Liz Chesla on “You Cannot Forbid the Flower” — Interview

I had the pleasure of interviewing Elizabeth Lukacs Chesla, whose debut novel You Cannot Forbid the Flower is out now via Tolsun Books. It’s a harrowing tale of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 from her father’s perspective, part true stories and part historical fiction. The following is a transcription of our conversation.

Lucy Buchman: I wanted to ask, when you had the idea for the book or realized this was something you wanted to write about, was there anything that, like, you had a moment that inspired you to start writing the book or was it kinda like overtime, just hearing about all the stories and everything?

Liz Chesla: Yeah, that’s a good question. I think it was a little of both. I knew a long time ago that I wanted to write this book, or something like this book. But I think it only fell into place more recently, when I had taken some writing classes and just really started to see myself as the writer that could pull this off. You know, and learning a lot about flash fiction, for example, and playing with different structures was really, really helpful.

LB: When did you start writing it?

LC: Well, I had been writing down my dad’s stories back in the 80s and 90s, so a long time ago.

LB: Oh, wow!

LC: Yeah, up until through he died. But he was very reticent, you know, so he didn’t have a lot of stories or didn’t share very much. So I didn’t have a ton to go on, but I did a lot of research. And thankfully, there are a lot of first person accounts that are available online in and in other books. I mean, it was such a powerful and momentous event, and so a lot of people, you know, those who were able to escape did tell their stories.

LB: When did it turn from a series of ideas and stories that you had into a fully-fledged project that you sought out to complete?

LC: So, I had the idea for the general structure of it for a while. And then, like I said I was doing my own writing practice. Then, I found about Tolsun, my publisher Tolsun books, had a call for proposals. And I’m extraordinarily fortunate to have seen that and to have submitted and been accepted. So I actually had a contract before I had a book, but you know, I’m the kind of writer that really needs a deadline, so that enabled me to get it done. At that time, too, I had wonderful editors who really helped a lot, and it gave me the space to experiment with a lot of different things. There were chapters that were in there originally that aren’t there now, there were things that had been added along the way, of course. Chapters had shifted location.

LB: You mentioned the minimal amount of accounts directly from your father that you had to work with and seeking out other stories from people who had escaped. Did that kind of guide the decision to add the historical fiction elements to the book?

LC: No, from the beginning one of my goals was to share the history. I wanted people to learn about the revolution. So many people have said to me, you know, “I really didn’t know about this.” And so that was a very clear goal of mine, too. To teach a little bit, as much as I could, without it being didactic in that way, to keep it interesting and to make it matter. So to have it tied up in my dad’s story, I hoped it would make it matter more.

LB: I was curious if you ever did any traveling to Hungary for the sake of writing this book, because some of the imagery is so vivid and profound.

LC: So I started writing right about when the pandemic hit. So any plans that I had I wasn’t able to follow through at that time. So no, I did my traveling virtually. And fortunately, there are tons of resources, and I spent a lot of time looking at pictures of Killer Lake, for example, and the mountains there. A lot of time looking at maps, and old family photographs and other things.

LB: Do you think the pandemic kind of guided you a certain way in writing this book? How do you think it would’ve turned out differently had it not happened.

LC: That’s a great question. I don’t know. Maybe that sense of isolation that you picked up on it was partly influenced by the pandemic, I’m not sure. I do think it would be different if I had been able to travel at that time. I’m not sure how it would’ve been different but it would’ve been different.

LB: And were you living in Philadelphia during the pandemic?

LC: So I live in the suburbs, just up the turnpike. So I’m on the edge, I’m in and out of the city all the time. But yeah, I actually grew up here. Moved back here after a little time in New York.

LB: Would you say you’re pretty integrated with Philly’s writing culture, or just the general, like, scene of writers in the city?

LC: I’m working on it. Laughs I’m working on it! Yeah, so to be honest it took me a while to see myself as a serious writer, so to speak. I had a talk yesterday with Autumn Konopka. We read together at Big Blue Marble for the book crawl yesterday. Her debut is about running, and running in Philly. The question came up, “are you a runner?” And she’s like if you run you’re a runner and if you write you’re a writer, you know? But sometimes it’s hard to see yourself that way. So I shied away from the Philly literature scene thinking “oh, I’m not really one of them yet.” 

LB: What’s next for you as a writer? Do you have another book planned? Are you going to take a break?

LC: I wanted to keep the book tight. I wanted to keep in on the smaller side, so there’s a lot of stuff I couldn’t tell. Early on, I had other characters in there, for example some of the more famous freedom fighters. But I decided for several reasons to keep it really just that my dad was the character in all of the chapters. So those are stories I still want to tell, there’s a lot more to that. I also have a project that has to do with vampires and vampire lore. There’s the folklore that’s scattered throughout this one, nothing about vampires in this book but definitely in the next one.

LB: If there’s one thing you want readers to take away from the book or kind of sit with after what would it be?

LC: The first thing that comes to mind is to find those family stories, you know, if you can. I wish I knew my father more. There’s a lot in here that’s rooted in what really happened to him but there’s so much that I don’t know that I wish I did. So if you can, ask. And record.