...And the Best Supporting Role is... The Countess

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Supporting Role Characters
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We all know the protagonist is the hero (or anti-hero!) of a novel. He or she usually has a companion main character, often the ‘love interest’ or maybe the stalwart side-kick, but what about that next rank down: the supporting role guy or gal? You know, the one who doesn’t get Best Actor, but Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars. I thought it time that some of these supporting cast characters had a chance to step from the shadows of novels and have a turn in the limelight.

So, a rousing round of applause please for…The Countess

a Supporting Role Character from The Luck of the Weissensteiners

by Christoph Fischer

Helen: Hello, I believe you appear in Christoph Fischer’s novel “The Luck of the Weissensteiners”? Would you like to introduce yourself?

With pleasure. People refer to me merely as the Countess throughout the book. I rather enjoyed the simplicity and inferred admiration of this. My family comes from a long line of aristocracy in Hungary and Bessarabia and I fell in love with Bratislava and its beautiful surroundings late in my life.

Helen: what role do you play in the novel?

I’m an admirer of Jonah Weissensteiners accomplished artful weaving. My continued custom and support are important for his family when things get tough for the Jews in Slovakia.

Helen: No spoilers. But are you a ‘goody’ or a ‘baddie’? (Or maybe you are both!)

I’d like to think I’m a ‘goody’. I have decadent taste and extravagant habits, and I’m weak underneath my tough exterior, but I try my best given the circumstances.

Helen: So you support the lead character? Who is he or she and tell us a little bit about him or her?

Via her father I support the main character, Greta Weissensteiner. She is a naïve little bookworm, forced by unfortunate circumstances and her own choices to find a way through a dark piece of history. It’s not an easy journey, believe me.

Helen: Now be honest – what do you really think of this lead character!

She is lovely. She always tries to do the right thing, cares for those around her and isn’t a stranger to hard work. On the other hand, for my own taste she is less colourful than the people I prefer to surround myself with: flamboyant characters, artists and the like. Greta is almost simple, really.

Helen: Do you like being the ‘supporting role’ or do you wish you could have a lead part in a book of your own?

Funny you should mention that.  I enjoyed being in the ‘supporting role’, especially since so many talked about me as a memorable character and praised my storyline.

On the other hand, there are plans to tell my full story and make me the lead part in a book of my own. It’s one hell of a story, and I believe readers of “The Luck of the Weissensteiners” would appreciate to find out more about me.

Helen: What is one of your least favourite scenes?

That is when I come across one particular unexpected death; one that could have easily been avoided. The pointless loss of a life, that really got me down

Helen: and your most favourite?

My New Years’ Ball. It lifted the misery of war and made us all forget the grimness outside my estate.

Helen: Thank you – that was really interesting – I look forward to meeting you again in ‘your’ novel!

Helen: Now something for the intrepid author to answer. You can invite six fictional characters (not your own!) to Christmas Dinner – who will they be?

I’ve recently read an Oliver Twist story “Fagan Boy” with a gay twist between Oliver and the Artful Dodger Jack, so they have got to come to tell me all about that. I’d also like to meet Pirate / Captain Jesamiah Acorne from the Sea Witch. He’s a very exciting and colourful character. I guess he’d like to sit next to Vergil from the Legends of the Winged Scarab Series. They are both very memorable and might have a laugh with each other. They need female company, and who better than the formidable Kit De Durande from “In The Shadow of the Storm” by Anna Belfrage; which means we need one more female, and that would have to be Karen Brown from Alison Morton’s ‘Inceptio’. Karen is an interesting character and could tell me all about her times in Rome.

The Luck of the Weissensteiners (Three Nations Trilogy Book 1)

In the sleepy town of Bratislava in 1933 a romantic girl falls for a bookseller from Berlin. Greta Weissensteiner, daughter of a Jewish weaver, slowly settles in with the Winkelmeier clan just as the developments in Germany start to make waves in Europe and re-draws the visible and invisible borders. The political climate in the multifaceted cultural jigsaw puzzle of disintegrating Czechoslovakia becomes more complex and affects relations between the couple and the families. The story follows them through the war with its predictable and also its unexpected turns and events and the equally hard times after.

But this is no ordinary romance; in fact it is not a romance at all, but a powerful, often sad, Holocaust story. What makes The Luck of the Weissensteiners so extraordinary is the chance to consider the many different people who were never in concentration camps, never in the military, yet who nonetheless had their own indelible Holocaust experiences. This is a wide-ranging, historically accurate exploration of the connections between social location, personal integrity and, as the title says, luck.

On Amazon:  http://smarturl.it/Weissensteiners
http://bookShow.me/B00AFQC4QC

Christoph Fischer was born in Germany, near the Austrian border, as the son of a Sudeten-German father and a Bavarian mother. Not a full local in the eyes and ears of his peers he developed an ambiguous sense of belonging and moved to Hamburg in pursuit of his studies and to lead a life of literary indulgence. In 1993 he moved to the UK and now lives in Llandeilo in West Wales. He and his partner have several Labradoodles to complete their family.
Christoph worked for the British Film Institute, in Libraries, Museums and for an airline. His first historical novel, ‘The Luck of The Weissensteiners’,  was published in November 2012 and downloaded over 60,000 times on Amazon. He has released several more historical novels, including "In Search of A Revolution" and "Ludwika". He also wrote some contemporary family dramas and thrillers, most notably "Time to Let Go" and "The Healer".

Come back tomorrow to meet the next Supporting Role Character

Here's the full list of authors and their characters  - links will be added as each character makes his or her entrance

Links:

The Luck of the Weissensteiners links: On Amazon

Connect with Christoph:

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6th     Inge H Borg and Vergil
7th    Matthew Harffy and Coenred
8th     Alison Morton and Lurio 
9th     Regina Jeffers and Viscount Stafford 
10th   Anna Belfrage and Luke Graham
11th   Christoph Fischer  and the Countess 
12th   Pauline Barclay and Zilda Gilespie 
13th   Antoine Vanner and Fred Kung 
14th   Annie Whitehead and Queen Alfreda
15th   Derek Birks and Hal
16th   Carolyn Hughes and Matilda Tyler 
17th   Helen Hollick and Claude de la Rue