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I’ve always been a traveler. My first destination was Paris. Next came India, where fate transported me at around thirty—the age Julia (McWilliams) Child journeyed there during her WWII service. Like Julia, my life was transformed; by a circuitous path, I became a writer. What sparks me and my work is finding my characters at a dramatic moment in history, a crossroads of space and time. With The Secret War of Julia Child, it was the young Julia on the front of wartorn Asia. As I followed her path, Julia helped me discover her story. And mine.
After docking at Bombay Harbor in 1944, Julia and her OSS team travel by train across India, mobilizing for war. She sees sights she could have never imagined. Her taste buds explode!
From India’s southeast tip, they reach the teardrop island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), a former Japanese target existing in uneasy calm.
Julia’s job is to set up the secret OSS files at their Kandy hilltop base, where she meets the annoying mapmaker, Paul Child. Across from her Queen’s Hotel quarters (where we stayed—still the same) is the Temple of the Buddha’s Tooth.
With Julia at my side, the island’s glories opened to us. Two key scenes of the novel occur at the great white Buddha, who towers over Kandy. Julia shared my wonder at seeing the elephants.
Later, Julia flies the treacherous route over the Himalaya, the “Hump,” to China’s southwest—Kunming, the focus of a major Japanese offensive. With a new secret assignment, she has mixed feelings seeing Paul. This ancient town offers much to discover, including black market intrigue.
The worldly wise Paul takes Julia to the Golden Temple atop Singing Phoenix Hill. Shadowed by danger, they need to decompress.
And eat.
At a teahouse overlooking the immense Lake Dianchi south of Kunming, Julia and Paul share sweet and sour rice balls, reflecting on the war’s abrupt ending…wondering what lies ahead.
