dickie's pictures again that I hadn't necessarily realized were hers. And so over time she haunted me, but I kept pushing her story away because there's so much war, there's so much conflict. And in the world that we live in, there's so much more, there's so much conflict. I just thought, oh, it's too heavy. Or, I just kept avoiding it. But she haunted me. And then one day I heard I don't even know how I stumbled across it, but it was an audio recording of a radio interview of hers, and I turned it on and as soon as I did, it sounded just like my grandma with her gravelly smoke, smoker's voice and, take no prisoners and ask forgiveness, but never permission. And I thought, oh gosh, I know this woman and I love her and I can do this. So that's how I got to Dickie.

Jane:

Amazing, amazing. You did an extraordinary amount of research for this book. You even list, more, more reading if you're interested in learning more about her life at the back of your book, and you talk about it in your notes. So talk about your research your process, some of your best sources. I love hearing about research process, so

Erika:

yeah, and research is what I love. I would just research forever, nonstop, and I actually do something with it, which is the hard part. But I love the detective. And once I start getting on the scent of a character, we'll say I start very wide. I go places that I can go. I read about the person I read biography start working on interviews. If there is then any kind of archive or source material from the person I start to read that. And the University of Madison, Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Historical Society has a treasure trove of all of Dickie's things. And then, beautifully. She wrote a memoir about herself early in the, or the late fifties, early sixties. And so I was able to then, by the time I've fallen in love and I know there's a novel there, I'm able to get into her voice and to hear her point of view and the way she speaks. And then read her articles that she wrote for newspapers, articles written about her, and then really get into the photographs. So I have to do that to know the character inside and out, and to be appropriately obsessed and in love with them to then write about them. Sometimes when I'm doing that process, and you probably experience the same thing with your own work sometimes along the way I'll either feel like the stakes aren't high or I don't like the person. Maybe it's a difficult family, something like whatever, and then we have to break up. But with Dickie it just kept getting closer and closer.

Jane:

So interesting. I shouldn't mention, I did of course have to go to the online archives for University of Wisconsin to see some of the photographs. And I highly recommend that if anyone's interested. They're just, yeah they're incredible. That was really interesting to see.

Erika:

Yeah, and the archivists there were so helpful and wonderful. I could ask them, I need a letter from this time period, and then they would have it sent to me. So it was a wonderful process with them. And I have also made a Pinterest page that highlights important photographs or situations that have to do with the novel. And I would wait till after I read the novel to look at it. Of course, you're welcome to look at it anytime, but in some of the pictures that Dickie took, I was able to link up on Pinterest there so you can see them.

Jane:

Very cool. In terms of like when you were doing all this research, was there anything that you came across that like completely took you by surprise in her life and her story? I feel like she's one of these characters that is stranger than fiction. And the fact that like she had a front row seat to all these historical events, it was like amazing. So

Erika:

yes. I often say she reminds me of Forrest Gump where she's the delightful person and she's everywhere all the time and just, and even has an impact wherever she goes. Yeah. And she really was a light and dark places. So you can go to the Hungarian Revolution or the Cuban Revolution, or Laos or Vietnam and just you're with Dickie, so it's gonna be okay, even if it's not okay. And but yeah, she was just absolutely everywhere and I was dazzled and surprised by so much about her, even from just the fact that she got her accreditation to jump into combat with soldiers, which is bizarre to me. I'm a very risk averse person, so when I read about these people, I'm just fascinated, thank God for'em, but I've no, nothing in common. But what, there were a few things that really stood out. One is that, since I've been writing about Intelligence General Wild, bill Donovan, who was Virginia Hall's boss, who helped, was in charge of the OSS and involved with CIA, I was delighted that his path crossed with Dickies. I was also delighted that James Misner and his wife Mary, their paths crossed with Dickie. Not just crossed with her, but they became really good friends with her. Whenever I go to book clubs, whenever we start talking about what got us into historical fiction, inevitably people say. Oh, it was Missioner and his novels. Oh, it was Chesapeake. It was the source. It was Hawaii. So it was that they knew each other. And then my eternal obsession with Ernest Hemingway continues. So during the Cuba sections, I was interested to find out that his Nobel Prize was in a cathedral in Santiago de Cuba. So I was able to give that a little wink in the book just for my own personal fun.

Jane:

I, and I think that's so fun for readers too. I was thinking about it when I read that mi about their, her relationship with Ner, and I'm a huge Bill Donovan fan. Like I think he's such a larger than life character in history that really hasn't gotten his due. So I was, I loved seeing him like in this story. But I, yeah, I think PE readers really appreciate. When there's these famous cameos that all of a sudden are on the scene in, in someone else's story, yeah. It's so fun. So fun. So she was the, and she's this ambitious trailblazer in a field that was not exactly accepting of women at the time. And she put up with a lot and she sacrificed a lot. She never married again after her divorce. Talk about this aspect of her story.

Erika:

Well, Dickie growing up was bullied a lot. She had big, thick Coke bottle glasses. She was overweight. She was always hanging out with the boys instead of the girls. And she really, and she, every time she saw Flagpole, she would stop and make everybody say the pledge of Allegiance. She was just wired a little different than everybody. And so some people thought it was charming and some people tortured her for it. But it was. Through her getting picked on and told no that she really developed a very thick skin, a great capacity for humor in dark situations, and didn't take no for an answer, or when she would hit a roadblock, wouldn't become overly discouraged. She would just pivot and find a new way forward. And so she was very t. Person and I do think that a lot that she suffered helped with that later. She was, she did become enamored with this Tony Chappelle. I really just don't think highly of him, and that is no secret from chapter one of this book. He was, 20 years your senior, and he taught her everything she knew about photography. There were good things about him and her, their relationship. But he also didn't tell her he had a wife and a child once they had gotten married. And he had never, legally divorced to that person. And so when we meet Dickie, she's really trying to extricate herself from a very bad situation. He became abusive and she eventually was able to get that marriage annulled. But one of the things that she knew was that she didn't want to be tied down. She didn't wanna be married because she felt a calling to travel the world and to go into combat and to take pictures of the faces of war to bring back to people home. And that does not lend itself well to a domestic situation. You have to be able to go at a moment's notice and you don't know when you're gonna be back. Sometimes she couldn't be contacted, and so she realized that was really what she felt her calling was. So she was able to get her life to that space.

Jane:

Yeah. And that was really interesting about her too, like the fact, and I'm so interested in people who have a calling like this, right? Yeah. And I wanna read a little snippet about, how she described herself. Growing up she, she didn't realize that, that, oh, wait a minute. She's not fearless, but she has what it takes to keep moving in spite of fear. Growing up, she didn't realize that was a special quality, but she understands more and more the older she gets. Ironically, in spite of tolerable vision, she knows she must be the eyes of those who need to see the pain in the world. To make it better, but who aren't willing to go to the ends of the earth themselves. Like that self-reflection and that feeling of a calling, like I think that's just so unusual and what makes her so extraordinary.

Erika:

Yeah, and she had a, I think a lot of people in her life where she would find really good friends and she had she had a difficult relationship with her mother, but her aunts, she had a wonderful relationship with them. And then the paths that she would cross out in the field in countries across the world she found people that would validate to her, including the US Marines, who basically adopted her. That. What she was doing was unusual, but she absolutely was where she belonged. And as she started to do that, then that would feed her confidence and she would continue to do it. And then sometimes her instincts was, tell her, you don't belong here. And she almost never listened to them. And so she gets herself into a lot of bad situations, but then again, comes out of it. She just, she's a hardheaded woman. And she is very much, act first. Think leader. Yeah. Yeah. But I did find that in endearing about her, and because of that level of, honestly that recklessness sometimes she was able to get the story or the access more than other people could to get the truth out.

Jane:

Yeah. Yeah. And at her apparel, right? Like some of the things that she went through, not to give too many spoilers away. I wanna talk about, this is a note from you at the end.'Cause I'm always interested in author's choices on how to, how they distill down a real person's story. So you said Dickie covered dozens of countries and territories on four continents. It was not possible to plumb the depth and breadth to which she went. I hope the regions and conflicts I chose best honored her work and revealed her character. So how did you figure out how to like, break it down and ch choose certain regions and certain experiences over others? I find that to be really challenging sometimes.

Erika:

Yeah that's a huge challenge, but it's part of my process now with that, I do a six month dedicated research before I write a word. And in that time, I'm discerning where is the novel, because I'm not a biographer, so I'm not interested in birth to death and documenting every little thing. This novel, I chose to insert letters and telegrams, but they're fictionalized, they're not the action. Based on what was happening to bridge one section to the next. But really as I, I do trust the process and it always reveals itself to me if I'm patient. And this book very clearly became a Cold War book. I had already done two World War II novels, so I wasn't interested in going back to that space. Also, that was really just Dickie and her infancy. Just. Started that really was her backstory as a correspondent. And eventually, got her kicked out'cause she disobeyed orders in the chain of command. So she learned a lot from the experience. Yeah. But that wasn't what the experience was. I focused in on the Cold War and the thread that united also, I chose conflicts where she had, she spent time there to develop relationships and where she could grow and change. And become a part of the people that she was around. And so Hungary and Cuba and Vietnam became those very clearly because, for instance, she went to Algeria, she went to Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, but they were such short stints. They were only maybe a two weeker. And so you didn't get to know the people the way you did when she was, going back for the sixth time to South Vietnam, to the same village with the same people to experience. Life with them. She lived with people as much as she could. So that's how it, those things naturally rose to the top.

Jane:

Yeah. Yeah. So interesting. And to that point too, this is biographical fiction. Dickies was a real, very obviously real person in history and so how I find like I wrote good name for Paris. The main character was a real person in history, drew latent, and I found that incredibly difficult. And one of the things I found difficult was balancing fact verse fiction in her story in a way that honored her history, but also created a novel, a narrative arc. So how do you balance those things when you're writing about a real person?

Erika:

That, that has changed over time. I used to insert a fictional protagonist in my work and let the story center around them and the real history was ancillary to that. But I gradually it, the shift happened when I was writing about Nathaniel Hawthorne and his family because the cast of characters there was so rich, the literary cast and his family. I didn't need to put anybody in there. I ended up finding his wife. I really, I connected with her a lot, so she became the vehicle to tell the story. Once I did that, I fell in love with the bio historical fiction format. I'm not actually, I don't consider myself very creative. I'm good at research. I'm good at finding things, but I'm not good at making up. A story. So when I find the story, then I can fictionalize that. So for me, it's actually easier to stay as faithful to truth and history as I can. And then whatever sins I commit against history, I confess in the author's note. So for example, Dickie, when she goes to Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, it would not do to have six different sets of men in different platoons and different infantry. It's just too much for the reader and it's not necessary. So I was able to take one of the men from her photograph and put has him as a pull through character. I was able, with the Cuba section, it wasn't documented exactly when she met one of her closest friends there, Felipe. Some say. Back when she was with Castro's Forces. Some say it was when she was with the anti-Castro forces. So I made the decision to put him back at the very beginning. So we got to know him better. They were both in the same place at the same time, so it's very plausible that they met at that time, but I don't have proof of it. So those are the kinds of things that I have some flexibility with, but I do like to stay as faithful to the truth as possible at this point. That's where I'm more comfortable.

Jane:

I, I, you do it so well. You've written a number of biographical fiction novels now, and so do you prefer that to like making up like a fictional protagonist? Is that your, is that kind of your, the lane you wanna stay in or? I do. I fall

Erika:

in love with the format and, I just find it to be I and I prefer the childless, unmarried woman. She is a love, very good to work with i'm always looking for those. And yeah, so I really, this is what I've become. This is what I enjoy very much. And then I love to send readers Googling. So you learn about Dicky Chappelle. I had never heard of her. Everybody talked to is like, how have I never heard of her? And then they're online and they're looking at Dickie and all of the people and the places. So that's what I wanna do. I wanna inspire people to do that.

Jane:

I loved doing that after yeah, like I said, going to the University of Wisconsin site and yeah it's always fun to, to dive deeper.'cause I hadn't really, I don't think I've really heard of her either. Maybe somewhere in the vagueness of history or in a photograph that she took. I wanna talk, you've been on here before. I always ask writing questions. I tried to mix them up so I'm not asking you the exact same ones as last time, but the first one, everyone's always interested in process. What's your process, your writing process, and has it changed over time?

Erika:

Sure. It's gotten more streamlined and, so my first novel took me five years to write. Now, of course, I had three babies during that time, which would explain something. And then my second novel took me three years to write. And ever since then, it's about a two year process. And so it's six months of research. About nine months to a year, first draft, and then six months of editing. And that has become very standard with what I'm doing. And so now I'm on my 10th published novel. Of course, there's plenty in the drawer that have been rejected and abandoned, but the 10th published novel, that's the process. That's the, on the micro level daily my kids are growing up and moving outta the house, but I still follow the same routine as soon as my youngest is a senior in high school. As soon as he's out the door and my husband is out the door, then I get to work. So usually it's about a four hour to five hour writing process. Depending on what the day calls for. And then my brain completely is done. And then I go and walk, usually about a three mile walk. And there I'm figuring out working out problems. And I send myself probably 15 emails on the walk for the next day. I've done that, pick it up the next day. So it's just, that's how it is. And then once my son gets home from school or usually around dinnertime, then I'm done. And so that's the day to,

Jane:

it's interesting. I feel like a lot of authors have been on here and author, friends I've talked to. I feel like when I'm on deadline and I'm drafting that first draft I feel like I've got about four to five hours and that's my max. I, I can't I hit a wall around that time. And you're right, like whether it's walking or driving in the car or like doing something else after that always helps me loosen up and fix some come up with things, fix some problems that I was worried about or things like that, which is great,

Erika:

yeah. A lot. A lot. Same with me. I hear that all the time from authors and it's fun. My husband, he works in an office, he works with finance, so very different, but he's like, when you look at a day when I'm in the office, it's probably. Four to five hours of work even being gone for eight hours because there's meetings, there's talking, there's lunch, there's it's all broken up. So it's just interesting, sustained concentration versus separated. But I'm, when I'm drafting, I don't know about you, but I'm very agitated at the end of it. Like I feel like I've crawled into somebody else's skin and now I.

Jane:

Like method. Yes. It's exhausting. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's mentally, yeah. There's this exhaustion to it. I love it, but that first draft is the hardest for me for sure.

Erika:

Yeah. Hate every

Jane:

second. And then once I have

Erika:

editing I'm like, oof. Oh, thank goodness.

Jane:

Push that. What's the best piece of writing advice you've ever received?

Erika:

I think discipline. So show up every day. I'm usually five days, maybe six, and then I do take a day of rest. But every day, some days I write one page and every word is awful. And then. The other day. Now this is a world record for me. I wrote 17 pages. Oh my God, that's amazing. That has never happened before. My average is like three to five a day. Yep. But you have to labor through that day of the one page where it's just trash. To get into that zone, which I'm always searching for, where I feel like it's just, I'm just downloading material. I'm not writing it, it's just coming through me. Yeah. Yeah. And then, but to get that day, there's usually four days of slog, and then it's oh, here it is.

Jane:

So Of course, yeah, 17 is amazing. Good

Erika:

for you. That's so weird. I, that's never ever happened. My, my record before that was maybe nine,

Jane:

Oh. But yeah. Still good. Yeah. Yeah I'm probably on average like you said, four to five. And sometimes they're total crap and sometimes they're decent. It depends.

Erika:

Yeah. Never know why, what day, what the day will bring, read it the next day and writing it,

Jane:

It's just very strange. It is. If you could go back and tell your unpublished self about life as an author, knowing what you know now, what would you say? Tell them.

Erika:

Don't do this. Why are you doing no for enjoyment? I'm cynical. I'm cynical. Jane. I'm 10 in. I hear you. I do. I got people telling me you can't write that book. And it's just oh, it's so aggravating. But no it's good. I told my sons just don't ever rely on a creative profession. And I also have. I'm also a teacher, and so I substitute teach, I do faith formation. Like I have to have that balance there. And I could never rely on this if I needed this. Yeah. To be, I have to be totally clear and honest about that. And so the inconsistency of the business side of it is, it drives me insane and it's not. I love readers and I love connecting with readers and I love write research, but I do not love publishing. So

Jane:

yeah, it is. No, and I appreciate that honesty.'cause it's a hard industry and I, it's a hustle. It's all, it's a constant hustle and I think that, I always say that, I am. Fortunate. I consider this like a very like sometimes it's very part-time. Sometimes it's more than full-time, but I couldn't rely on it if I didn't have a husband who had insurance, for instance. All of that.

Erika:

Yeah. Insurance and benefits. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. He's, what does my oldest son do? He's a songwriter in Nashville.

Jane:

Oh my god. Oh yeah, I see that. That's so exciting. Whatcha doing? So that's amazing. I liked, I like following your post about your son who's a songwriter in Nashville. That's incredible. Awesome. So are you ready to talk about what you're working on right now?

Erika:

Sure. I'm writing two books right now because one isn't enough to drive me crazy. I have to go absolutely bonkers with two. I had one that was inspired by the Dickie work through Women in the Shadows and more in intelligence history. I found another woman. Unfortunately, she's so good at her job, she's making mind very hard. So I'm like sifting through, lifting up little corners trying to find her trail. And it's been agonizing. On the other side, I have a lead in, some very dark family history of mine. Oh wow. It was unexpected discovery and it was horrifying. So horrifying that it's a horror novel. I'm working on Wow. Southern Gothic historical fiction. And so I have two things going right now. And I really feel like one is my wheelhouse and one is basically an exorcism on behalf of my entire family. So we'll see where that goes. I don't know which is gonna get picked up.

Jane:

Yeah. Oh my God. That's super exciting though. And how does it feel to pivot to another genre? Because I've talked with authors who have done it and I just am so impressed.

Erika:

It's still historical, it's still research based. Yeah. It's just researching my creepy family instead of someone else's creepy family. That's right. But it's it actually has been a real breath of fresh air in a weird way, even though it's deeply disturbing. Because I, it's just, I feel like I'm using different writing muscles. It's just just different enough, but also based on history and research. And it's been, I needed a break from this woman who is torturing me from history. Virginia Hall did the same thing with the invisible woman. And it's almost like I do get mystical about the process. With Virginia Hall, I could find nothing. I kept hitting dead ends, but I would only get enough for one day's writing. And so I was able to just keep doing that until I actually met with her niece. And connected with her niece, and all of a sudden I got this avalanche of material. And so I felt in a mystical, weird, woowoo way that Virginia Hall didn't trust me until that point, and once she saw that I was devoted, could give me everything I needed. So I feel like the same thing is almost going on with this other woman, and I haven't gotten the avalanche yet. It's just enough. Get through a day or two and drive me nuts. It's almost like I wish it would either just shut off or the faucet would turn on, but it's just drip. So I just, I needed a break from all that.

Jane:

So this is, I think it'll come. I love that you talk about the, like the, there is like a alchemy woo part of the whole writing process that. I, it's just you can't deny it. Sometimes things like the coincidence and when you're on the right path and when you're not on the right path, like you, like the things that happen. I totally agree with that and I'm sure

Erika:

how that feels. Yeah,

Jane:

yeah. I'm sure you'll get your avalanche soon.

Erika:

See, you'll see I'm getting quite avalanche from the dark family history. Oh.

Jane:

How can readers best stay in touch with you and do you do Zoom book clubs and stuff like that?

Erika:

I I'm mostly on either Instagram and Facebook. Those are usually where I interact. And it's nice on Facebook to have a little back and forth in the comments, so that's all good. I do sometimes zoom with book clubs, but I don't often. I do, I go to a lot of book clubs in person actually.'cause when I started way back with my self-publishing days, there were all these lovely book clubs willing to meet with me and many of them I still meet with to this day. So I really enjoy in person much more than I do Zoom. I feel a little strange about Zoom actually. And now that my kids are grown and my youngest son, he drives himself all over the place. I never even see him, so it's a lot easier for me to get to book clubs that are Yeah. Yeah.

Jane:

Excellent. Excellent. This was delightful. I'm so happy and for all your success and you're such an inspiration with 10 books in, I'm halfway there, so Oh, thank you. I dunno how you've done that, but that's incredible. Thank you. Please come back for your next one. Whatever that is. Yeah, thank, yeah. Whatever that is. Yeah. And that's a wrap. Don't forget to follow historical happy hour or wherever you listen to podcasts and follow us on YouTube. Um, thank you so much Erika. This is a delight as always, and good luck with everything.

Erika:

Thank you. It's always a treat to be here. And yours. I love the women in Arlington Hall. Keep going. I can't wait to see what you have next too.

Jane:

Thank you. Yeah, we'll see. Thank you so much. Have a great day. Bye.

Head Shot

Jane Healey

Host