Tell us a little about yourself and your writing goals.
I was born and bred in Milan, Italy. After dropping out of university I moved to Amsterdam and then London, where I have been living for the past thirty years. My first book, The Tiergarten Tales, started as an idea at the onset of the Covid lockdown as I had nothing else to do.
My second book is almost half-way through, though it will require a lot of research as it is again LGBTQ+ Historical Fiction. I have the third and fourth in my mind.
Congratulations on your new release. Please tell us a little bit about it. What’s your favourite aspect or part of the story? Do you have a favourite character? Who/Why?
The Tiergarten Tales is a collection of ten stories set in Berlin over different periods of history, from 1780s to 1890S Prussia to modern-day. The tales are loosely interconnected with characters and situations resurfacing here and there. The thread is the Tiergarten, the huge central Berlin park which witness the events through history.
Felix is my favourite character. He is the scion of a wealthy Brandenburg landowning family: charming, generous, handsome, but also reckless and self-destructive. He kind of lived with me while I was writing the book.
Are you a planner or a pantser? How much do you know about your story before you start writing? How often does your plan change? Why does this work best for you?
Not a planner at all. Sometimes fifty-odd pages get jotted down in one evening, furiously chasing the inspiration; then nothing gets done for weeks on end. The story is all in my mind before I start so not much changes, only details. Sometimes things are added.
Not sure if it does work best for me but I can’t do any different, I’m a bit lazy!
Do deadlines motivate you or block you? How do you deal with them?
As an independently published writer I don’t have deadlines. I’m not sure I would be able to cope with them.
Do you schedule a certain amount of time for writing each day/week, or do you just work it in when you can? Would you like to change this, or does your current method work well for you?
As mentioned, it all depends by the time, place and mood. The Tiergarten Tales is a very emotional book and so will my future ones; planning would ruin the drama.
What was the most difficult part of writing this book? Why?
My laziness (for obvious reasons) and not being a native speaker; the English language is full of traps.
How do you develop a story idea? Do you always use the same method? Specifically, which do you develop first in your story building, the characters or the plot?
Some of them I dream. Characters first. Characters are very important in my writing.
What are your favourite genres when it comes to your own pleasure reading? Do you prefer to read ebooks or print?
Naturally LGBTQ+ Historical Fiction. Mary Renault, Madeleine Miller, Stephen Fry and all of the Nancy Mitford works. Also some Russian masterpieces: Anna Karenina, Fathers and Sons, The Master and Margarita.
Print. Definitely print. I love to touch a pristine book for the first time, holding it before reading it, packing it away for a holiday.
Does writing energise or exhaust you?
It energises me while I do the writing but I am exhausted at the end.
What is the best money you ever spent as an author?
My independent publisher and the cover designer. They have been wonderful.
What is your favourite under-appreciated novel?
‘The Materassi Sisters’ by Italian author Aldo Palazzeschi. It teaches a few lessons about the power and danger of beauty.
What do you find to be the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex?
I don’t know them very well.
What did you edit out of this book?
A vaudevillian character named Kirill who worked as a trapeze artist with a circus from Odessa, touring Prussia. My editor found him de trop. He was right though: he was a bit too ‘burlesque’.
How do you select the names of your characters?
My novels are set mainly in continental Europe, so I have to research them. They have to be sexy, sweet, nasty, ugly, depending on the characters. They need to be onomatopoeic.
What were your goals for this book? Did you achieve them?
To take the readers on a journey of the imagination through Prussia and Germany, through young people’s lives, loves and misdemeanours across the centuries. To tell of their emotions, fears and blusters.
What were you like in high school?
An absolute nightmare and always at the back of the class. Awesome in Latin, Italian and Philosophy though.
What are the three best things about you?
I keep my sadnesses for myself. Friends don’t deserve the sorry upheavals of my turbulent life.
What is your favourite ice cream flavour?
Chocolate and Lemon. Together!
If you could time-travel, where would you go and when?
Ancient Greece.
Who would play you in a movie about your life?
Either Colin Firth or Stanley Tucci.
Thank you.
Berlin. Its boys. Their stories
Book Title: The Tiergarten Tales
Author: Paolo G. Grossi
Publisher: The Conrad Press
Cover Artist: Charlotte Mouncey
Release Date: May 31, 2021
Genres: LGBTQ+ / Historical Fiction
Tropes: Boys’ friendship
Themes: Toxic masculinity and fatherly love
Length: 90 035 words / 384 pages
It is a standalone book and does not end on a cliffhanger.
Buy Links
Amazon US | Amazon UK | Waterstones
Blurb
Boys and men of Berlin. A captivating journey through their lives, love affairs and misdemeanours across the city’s turbulent history.
Felix and Walther bestride a deep class divide, forging an enduring bond in 1890s Prussia. Kaspar and Max navigate the fraught upheavals of the Weimar Republic by skilfully marketing the only commodity in demand. Young Kazimierz leaves his impoverished Silesian village and sets off on an epic journey to the Prussian capital, the seat of an ageing Frederick the Great. His heavenly beauty, endearing naivety and, ultimately, fate will transform his life once through the gates of the city.
Echoes within echoes. Circles within circles. Wealth, poverty and moral compromise. The privilege and toxic masculinity of the Prussian officer class.
Excerpt from The Lodger
Grey sky. It has been so for the last few days, or weeks, months perhaps. It had been his decision to move here so there is no one else to blame. That irks him no end, no
one to blame, no one to shout at.
Up here on the sixth floor one can barely hear the traf-
fic below and there is never much of it anyway; it’s early morning and he lives on a quiet and leafy street, upmarket, expensive, unaffordable for most people.
The air is warm and all he wears is pyjama bottoms; he prefers to walk around the apartment barefoot though he misses a soft thick carpet. But more often than not homes come with beautiful wooden parquet here: beautiful but uncomfortable for his feet which have lost some of the supple elasticity they used to have. Age, always age; he wishes he could log out from thinking about ageing.
Coffee time. He walks back inside through the French doors and inserts a capsule in the machine, the mechanical noise reassuring, another morning with the same routine.
Frau Greta is on her way and he needs to get out. It’s his rule number one or, rather, hers: get out of the cleaning lady’s way, you’re just a hindrance and when she took on the job she dropped a few stern hints which allowed no debate. Very German, he smiles.
No breakfast at home; he’ll walk to the Bismarck Bistro for mid-morning brunch. The temperature is warm enough to sit outside with just a light jacket and watch the world go by.
Except that it never does. The bistro is quaint and the fare of good quality but it never seems to be that busy, though the lack of a crowd has lately developed into a pleasure rather than a shortcoming.
Either way the bistro is close, reasonably priced, and on the edge of that vast and wild forest in the centre of the city peculiarly described as a ‘garten’.
He’s ready now and he feels pleasantly casual: slacks, a polo and a light blue jacket. A scarf around his neck protects him from the light breeze.
And sunglasses. He has spent a good chunk of his previous life in a part of the world where everyone wore sunglasses, outdoor and indoor. You could never see anyone’s eyes. Beautiful eyes, old eyes, blue, green, black, it didn’t matter; they were all behind dark lenses. All the fucking time.
But he has kept the habit; perhaps one day he’ll lose it. Habits come and go.
He strolls along the oak-lined paths before turning towards the bistro. Empty roads. Is that Sunday? Perhaps not, but the roads are always empty here anyway. Which he loves. Or not. He’s not yet sure.
When he reaches the bistro, he lazily scans the area: a few tables outside, almost empty as usual, one middle-aged guy tapping away at his laptop in the far corner.
He takes a seat and then remembers the free newspapers inside so he gets up again and strolls in to pick up a copy of the Morgenpost.
Ella is at the till. The owner greets him in a low voice and with a smile. She must do that with all the regular customers, he thinks, but he likes it as it makes him feel special even if he is dead sure he isn’t.
After three years his German has improved dramatically. He has subjected himself to a gruelling and eye-wateringly expensive blitz of private tuitions. He can now finish read- ing long-winded and often completely irrelevant opinion pieces. Nothing much ever seems to happen here anyway. He prefers books to news but he forgot to bring one along.
‘Good morning sir, what can I get you today?’
Not Ella’s voice. It sounds soft and warm, young, almost female though clearly not.
As he turns, a young man of perhaps less than twenty stands there with a smile and detectable eagerness. The eagerness of the new employee, the excitement of a new job, the freshness of a new chapter.
The boy gently shifts the wheat blond fringe along his forehead; a pair of black framed spectacles sits on his angular nose, the thick prescription lenses magnifying his light blue eyes.
‘Good morning, let’s see: a cappuccino for a start, I haven’t decided on the food, may I have a minute?’
‘Sure, sir, I’ll get the drink ready for you, take your time.’
The manners are calm and polite. Unassuming, he ponders.
After a few minutes the young man returns with the cappuccino and briefly stands there, clearly waiting for the order but with no impatient insistence.
Paolo G. Grossi was born and raised in Milan. Thirty years ago, he spent a weekend in London and decided to stay. Like most Italians, opera and the visual arts are his main passions. When not writing, you will surely find him attending a performance, visiting a museum and, of course, spending some time cycling in Berlin or around the Wannsee. He lives in London with his partner David.
The Tiergarten Tales is his first book.
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