Peace Stick

Peace Stick is a fictional treatment of real events: 13-year-old East German schoolgirls dealing with the threat of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Ingrid Richter and Sylvie Witzenhause create a lucky charm - a Peace Stick - to protect themselves and the world. The story begins with a reunion between five mid-60s German friends in Erfurt in 2016. Ingrid is guest of honor, back from New Zealand for a working holiday. Chatter turns to life in the socialist German Democratic Republic and their most shocking experience: teacher Tomas Schulmann revealing World War III was about to start. We timeslip to October 23, 1962; Ingrid's life in Erfurt has been disturbed by a compulsory visit to the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald. Learning that the crematoria were built a few streets from home triggers a series of nightmares. The distress is compounded when students are told about the Soviet - US stand-off over nuclear missile sites in Cuba. It could lead to Armageddon if the United States launches a strike. The story follows Ingrid and Sylvie over a week. They are frustrated by the implications of the GDR's Soviet alliance. Why should young lives be at risk? Feeling powerless, Ingrid and Sylvie seek a glucksbringer - a lucky charm. They settle on the peace stick. The world will stay safe if the peace stick is found in the school wall each morning. Perhaps a silly ritual, yet comfort for students desperate to survive. A subplot develops as Ingrid's anxieties are inflamed when Cuban friends - trainee schoolteachers - return home to fight the Americans. Her older heart-throb - Pedro Barios - is also under scrutiny from the secret police. An agent's obsession envelops Ingrid's parents - Angela and Dieter. This involves a controversial stamp Pedro is selling for fares to Cuba. The theme allows an exploration of the Stasi, everyday life in Erfurt, German post-war guilt and Ingrid's escalating anxieties. The timeline for the crisis is filtered through chess and drinking sessions for Tomas Schulmann and his friend, Jurgen Grau. They are survivors from World War I, yet fear the next war most. These characters debate the political moves of Nikita Khrushchev, John Kennedy and the United Nations. They speculate on the political thinking that became apparent after the event. Ingrid and Sylvie do not rely on their daily checks of the peace stick. They seek more information about nuclear attacks and radiation fall out. An historic citadel could help them survive American bombers; they organize supplies and time trial runs from school and home to the safety of the brick walls. Their hopes rise and fall with updates from their teacher until the end of the crisis on October 28. The peace stick worked - according to Ingrid and Sylvie. The story returns to the Erfurt reunion where the males are scornful of the luck of the Peace Stick - which was left in place. Sylvie takes Ingrid back to the school where students secretly continued the tradition during later world crises. The old stick was replaced by a new measure for the Doomsday Clock; an indicator of the troubled times the world had negotiated without resorting to nuclear weapons.

About the Author :
Stephen Johnson is an Australian-born writer, journalist, TV producer, kayaker and traveler who now plots thrillers in Auckland, New Zealand. His debut novel, Tugga's Mob, was inspired by three seasons working as a tour guide and driver on double decker buses around Europe in the '80s. Tugga's Mob was a finalist in the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards for Best First Novel. The second crime fiction novel, Boxed, was published in November 2021 and is set in the world of animal rights activism and the Melbourne media. Both books are published by Clan Destine Press. Stephen's first historic novel, Peace Stick, goes behind the Iron Curtain during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. It features two East German schoolgirls dealing with a world on the edge of a nuclear abyss. One of the former students now lives in Auckland, where Peace Stick will be published in October to mark the 60th anniversary.

Review :
Tugga's Mob - ISBN 978-0-6485567-7-0:"An enjoyable thriller entwined with the classic antipodean OE. Well written with its mix of prose, diary entries and news commentary": Finalist: 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards for Best First Novel: Boxed - ISBN 978-0-6450021-7-1: "A fast-paced, well-plotted crime thriller...darkly funny.' Weekend Australian