Travel to Berlin with the Circus of Mirrors
Berlin with the Circus of Mirrors
Julie Owen Moylan takes us to Berlin today….. to a Circus of Mirrors no less…………
Map of locations in The Circus of Mirrors
Circus of Mirrors is an epic saga of two sisters, Leni and Annette which is set in Berlin over forty years.
Julie Owen Moylan
Map of locations in The Circus of Mirrors
This is quite the daunting task any writer as the entire city changes so much during that time.
Map of locations in The Circus of Mirrors
The book opens in 1926 at a time of great hedonism and I chose Jägerstrasse to set the Babylon Circus nightclub as I was fascinated by a real-life cabaret club that had previously existed there. Die Weisse Maus or The White Mouse Club opened in 1919 and had closed its doors by 1923 but was renowned for its masked customers.
The White Mouse Club (c) Unknown
Map of locations in The Circus of Mirrors
The concept seemed to me so interesting that it inspired my creation of the Babylon Circus cabaret club where Leni goes to work and meets the resident pianist, Paul. This triggers a love affair and a series of events that will colour the next forty years.
Map of locations in The Circus of Mirrors
The sisters live in the Kreuzberg part of Berlin just off Lindenstrasse while Paul has an apartment on Munzstrasse, an area that was renowned for a great number of pregnant prostitutes at the time that were known locally as “Munzis”
Map of locations in The Circus of Mirrors
Colouring in a life for Leni and Paul I was able to imagine them spending their summer in the Tiergarten which is Berlin’s main park and dates at a local cinema, the Gloria Palast which no longer exists. Most of my research took place virtually with most of these places becoming unrecognizable as Berlin was reduced to rubble in the post-war period and then rebuilt.
Map of locations in The Circus of Mirrors
Using a combination of old documentary footage, vintage photographs and old maps, I was able to put together a mental image of their neighbourhood and how those buildings would have looked.
The second part of the book is set in 1947 and of course I was writing about a very different city. I wanted to show that the Babylon Circus still existed but of course would be much changed having survived the war. Annette is now grown up and spending her nights dancing with American soldiers. I was able to use Clärchens Ballroom as one of the venues for this which still exists today on Auguststrasse and has not been completely modernised. It is one of the few places that you can experience a glimpse into old Berlin.
Map of locations in The Circus of Mirrors
The post-war period saw the division of the city into allied sectors and a great deal of research went into trying to understand the exact lines of division and how the sectors differed from each other. Kreuzberg was in the American sector while the Babylon Circus nightclub in Jägerstrasse was now in the Soviet sector.
Map of locations in The Circus of Mirrors
In 1947 we were seeing the very beginnings of the Cold War and as such it was still possible to cross sectors with some ease as long as you adhered to any different rules such as curfews that might apply. Most of the city was of course destroyed by the bombing and housing was very hard to come by. It was complicated to recreate this world although there is a wonderful Rossellini movie called Germany, Year Zero which was actually filmed in the ruins of Berlin during 1946 and was enormously helpful to recreate that period.
Map of locations in The Circus of Mirrors
The final part of the book takes us to the summer of 1961 when the relationship between the sisters takes an unexpected turn and the events of 1926 are finally uncovered. In the city of Berlin, the cold war has increased in intensity and the building of the wall over the course of a night took everyone by surprise. To suddenly find that there was no way to get from one side of the city to the other caused families to be separated and a great deal of panic. The wall remained in place until 1989.
Berlin is a fascinating city to write about as each time period throws up an entirely new world to write about and my complicated sisters have different adventures both good and bad in each of these worlds.
Circus of Mirrors will be released on September 12th.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: The Circus of Mirrors
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