April Smith’s new novel, A Star for Mrs. Blake, is based on a curious footnote in United States history. In the early 1930s, amid an economic Depression with no end in sight, the government chose to look back to World War One, and to honor the mothers of the men who had fallen with a free trip to their French and Belgian cemeteries. The “Gold Star Mothers” who made these pilgrimages came from all walks of life, and their journeys were eagerly reported by newspapers desperate for a feel-good story. But what would it have been like to make such a trip -- especially for women who might never have been much beyond their hometowns before? Smith, usually a writer of thrillers, was intrigued by the life-changing potential that such a journey might represent for a group of bereaved, middle-aged mothers. We caught up with her to ask about the challenges of creating fiction out of history, and of bringing an all-but-forgotten story to life.

BIOGRAPHILE: How did you first discover the story of the "Gold Star Mothers" and their pilgrimage to France? What sparked your interest in the subject?

APRIL SMITH: A good friend named Nicholas Hammond, who is an actor and one of the original children in the film "The Sound of Music" (he played Friedrich), told me about his father, Col. Thomas Hammond, who had accompanied the Gold Star Mothers pilgrimages to France in the 1930s. Thomas Hammond was a young graduate of West Point when he received the plum assignment of traveling on a federally sponsored program with mothers who had lost their sons in World War One and were buried overseas, on first-class tours to Paris, Verdun, and ultimately the American cemetery at Meuse-Argonne. By a wonderful stroke of luck Thomas Hammond kept a diary of his experiences. Nicholas showed me the diary and that was the beginning. Seeing that journey through the eyes of a young man gave a unique perspective to this forgotten footnote in history. I knew it was a story I had to tell.

BIOG: Once you had made this start, how did your research proceed? Did you have to do a lot of digging in archives to find out more?

AS: Yes, it took twenty-five years to gather all the pieces and weave them into a narrative. First I did primary research at the National Archives in Washington, DC, reading through old tissue-thin files of War Department documents that detailed the itineraries and behind-the-scenes organization of the Gold Star Mothers pilgrimages. This was in the 1980s before the Internet when there was no other access to the material. Then I interviewed women who were living at the time in the Gold Star Mothers retirement home in Southern California. Later I corresponded with a group of Navy moms whose sons were deployed in Afghanistan, who shared their experiences of having a son at war.

I’ve also traveled to every location in the book – NYC, Paris, Verdun, Meuse-Argonne, Boston and Maine -- where I interviewed islanders who had lived through the Depression, including a 104-year-old librarian. Local historical societies in Maine, Boston, and Washington, DC have been a big help.

BIOG: Did you base your characters on specific people, or composites of people? How did you choose who you wanted to focus on, if so -- and how did they evolve from their real-life models into your characters?

AS: Thomas Hammond is the only real-life character in the book and all the biographical details about his life are true. He did abandon a career in the infantry in order to pursue diplomacy after touring with the Gold Star Mothers. All the other characters are pure fiction.

BIOG: Were you ever tempted to write this up as a historical account? What did fiction offer that a history might not?

AS: I’m not a historian, I’m a dramatist, so that was not an option. Fiction offers freedom from time and form (you create your own) as well as the exciting chance to create a unique voice with which to tell the story. Your only allegiance is to the story.

BIOG: How does the process of writing this kind of fact-based fiction differ from the other novels you have written?

AS: The Special FBI Agent Ana Grey novels demand a structure that is based on mystery and suspense. The laying of clues, the unexpected plot turn, the subtle amping up of stakes as you go along ... and there obviously has to be something unsolved and a hero to solve it. They’re also written in a minimalist style that pushes the reader forward. I used many of those techniques in telling the story of the Gold Star Mothers – it’s been called “a page turner” by Rob Taub in the Huffington Post because you are swept along by a multitude of switch-ups, changes of tempo and points of view, as well as surprise developments you don’t see coming. All the momentum you’d have in a thriller without the traditional “mystery.” Instead, in literary fiction, we have what we call “secrets.” As for the facts themselves, I’ve always been careful about accuracy in my novels so getting the historical aspects was second nature.

BIOG: What surprised you the most in the process of writing this novel -- about the story itself, or about your writing process?

AS: How long it took!