Milwaukee Novelist Explores Life on ‘The Home Front’

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Milwaukee’s DW Hanneken goes there. His new novel describes the almost ceaseless routine of farm work, the physical demands, the personal frustrations to endure, the worn surroundings. The Home Front is set in rural Wisconsin, a region that retained ties to Germany. It concerns a marriage whose fissures become measurable when the husband volunteers for the service—as a farmer he’s exempt from the draft but he wants to get away. And then, his wife strikes up a relationship with one of the German POWs sent to Wisconsin as farm hands…

The Home Front receives its launch in a Boswell sponsored virtual event on January 26. I asked the copywriter-cum-novelist about writing The Home Front:

How did the skills of your day job translate into novel-writing?

I started in the advertising business 25-plus years ago as a copywriter. After writing hundreds of 30-second and 60-second “stories” over the years—whether for a television commercial or a radio commercial—one gets quite good at understanding conflict, resolution, and strong characters. Not to mention the importance of pacing. While I firmly believe The Home Front to be a strong story, I also believe the pacing of the novel was influenced by 20-plus years of writing tight scenes in those aforementioned broadcast mediums. One could argue that television and radio scripts are simply a different form of short story writing. 

Why write a novel?

Everyone loves a good story—either listening to one, reading one, or telling one. I still remember reading John Updike’s famous A&P back in grade school, and thinking, “That was amazing. How did he do that?” But being 12-years-old, I can’t say I was ever called to be a writer. Odds are I shrugged it off and focused my attention on what I loved most: drawing. Specifically, I loved magazines like Mad, Cracked and all things DC or Marvel. 

As a kid, my dream was to draw for one of those magazines one day. I even developed a few comic strips of my own. What I didn't realize at the time was a comic strip or a Superman episode is nothing more than a short story. I had a great high school English teacher at Pius XI named Greg Fredericks, and he opened my eyes to that fact. I remember him telling me that John Updike was a high school kid once, too. That was a great piece of clarity for me, as I finally understand I was actually writing all along.  

What led you to the subject and setting of The Home Front? Are you drawing from family memories of the era? 

This story was inspired by my mother. She used to share stories about working in a German POW camp during World War II, and I recall saying, “Mom, you weren't in Europe during the war.” As it turns out, she worked in the medical clinic at Camp Grant—a U.S. Army facility located outside of Rockford—and she often spoke of the German POWs who lived on the base. Through her storytelling, she humanized a group many thought of as having horns on their heads and pitchforks in their hands. I had always loved the idea of writing a story with that as the backdrop, and the dichotomy of having someone fall in love with a German POW while a significant other was fighting Germans overseas was always appealing. 

How important was historical accuracy when writing The Home Front?

There’s a reason this book took me so long to write—as it was mostly related to all the research I did prior to and during the writing process. For example, I read a lot of books about that time in our nation’s history, as well as what life was like for migrant workers in the 1940s. Growing up in Milwaukee’s Washington Heights neighborhood, my wildlife exposure consisted pretty much of squirrels and the occasional rat, so farm life was foreign to me—especially 1940s farm life.

Thankfully, I had several great resources to consult, and I did so often. For instance, my father was born on a farm and lived that life from 1923-1944, so his knowledge was invaluable. He talked about how they grew and harvested oats, how they stored food without modern day refrigeration, how they heated their house in winter, what kind of farming equipment they used, how they spent their free time, and even the mischief they would get into.

Additionally, my mother told me a lot about the Germans, having worked in a POW camp. But she also addressed the little things, like the cigarettes she smoked, as well as her thoughts on fashion and relationships. Furthermore, my uncle was someone they used to call a “country doctor,” so his advice about injuries, farm births, making house calls, and more proved to be very valuable, indeed; especially in the second half of the book when one of the characters sustains a serious injury.

I also went to various farm events, like “Thresher Day” in West Bend, where area farmers not only showcased old farming threshers, but they would operate these behemoths, so you could see exactly how they worked in the fields. While I’m sure I still got a few things wrong, for the most part I did my very best to be as accurate as possible. 

How did you conduct research?

I did a lot of interviews with people who grew up and experienced World War II from here on the home front. I also read pretty much everything I could get my hands on that pertained to 1940s farm life, as well as life inside a German POW camp. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to author Betty Crowley, who researched and wrote the fascinating book Stalag Wisconsin, which served as a great reference for me. Her many interviews with German POWs and American guards helped to preserve this quiet piece of history. Her book gave me an added sense for what life was like inside POW camps, as well as on Wisconsin farms and in the factories where the German POWs worked. It is a terrific piece of non-fiction and I highly recommend history buffs jump in with both feet.

Francisco Jiménez’s The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child, is a must read for anyone who wants to get a better understanding of what life was like for family migrant workers in the 1940s. It further gave me a unique perspective of life as a migrant worker in America and is a fantastic book to read.