Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. There's a beautiful lesson in today's

interview about writing historical fiction. It's with Lucy Caldwell, whose book these days

takes place in Belfast in 1941. And in the book, she includes all these little details. And when

NPR Scott Simon asks her about it, she says this line about how

getting just one detail right will allow a reader to believe the whole world. She talks about

the source of some of those details, some personal, some arrived at through research after the break.

In April of 1941, the people of Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland and the UK

and a shipbuilding center, knew the German bombers would soon strike their city and had been

holding air raid drills.

But how much can you really prepare for a blitz?

Wake up!

Wake up, everybody!

A moment later, as if her cry has woken them to the siren sound.

Oh, that unearthly wail of them, rising and falling, far and near and far, an ancient

keening which seems to scoop something from the pit of your

stomach. Footsteps, voices calling, doors opening, the rest of the family coming onto the landing.

It's happening, Audrey says, her voice thin against the sirens. Is it really? Is it happening?

That's Lucy Caldwell reading from her novel These Days, which brings us into the lives of one

family during the Belfast Blitz. Nearly a thousand residents of the city were killed that spring

in German air raids. Lucy Caldwell joins us from Belfast. Thank you so much for being with us.

Thank you so much for having me on. Why did you want to set a novel during these times?

It's a funny thing. I had quite a circuitous journey to it. When he was a toddler, my son was

...