Interview

William Brodrick discusses the genesis of The 6th Lamentation and how his family history relates to the novel?

Could you describe the genesis of The 6th Lamentation? How does you own family history relate to the novel?

The novel springs from two sources. The first is personal. During the occupation of Holland my mother was part of a group who tried to smuggle Jewish children to safety. She was caught and imprisoned. The memory of what the Nazis did lay fresh upon her for the rest of her life. She talked little about her own experience, but always with a charged brevity. I wanted to write a memorial to her and that terrible time. The second source is rather prosaic. For a long time I had thought that a former lawyer who had become a monk—a natural blend of the practical and the reflective—would make an interesting character in fiction, especially if he was a person of faith who understood the troubled questions of today without possessing any trim answers. The novel grew from bringing together these two streams of interest.


As someone who left the monastery to become a lawyer, do you now see issues of justice more in terms of their legal or their theological implications? Or is it impossible to separate the two?

I cannot separate them. Or perhaps I should say the imperative to implement ...