Julie Canepa fictionalizes two real-life stories in debut novel
Sep. 13—PLATTSBURGH — The bride, Kitty Munk, is a raven-haired beauty stylish in an ocelot coat in her wedding photograph taken Nov. 12, 1949 in Prague, Czech Republic.
The groom, Vladimir Munk, gazes adoringly at her because he realizes he's the luckiest man on the planet.
How they got to their blissful nuptials is what author Julie Canepa brilliantly weaves in her debut novel, "The Missing Star."
Canepa will be doing a book signing 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 17 at Lake Forest Retirement Community, 8 Lake Forest Dr. in Plattsburgh.
"I was thinking that I could never have known the moment that I met Vladimir that we would go on this journey together that has been so amazing, from meeting him at Lake Forest, to accompanying him to Auschwitz, making the documentary (Return to Auschwitz: The Survival of Vladimir Munk), the documentary winning an Emmy, then finally having this book published, and still here, and being there (today) to have him receive this award from the Board of Regents," Julie said.
"It's the Yavner Citizen Award."
IN HER WORDS
While performing with her late singing partner Tim Hartnett in Oh! Betty, Julie met Vladimir at Lake Forest.
In 2018, she penned a series of articles on his life for the Lake Champlain Weekly.
About "The Missing Star," she writes:
The novel was three years in the making. I began writing it in the summer of 2020. I joined an online writing community, part of Seth Godin's Akimbo series, called Writers in Community (WIC). I would send out snippets I had written into the community and get feedback on them. The snippets turned into simple chapters which I would bring to Vladimir. He would read them and return to me with edits for accuracy.
Initially, the book was going to dive deeper into stories about Vladimir's childhood and time in the camps that we were not able to cover in the film. A conversation with Vladimir's daughter-in-law changed the book's course when it became clear that Vladimir's wife Kitty's stories were fascinating and also deserved to be told.
It was the perspective of a young girl, her childhood and life under German occupation and experiences as a prisoner in a concentration camp. "And thus began the conversion of a one-character memoir of into a novel, adding dialogue and delving into Kitty's childhood and her time in Terezin, the concentration camp where she met Vladimir. Vladimir knew Kitty's life story as intimately as he knew his own, but I think he read her chapters more quickly, in a rush to get to the next one about him!
In December of 2022, I traveled to Vladimir's hometown of Pardubice in Czech Republic. There was a dedication ceremony for the Jewish population of his hometown, all of whom had been deported to Terezin.
It was an honor to watch the unveiling of the plaque outside the school where the families had been housed for processing before being sent away, many of them never to return. I thought that walking the streets of Vladimir's hometown would help me accurately portray the place where he had grown up and lived with his parents. As I walked the streets of the town, I realized that he had so clearly described it that there was nothing I needed to add.
HISTORICAL FICTION
Julie self-published her book through Amazon, and it's available online for $19.95 paperback and $26.95 hardcover.
Locally, it's available at the Clinton County Historical Association located at 98 Ohio Ave. in Plattsburgh and at the Corner-Stone Bookshop located at 110 Margaret St. downtown.
Julie will give a reading and do a book signing at the bookstore on Sunday, Oct. 1, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., and she will give a talk at the BluSeed Studios in Saranac Lake
Sunday, October 15 at 3 p.m. The talk is titled "From Concept to Finished Product: Tips for Realizing Your Passion Project." Talkback will follow with the author and "The Missing Star" will be available for purchase and signing.
"It's about the creative process," she said.
"I mean I think that's really part of it, too. You keep responding to opportunities that come your way. You just never what is going to happen."
SYNOPSIS
It is 1943 during the height of WWII and seventeen-year-old Vlada Munk, a Czech Jew, has sworn off any thoughts of romance. Imprisoned by the Nazis within the walls of the Jewish ghetto at Terezin, his courtships have taken tragic turns as his love interests are forced aboard trains and deported to the "East."
Vlada throws himself into his work as the camp locksmith, but his resolve is tested on a spring day in 1943 when he spots the dark-haired and confident beauty, Kitty Löwi, walking down the street of the camp.
Vlada and Kitty's comfortable childhoods have been shattered by the illegitimate Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, and they bond over their shared commonalities: denied an education, forced to give up beloved family pets, and made to wear the yellow star publicly branding them as Jews, they then endure one more indignity. They are deported to the Terezin ghetto, a place where death is delayed, not deferred.
Vlada and Kitty's love is a bright spot amidst the camp's overcrowding, hunger, and daily fear of Nazi retribution. When Vlada is forced aboard a train bound for Auschwitz, Kitty is left behind in Terezin. Will they overcome all odds and honor their pledge to reunite in a world brighter than the one in which they've met? Based on a true coming-of-age story of love and loss, hope and survival, "The Missing Star" is ultimately the story of the resilient heart.
TWO TALES
The novel is historical fiction.
"It's not memoir," she said.
"It's not a firsthand reference. There are situations I know happened. I had to build the scenarios around those instances and create conversations mainly in order to move the story along.
"This is my debut novel. I self-published on Amazon. It wasn't really that difficult. I have had quite a few friends that have published. One of the most difficult thing about publishing your own book is the typesetting and to plug it into the Amazon system. I hired someone to do the typesetting, and he did a fabulous job."
After the book was loaded, Julie did find a typo.
"Kitty's story often took a back seat as their lives here in the United States evolved," she said.
"Everyone knows the horrors of Auschwitz, and he had a physical symbol of the tattoo. It was a reminder that he had gone through this with his family. Kitty didn't have that.
"She hadn't gone to Auschwitz, but she was still a young woman who had experienced being in prison basically for her early teen years and also she had her own set of stories from that experience.
"When I started to hear some of them and also realized how amazing she was by watching videos of her telling her story, it began to evolve. I still didn't know what form it was going to take.
"Then in order to tell her story properly, it took the form of a chapter about Vladimir, then a chapter about Kitty, and then they alternate throughout the entire book until in the end, they're together."
Vladimir and Kitty each experienced their individual traumas that refute Holocaust deniers backdropped against the rise nationally in anti-semitism.
After the success of the Emmy-award-winning film she co-produced with Paul Frederick and Bruce Carlin, Julie is happy to present these particular Holocaust stories in another medium.
"You understand more about their background and what happened to them," she said.
"It helps everybody. It helps bring out people's compassion."
Vladimir is excited about the buzz about this latest iteration of his life.
"He was very pleased when I brought him the first copy," Julie said.
"It literally was almost three years from the first few scribbles to the final. When I get a box of author copies to give to people and bring to signings, it's a neat feeling. Then people read it and they give me feedback and they tell me they can't put it down. It's not just anything that I expected.
"I could not have completed the book without my two editors, Paul Steinmetz and Lisa Lewis.
"This was definitely my cross to bear. I don't think I ever worked so many hours on anything in my life. It was a labor of love in that respect. It was certainly worth every moment."
Email: rcaudell@pressrepublican.com
Twitter@RobinCaudell
