Learn all about my book Defy! This week, we’ll continue talking about the characters, focusing on the minor ones! Let’s get to it!
Who?
Like I mentioned above, this week, it’s going to be a continuation of last week’s post about characters. Now, with the main three out of the way, we’ll touch on some of the side characters. I’ve picked out two characters who pop up enough and gave them a backstory – Acadia, and Emmerich. But, just making a post about the two of them wouldn’t really be that long, nor would it be an interesting read. So, I decided to add just a little about some other characters who pop up and just leave a brief description of them and their part in the book. Let’s get to it!
Acadia Laurent
Born in 1918, Acadia Bellarose Laurent was the daughter of two middle-class shop-keepers who owned a convenience store in the heart of Paris, France. Born an only child, Acadia spent most of her free time working in her parent’s store, losing out on many opportunities to socialize with others and advance her studies. This was very disappointing to Acadia who had hoped to become a journalist, but never had the grades or money to attend university to get a degree. However, Acadia managed to make a few connections with their more higher paying customers, which, by chance included Annabelle Dietmar. For about 10 years, Acadia regularly sold materials to Annabelle Dietmar and her father for Actualités Dietmar. In 1939, just as the war was beginning and about a month before the occupation, Annabelle, who was now friends with Acadia, offered Acadia a job at Actualités Dietmar to be her assistant. Acadia hesistated at first, worried over leaving her family alone without any help, but her parents advised Acadia to take the job and pursue her dreams.
We first briefly meet Acadia in Chapter 2 “Truth”, but get to know her a bit better in Chapter 10 “Nothing”. It is also in that chapter, we get to see her relationship with Annabelle a bit more. She views Annabelle as a mentor but also, given their young ages, they developed a close friendship with one another. Her personal life isn’t a big a topic I write about in the book, given that she’s a minor characters in the book, but you’ll learn more about her in the sequel!
Kapitän Conrad Emmerich
Born in 1908, Conrad Julius Emmerich was the second son of a decorated German general and a german nurse. As the second son, Emmerich always competed for attention, his older brother getting all the attention of his father. He decided that in order to make himself look better in the eyes of his father, he had to constantly work against his brother and undermine any of his brother’s achievemnts. This perhaps contributed to his vile nature, setting him up at an early age to be a cunning and disgustingly disillusioned person. Around 1935, Emmerich, entranced by the propaganda of the Nazi party, joined the military and met Albrecht Fitzi while in basic training. For the years prior to the war, both worked in close proximity to one another, becoming good friends (on the surface, but Emmerich didn’t know that). When the Nazis took over France, Emmerich was stationed in Paris as a Captain of the SS alongside Albrecht and routinely worked with Annabelle (more so, terrorized her and her employees).
We first hear about him in Chapter 5 “Questions”, but get to really see him in action in Chapter 6 “Underground”. We get to see how annoying, pretntious, and outright paranoid Emmerich can be. We also get a glimpse at his attitude towards the French people, which to say the least is centered around disgust and a belief that they are below him. He later appears in other chapters, like “Opinions” and “Amour”. Don’t worry, your favorite person to hate is going to be back in the sequel, so stay tuned!
Other Minor Characters!
- Wilhelm Dietmar – Annabelle’s Father (there was a lot about him last week, but I wanted to include him again!)
- Abbé Bernard Bouveresse – I wrote some about him already in a past post, but again, I wanted to add him to the list!
- Gerda Erdmann – Yes, she has a last name, but, looking back, I guess I never included it. She’s a young woman from Germany, pretty much the result of the Hitler Youth Programs. She’s around the same age as Acadia, however, they definitly had different upbringings. Will we ever see her again? Maybe…
- Pierre LaRue – One of the many people that just (spoiler alert!) dies in “Independence”. We don’t really get to know much about him, but he worked as a journalist in Annabelle’s company. He also had a girlfriend, Louisa, and was going to marry her when the war ended, but alas, I killed him off. Muhahaha….
- Daniel Grandis – Another person I killed (again, spoiler, sorry) in “Independence”. He’s a worker in the newspaper room and a close friend of Acadia. Nothing else is really known about him, given the fact he died like a page after he was introduced. Will I include him in the sequel? You’ll just have to wait and see…
I think that wraps it up for characters – I’ve talked about the fictional and real ones, as well as giving you some insight into them and their backgrounds. Is there something else you wanted to learn about? Is there a character who you want to know more about or someone I didn’t talk enough about? Let me know and I can make a new post later – for now, there is where we’ll leave the character discussion!
Come back next week for the beginning of a new topic – in depth behind-the-scenes of each chapter. I’ll talk about what I was thinking and what I wanted you to gain from each chapter.
See you next week!
L.A.