Are some of the characters based on real people?
This is not a roman a clef. A roman a clef is a novel that is simply a literal depiction of events with the names changed, and that can be decrypted by figuring out direct correspondences between characters in the novel and actual persons. I would never write a book like that. In the World War 2 storyline I have included some actual historical figures under their own names, such as Alan Turing and Douglas MacArthur, but all of the other characters are simply made up. The usual way of explaining what novelists do is to say that their characters are composites. But this implies that every single characteristic of a fictional character can be attributed to some actual person somewhere. This is very far from being the case. The “composite” explanation does not do justice to the amount of content that novelists simply invent. Or to put it another way, it gives us too much credit for being hard workers. Making up composite characters would be tremendously labor-intensive. Fabricating stuff f
