First featured on Medium. Follow my Medium (AuthorMartinDugard) for essays on history and more.
I bought a pressure washer the other day.
I've wanted one for years. I didn't get around to it until Sadie, our new puppy, began leaving indelicate memories on our backyard pavers. The sort of memories that leave a stain. There is a price to be paid for having a backyard without grass and giving free reign to a puppy many weeks away from being housebroken. So, I bought a pressure washer. It is my new favorite toy.
I've always been like that about tools. I know there's a school of thought that says its best to purchase complete sets, but I've always bought the screwdriver or Skil-Saw when the need made itself known. In this way, over many years, I've filled a large tool chest with all the items a man could need to fix or build almost anything. What I don't have, I go out and purchase, one tool at a time. Borrowing is never an option. There is an intimacy to the way your own personal saw fits in your hand. People get funny about tools.
Researching a book is like building a tool chest. You select a topic and grow the book one nugget of information at a time. I seek out my facts, sentence by sentence, researching as I go, plunging deep down the rabbit hole to gain extreme detail. I have spent entire days on a single sentence. It's not enough to say that Winston Churchill smokes a cigar. Better to name the type (Romeo y Julieta), category (corona), even length (seven inches). Much more interesting to weave in that detail (though not all of it — too many facts clutter the story. Done without elegance, it reads like showing off).
I am a fan of the archive, the database, the museum, the battlefield — anything that sheds light on a story. Research is my drug of choice. Back in college, you couldn't get me into the library. Nowadays, you can't get me out.
At least before Covid.
When I pitched a book about wartime Paris, I fully expected to spend weeks, if not months, in Europe. Romance, wine, amazing food, history around every corner. How else to write accurately about the smell of night air on the Breton coast or the way Paris sounds just before the commuter rush? History is the collision of events, places, and life. Taking Paris would be a chance to investigate a story of epic proportions and walk in the footsteps of de Gaulle, Churchill, and even Hitler.
I still haven't made it to France. Yet I still had a deadline, despite the global shutdown.
Everything was done online. Everything. I had no choice. Digitized newspapers like the New York Times and Times of London provided period detail. Online databases such as (and I'm just picking one of the many priceless sources of information at random) George Washington University's Churchill appointment calendars made it possible to see the handwriting, style of paper, and intensity of the prime minister's day. YouTube showed me detailed videos of long-ago battlefield in Africa and Europe, the sights and sounds of Paris being liberated, and a marvelous video about life inside the French tank known as the Char B1.
Google Earth allowed me to see vivid images of the places I was unable to go. Google Books allowed me to research the scholarship of others. Countless other Google searches told me about plants, artifacts, church bells, and the thousands of other details that go into writing history. When one cannot go to Paris to hear the bells of Notre Dame, listening to the deep peal of the bourdon is as simple as an online search. Try it. Completely enchanting. I'd sometimes write with the bells of Notre Dame ringing through my office. Puts you right there.
In this way, fact by fact, Taking Paris came together. Twenty years ago, that would not have been possible. I would have set the project aside. But the pandemic showed me dozens of new implements for the researcher toolbox. I was forced to dig deeper than ever before, if only to ensure that the reader is not cheated, and that every detail is authentic and close. You be the judge: Taking Paris is available for pre-order now.
But internet-only research is not like my new pressure washer — a favorite toy. I need the hush and wonder of libraries and museums and battlefields. I will be on a plane going somewhere that needs a passport as soon as I am able.
If only to smell the night air.