Seven Days in May is my first historical novel and it was inspired by a very personal connection. “My father jumped into the water with two children. He tried to save them but they both drowned.” I’d heard that story all throughout my childhood, told to me by my grandmother Muriel. My great-grandfather, Walter Dawson, was a survivor of the sinking of the Lusitania that was torpedoed by the Germans on May 7, 1915.History’s great tragedies tug at our emotions, and retold years later they capture the imagination of new generations, binding us to another time, another place. These tales of human suffering, sacrifice and heroism endure, and when reimagined as a novel or film, our imagination takes us back in time.
Unlike that other famous ship, the RMS Titanic, which stayed afloat for over 3 hours, the Lusitania sank in approximately 18 minutes, taking with her 1,198 souls to the bottom of the sea. Among her most notable fatalities were American billionaire Alfred Vanderbilt, and Broadway producer, Charles Frohman, who had produced Peter Pan, among other hits.
Walter was not one of the wealthy passengers, a working class Yorkshireman who had immigrated to Boston the year before war broke out; he was heading home to join up alongside his two brothers.
