Lisa Barr's Blog

*REPRINTED FROM www.wefoundtime.com with Zibby Owens


By Lisa Barr


A little glimpse into my former pre-coronavirus, life: Every day, after the kids left for school, my husband and I would meet at a nearby café for 20 minutes. No phone calls would be answered, no meetings scheduled, no emails replied to. During “coffee time,” our sole focus was always our relationship. These morning dates were more than just an easy way to satisfy my craving for a grande extra hot mocha with whip (although, that was usually there, too). In those precious, stolen moments, in a crowded café filled with busy people going about their own pre- pandemic lives, I felt seen. My husband and I treasured those daily opportunities to remember why we chose each other in the first place.

Our day dates felt a little hot, a little secretive, and yes, sometimes a little naughty. Like we were sneaking around. Once, a woman approached us and said, “I see you two here every morning, holding hands. I know it’s none of my business, but are you having an affair?”

“Yes,” I laughed. “An affair with my husband.”

We are not newlyweds. We have been together 17 years, each our second marriage, with three daughters between us. (Our home could also be referred to as “Drama Central”.) We’ve had our fair share of problems. And yet, our relationship is still full of passion and love. Having learned from our pasts, we know exactly what it takes to keep a relationship intact — and also what can break it.

I’m here to tell you: “date night” is bullshit. Yes, it’s a celebrated tradition among many couples, but as I see it, it’s just another Hallmark holiday, manufactured and forced, like Valentine’s Day. For many couples, “date night” comes with a long list of requirements: Make a dinner reservation, find an expensive babysitter who will (hopefully) put the kids to bed, dress up, force adult conversation and then cap off the night with sex. It’s no wonder that “date night” rarely seems to live up to all of the glimmering, high expectations that surround it. If you ignore your marriage six days a week, one night out cannot erase the distance that has been created.

Plus, by the end of a long day, many women (especially those with young kids), would rather have hot sleep than hot sex.

Our marriage works better when we date during the day. “Date day” presses pause on all of life’s minutia. For a few moments, we’re able to see one another out in the sunlight, before being drained by the inevitable demands the day will bring. For us, “date day” doesn’t just stop when we finish our coffee. Throughout the day, even when it seems like there isn’t enough time, I let my husband know that I am thinking about him. And he has learned to do the same. This is where emojis come in handy! With a tap of a thumb, I can send a heart or a kiss or an eggplant to tell him he is on my mind. This is sexy. This is connection. This is foreplay.


Of course, there are certainly days when we have our coffee time and emoji exchanges, and at the end of the day I would still rather check out and watch a TV show by myself. Yet our established routine takes resentment out of the picture.

Admittedly, the recent “shelter-in-place” orders have created a bit of an obstacle for our “date day” routine. This virus is a serious cock-blocker. There have been countless moments during this endless lockdown in which I have wanted to slay my husband. And there are none of our usual emoji exchanges, because he's literally sitting right next to me. (Did you know that during quarantine, a top divorce attorney said there has been a 50 percent rise in filings? I hate to say it, but I’m not surprised.)

As the days began to blur together — is it Wednesday or Saturday? — I realized that my marriage needed aboost of vitamin A. A, as in attention. As in ASAP. Without our consistent day dates, that absence of resentment that I was so proud of before started to build. Competition (I did this, you didn’t do that) replaced romance, and we became blind to one another, even in the same damn room. We knew we needed to regroup to recover our mojo.

Now, we wake up before the kids. We shower, put on clean clothes, go for a drive, order curbside coffee from our favorite café, and take a long beach walk (properly distanced, of course). We divide and conquer the dishes, the laundry, the meals, the house details. Believe me, my husband has never looked as hot to me as he does unloading the dishwasher.

We made 5:00 pm our official, no-matter-what happy hour. Bourbon for two — yes, please. We’ve established boundaries in our home, boundaries with our kids, and boundaries with each other. The stupid fights that start over nothing have ceased because we’ve given ourselves the chance to thwart the bullets before they fly.

“Honey,” I said earlier today. “I’m losing it. Totally losing it. I can’t write. I can’t get a grip.”

Because we’ve practiced, he listened.

When I finally finished my rant, he said, “I hear you and I know exactly what you need. Go. Get out of here. My office is totally empty. Take some time to get your stuff done. Stay off your phone. I’ve got the laundry. I’ll cover the kids, the dog, all the shit you do.”

Full stop right here. This guy is so getting laid.

Therein lies the power of “date day.” Whether it’s back in real life, or throughout this apocalyptic, altered existence: it’s not about saving up all your romance ammo for a designated special occasion. Being seen in real-time on a daily basis is a powerful aphrodisiac — a daily supplement necessary for any relationship to survive, and ultimately thrive.

Lisa Barr is the award-winning author of THE UNBREAKABLES and FUGITIVE COLORS. This piece is featured on www.wefoundtime.com with Zibby Owens

Successful albeit intensely secretive husband wires all of your money out of the country, forges your name, abandons you and your two young children, leaving you with less than $1 in your bank account, and then he vanishes—never to be seen nor heard from again. It’s as though he never existed …

A page-turner, right? Gone Girl-Meets-Not Without My Daughter. Except that it’s not fiction, it’s my story, the most haunting nightmare of my real life, not my writer life. More importantly, it is the deepest childhood pain belonging to my two daughters who are now thriving young women.

I have been a journalist for more than 25 years, a one-time investigative reporter and editor, and among my many gigs, I covered terrorism in the Middle East for nearly seven years. I have been blessed with an illustrious and fulfilling career, having interviewed presidents, prime ministers, VIPS, and celebrities. And yet, the one story that I wanted to write—had to write—I couldn’t.

How does a writer, who has kept a journal since she was eight, whose two favorite fictional characters that shaped her life and writing—Harriet the Spy and Nancy Drew—sit on the most suspenseful, nail-biting story and muzzle it?

I was literally (and physically) exploding inside.

But there were two little girls whose needs were much bigger than mine, who desperately deserved “normal” and not a Mommy putting out a “Tell All”. I had to sit on my hands to prevent them from writing my back story.

And so it went.

I eventually remarried a wonderful man who adopted my daughters, raised them as his own (and gifted me a third daughter), turning my girls’ young damaged lives around with unconditional love—a sharp contrast to the one who abandoned them without a goodbye. I wrote a novel, Fugitive Colors, a suspenseful tale of stolen art, love, lust, deception and revenge on the ‘eve’ of WWII, enjoyed an extensive book tour, continued working as a freelance writer and started a popular parenting blog. All of this gave me great personal satisfaction … but there was that story, the one hiding in the shadows, still following me.

Nearly seven years after my ex-husband’s disappearance, my daughters were then in junior high. I asked them if I could write “our” story. They said, Yes, only if we can pick our names. Done.

I spent the next two years fervently writing a memoir, and it was cathartic. I laid it all out there—three years of survival—sleeping three to four hours a night as a Single Full-time-Working Mom striving to stay afloat and remain Fun Mommy while fighting a vindictive ex-husband in five major courts—a man who never once showed his face or alluded to his whereabouts. I was combating a ghost. The memoir was a story of our trials and tribulations but really a triumph-of-the-spirit tale—surviving and ultimately thriving against all odds.

The book was done, ready to go out, and then my daughters, who had then started high school, said, “We changed our minds. Mommy, please don’t publish this book. It will be SO embarrassing.”

Bam. There it was—my kids or my work? The answer was obvious. Two years of writing down the tubes. Of course, I would never publish the book against their will. It was not just my story—it was theirs. But that piece of me, that literary spirit, the one that yearned to speak out to women, to tell them you can survive anything if you had to, was about to be shelved. And it hurt.

I called an author friend who had a similarly shocking tale that turned into a best seller. “Fiction … but not really,” she whispered, off the record. The plot was her life camouflaged as fiction. She said, “The same thing happened to me. I wanted to write my story but I had a young daughter and was so worried about how it would impact her development. So ultimately I dumped the memoir idea, reframed it, changed the narrative, keeping the same pain and gain. And it was enough.”

Would it be enough? Damn, I had to give it a shot.

So I adopted my friend’s genre of the Fictional-Memoir—and just turned in my latest manuscript. My story, and yet not my story. My ex-husband’s secret dealings, but not his at all. This novel has all the goodies—lies, deceit, intrigue, passion—my life, yet not my life.

As I hit “###” on my computer, signaling The End of my novel, I thought to myself, no one will know but this tale really is my beginning. My way-cooler-than-I-am protagonist provided me with answers to Where did he go, and why did he disappear? Jessica Roth, my determined alter ego, a savvy young journalist who follows a compelling story until the end—did what no therapist could ever do—she gave me closure.

—

Lisa Barr is the author of the award-winning thriller Fugitive Colors, and the editor and creator of the popular parenting blog GIRLilla Warfare, www.girlillawarfare.com.

Twitter: @lisabarr18
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FugitiveColors
Book Site: www.fugitivecolorsthenovel.com

"Fugitive Colors" (Arcade Publishing), a novel by veteran journalist Lisa Barr, is a suspenseful tale of stolen art, love, lust, friendship, jealousy, and revenge set on the "eve" of World War II. The novel tells the story of young Julian Klein, who gives up his Orthodox religion to move from Chicago to Paris to paint freely, only to find that he must pay the ultimate price for following his passion.

"Fugitive Colors" won the Independent Publisher Book Awards gold medal for "Best Literary Fiction 2104," first prize for "Best Unpublished Manuscript" at the Hollywood Film Festival (Opus Magnum Discovery Award), and was listed on "HEEB" magazine's "Top Ten" Books for 2014. Barr's eight-city book tour kicks off this week in Columbus, Ohio.

Carol Haggas of Booklist writes: "Masterfully conceived and crafted, Barr's dazzling debut novel has it all: passion and jealousy, intrigue and danger."

The novel has been optioned for movie development by Hollywood producer Arthur Sarkissian (Rush Hour trilogy, While You Were Sleeping).

I spoke with Lisa Barr about "Fugitive Colors."

Mary Pauline Lowry (MPL): You've worked as a journalist for more than twenty years--as an editor/reporter for The Jerusalem Post and the Chicago Sun-Times, and as managing editor of Moment Magazine and Today's Chicago Woman. In addition, you've freelanced for numerous magazines including Vogue. What inspired you to write a novel?

Lisa Barr (LB): It was 1991, and at that time I was serving as the managing editor of Today's Chicago Woman, and I was sent on assignment to cover the "Degenerate Art" Exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago. Entering the museum, I literally stopped in my tracks--I had found my story. What I saw at that exhibit would later morph into the historical-fiction tale of my first novel, "Fugitive Colors." Even as a daughter of a Holocaust survivor, I never knew about the Nazis' relentless mission to destroy the avant-garde--particularly painters. Hitler and his henchmen went after the German Expressionists with a vengeance never seen before. I am a writer not an artist, but I needed to understand what made someone like Hitler both a madman and an artist. For Hitler, his hatred for the avant-garde was not political--it was personal. I wanted to--had to--explore this in depth. Once the idea began percolating, I would lie awake at night as the story began to unfold in my head. I was jotting down notes at 3 a.m. (It drove my hubby nuts!), but I knew that I was going to utilize my journalism skills to turn a little-known part of Holocaust history into good fiction. It became an issue of "no" choice: I HAD to write this novel.


MPL: "Fugitive Colors"-- a historical novel set in the early '30s -- tells the story of Julian, an American young man who renounces Orthodox Judaism to pursue a career as a painter in Paris and is drawn into the drama and conflict around the Nazis' efforts to confiscate art labeled as "degenerate." Can you talk a bit more about the Nazis' confiscation of more than 16,000 works of modern art and their efforts to label such art as "degenerate," as well as how you used that historical situation as the backdrop to your story?

LB: Hitler's first mission, once in power, was to destroy those artists, architects, entertainers, writers, philosophers, and teachers who did not comply with the "Aryan ideal" of "What is ART." Hitler, a lover of 19th Century realism, was determined to eradicate modern art and artists--who he considered to be the degenerate segment of German society on the grounds that their artwork was "un-German and Jewish Bolshevist" in nature.

For any tyrant, this is the segment of society that must be quashed first: Get rid of the idea-makers, and then go after everyone else. These acts of 'cultural terrorism' were not purely Anti-Semitism at first--it was truly about the art--the avant-garde--particularly the Expressionists. This movement of art/artists terrified the Nazis because it was taking the world by storm, and The Third Reich was determined to destroy some of the greatest artists and confiscate some of the most important artwork of our time. And later, they would auction off huge quantities of this so-called Degenerate Art -- particularly with the help of Switzerland, who served as the Nazis bankers/auctioneers/enablers--to fund the Nazis' war machine.

I also began to explore the concept of rejection and shame. There is no greater shame than being an artist without talent. One of my main characters--Felix Von Bredow--like Adolf Hitler, wanted other artists to suffer be cause of his own lack of talent. I believe what was really going down culturally in Germany in 1933 was this: A division had been created--not of men, but of talent; the haves and have-nots--equally dangerous.

Ironically, Hitler's War began with art, and it's incredible to me that nearly 70 years later, stolen art is still making front-page news. I always say if only art could talk ... thousands of stolen paintings have a hidden past just waiting for the truth to be exposed.


Lisa Barr

MLP: How did you go about researching "Fugitive Colors"?

LB: I knew everything historical in this novel had to be true, verified, fact-checked. The research alone took me more than four years. I traveled to Europe, I researched testimonials, I spoke to survivors, I read everything I could get my hands on. I also interviewed the grandson of an aristocratic Nazi family for hours. I spoke to those who were investigating stolen art, as well as to those whose artwork had been stolen. I did not begin writing until I felt satisfied that no stone had been left unturned. My main characters are composites of real artists, real art dealers, real Nazis. And then ... I was put on bed-rest for nine months (yes, you read that right) while pregnant with my eldest daughter - that's when I wrote "Fugitive Colors," from my bed.

MPL: Wow! And did you finish the book before your eldest daughter was born?

LB: Yes -- I always meet my deadline! My daughter Noa and the first draft of my novel were born together, but then of course were the slew of revisions that followed. I didn't want to put "Fugitive Colors" out into the world until I was satisfied. And I'm a tough customer. I needed to make sure the characters, the truth, and the dramatic tension, were aligned. The fine-tuning was the real work.

MPL: You write very beautifully about both art and the artist's passion for his/her work. Do you have a background in visual art or art history? How did you learn or teach yourself to write about visual art in such a compelling way?

LB: I love art, but I have no background in art, yet I do have a strong background in investigative journalism, and an insatiable curiosity. I LOVE the research part; the a-ha moments that come with it. My goal as a writer was to teach the history through osmosis - for my reader to walk away with a new understanding, but not be clobbered with it; rather my goal was to Bring It On through fiction. Also art is not visual, it's sensual. It's how a painting makes you feel. I knew for the art aspect to be realistic I had to write a novel that went the distance emotionally. I wanted to create a story, a thriller, filled with drama, love, lust, friendship and revenge to convey the most important quality of any artist: Passion. The story of "Fugitive Colors" asks the reader: How far would you go for your passion--would you kill for it? Would you steal for it? Would you destroy others who get in your way? Would you protect it at all costs? This is what drives the novel, and passion is what drives me.

MPL: I'm always curious about the plotting of thrillers. Did you plot "Fugitive Colors" before you wrote it, or did the plot unfurl as you drafted the book?

LB: It is a knotted combination of plotting, a little bit of internal craziness, and being generous enough to let your characters lead the way, and drive. The writer only has so much control ... after that it's all in your characters' hands, and in their hearts. The goal for every writer is for his or her reader to say at the end of the day: "Damn, it's way past my bed-time, but just one more chapter ..."

How Far Would You Go For Your Passion?
By Lisa Barr

In 1991, I was serving as the managing editor of a women’s magazine based in Chicago. I was sent on an assignment to cover the "Degenerate Art" Exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago. Entering the museum, I literally stopped in my tracks -- I had found my story. Even as a daughter of a Holocaust survivor, I never knew about the Nazis relentless mission to destroy the avant-garde -- particularly painters. Hitler and his henchmen went after the German Expressionists with a vengeance never seen before, and I was blown away by what I discovered.

At the time, I was already 150 pages into writing my first manuscript about young terrorists, but after that exhibit, I simply stopped writing that novel. I couldn’t sleep. I remember staying up all night, staring out the window – thinking who were those artists whose works were stolen, whose hands were tied, and whose canvases were destroyed and confiscated?

What if someone had stolen my computer, smashed my printer, took all my research, forbade me from entering bookstores, and destroyed all my past work, as though I never existed?

What if someone decided that my passion had to be quashed, or else?

No sleep morphed into even less sleep, as I began to outline a story. I wanted to take this unknown part of Holocaust history and somehow bring it alive through fiction; to usher in the hard history through the back door. As a writer, I love to teach, but first I knew I had to learn.

I needed to go back and really get a feel for what it was like to be a young artist in the early ‘30s, living in the whirlwind of German Expressionism.

Expressionism is not about painting the subject, rather it’s about painting how the subject makes you feel. It was a touchy-feely movement of art – chaotic, wild, colorful, fantasy-like – a movement that went against the Aryan grain of organization and control, but one that was taking the world by storm.

I delved into past interviews, historical accounts, books, personal histories, documents, paintings – I am a writer, not a painter, but in order for my work to be real I needed to actually feel, smell, touch a canvas, as though I, too, were there. I needed to write this through the eyes of a young artist whose paintings were being stolen out from under him, and experience what that was really like.

The hardest part of being a writer or an artist is having the inclination but not the talent. Rejection, as we writers know all too well, is the deepest of all artistic pain, and this is where Hitler came in.

For Hitler, his mission to destroy the avant-garde was not political -- it was personal. Yes, Hitler before he became "Hitler" was a painter. He had been rejected twice from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. He resorted to selling painted postcards on the street and later house painting – his dream of living as a celebrated painter never being realized. He had been told repeatedly that he was not good enough, and to go find another trade to survive.

One wonders how things might have been, had he been “accepted.”

I truly believe that these early rejections set the stage for what would come later…. the rape of Europe’s masterpieces, and the destruction of artists who didn’t play by Hitler’s rules. Once real power was in Hitler’s hands, he decided what was good enough, what was considered art.

It was no secret in Germany that Hitler despised the avant-garde -- particularly Cubists, Dadaists, and Surrealists, and especially his homegrown German Expressionists, who fell into two groups of artists – Die Brucke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) – originating from Berlin, Dresden and Munich – and labeled them “Degenerate artists”. Among the name “Degenerates” were Beckmann, Kirchner, Marc, Dix, Nolde and Heckel. Supplies stores were shut down, galleries were boarded up, museums were closed down, artists who did not comply with the Aryan rule book were forbidden to exhibit and sell their art. Artists were forced to hide; others fled, many committed suicide and many others were imprisoned and murdered.

Hitler’s war began with the destruction of the avant-garde, and now ironically, 70 years later, this is the piece of Holocaust history still making front-page news.

This past November, Germany dropped its looted art bombshell: a cache of 1,500 masterpieces (Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, among them) worth more than $1 billion was discovered in a German apartment. Prior to that, in October, it was announced that Dutch museums had uncovered 139 artworks “likely” looted by the Nazis. Last month, Canada announced the “hunt” was on for looted art hiding in its museums and private collections. And just a few days later, Austria announced that a house in Salzburg is being “probed” for stolen art (coincidentally owned by the Gurlitt family, the very same owners of the art-looted apartment in Germany). A week ago, France returned over 100 stolen paintings.

One wonders if the critically-panned Clooney-led production of “The Monuments Men” had anything to do with the recent “outings.” Despite its Hogan’s Heroes-ish treasure hunt theme, the film did succeed in bringing this part of Holocaust history to the masses and further expose the world’s dirty little secret: The Nazis were not the only bad guys in town.

One thing is clear: This country-by-country exposure will soon travel from Europe to our own doorstep – where similar murky “unknown” histories of beloved artworks hanging in major museum and private collections will surely be unveiled.

Like everything else, it’s all just a matter of time.

While we are busy uncovering the lost histories of paintings worth millions still residing in the slippery hands of “The Alleged and The Guilty” – let us not forget the plight of the artists themselves. Paintings have a canvas, but passion has a face. Behind every “surviving” Picasso, were also scores of young, aspiring artists whose potential brilliance – whose expression -- will never see the light of a canvas.

Lisa Barr is the author of the award-winning debut novel, Fugitive Colors (Arcade), a suspenseful tale of an artist’s revenge on the “eve” of WWII.

Blog was reprinted from the Jewish Book World publication.

Hey Friends --
Tuesday, October 1 is the official launch of my debut novel "FUGITIVE COLORS" in bookstores nationwide -- and on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound --the Audio version will be released on Oct. 29.

And there is a Goodreads Giveaway -- so have at it!

I'm SO excited, scared, and everything in-between. Ten years of hard work -- research, edits, the whole shebang -- is now behind me. Heading to New York to kick off the Big Launch -- and then my hometown gigs (Deerfield, Oakbrook, Glenview, Burr Ridge), and then off to Ohio, Houston, Denver, New Jersey ...

New York Schedule:
Tuesday, Oct 1 in Manhasset (Barnes & Noble), Wednesday, Oct. 2 at The Strand in Greenwich Village, Thursday in Larchmont (Anderson's) ... If you're in the 'hood -- come for a meet 'n' greet -- would LOVE it.

And be sure to check out my new site: http://www.fugitivecolorsthenovel.com
Most importantly, I welcome your feedback on my book. Feel free to review. Oh, and most importantly, Author Recommendation: "Fugitive Colors" goes best with red wine! Enjoy ... xoxo LB