Q&A with Hayley Gelfuso - The Book of Lost Hours
- Allen & Unwin
- Sep 3, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Sep 8, 2025
We chat with The Book of Lost Hours author Hayley Gelfuso.
Meet Hayley Gelfuso, the amazing author behind The Book of Lost Hours, unforgettable novel moving from pre-WWII Germany to Cold War-era America to the mysterious time space, a library filled with books containing the memories of those who bore witness to history.
A&U: What first sparked the idea for The Book of Lost Hours?
HG: The spark came while I was reading The Library: A Fragile History by Andrew Pettegree and Arthur Der Weduwen, a nonfiction book about the long and often turbulent history of libraries. In it, I came across a line from an inscription outside a library in Amsterdam: “Here it is the dead who speak to those who work.” That phrase hit me like a bolt. I couldn’t stop imagining a place where that was literally true. A library where the voices of the dead still lingered on the shelves.
A&U: Memory is at the heart of this story. What drew you to explore the idea of preserving or erasing memories?
HG: Memory has always fascinaed me because it’s both extremely fragile and immensely powerful. It shapes who we are, yet it can be altered, erased, or forgotten so easily. To me, that tension felt urgent, because it mirrors the way our own histories are written, rewritten, and sometimes erased. And with censorship and book bans on the rise, exploring those themes felt not only meaningful, but necessary.
A&U: The book is set against both WWII and a timeless library. How did you balance historical realism with fantasy?
HG: History has always had more magic in it than we realise. When I was writing, I tried to lean into that truth. Grounding the story in WWII gave me a framework of historical realism, but the timeless library allowed me to explore those hidden, more mythic dimensions of memory and storytelling. The two threads don’t feel separate to me. The fantasy simply illuminates the wonder, and sometimes the horror, that’s already present in history itself.
A&U: Did you always envision this story as a blend of historical fiction and fantasy or did that emerge as you wrote?
HG: In my head, the story was always going to be part fantasy, but the historical setting emerged as I was exploring the idea. I wanted the story to carry the weight of history itself, and setting it in the past felt like a natural fit.
A&U: If you could step into the library in your book, whose memories would you most want to read?
HG: I'm torn. The historian in me would like to go back into the past, to witness the everyday lives of people in places like the Carthaginian empire pre-Roman invasion, or to step into the memories of Alexander Von Humboldt during one of his expeditions. But another part of me knows in my soul that the first memories I would go looking for are those of my grandfather's. There's so much about his life that I never got to ask him and if I had the chance, I don't think I could pass it up.
A&U: What are the three books everyone should have in their library?
HG: My answer to this is more of a formula than a direct recommendation. First, something ancient. For me, it’s Ovid’s Metamorphoses. It’s full of myths and transformations, stories that have echoed through literature for centuries, and it’s still wildly imaginative and strange to read today. Second, a book of poetry that actually means something to you. Personally, Yeats is my favorite. Every time I read him, it feels like being a kid again, when words first felt mysterious and powerful. And third, the Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake (this one I’ll recommend outright).
The Book of Lost Hours
by Hayley Gelfuso
A sweeping, unforgettable novel moving from pre-WWII Germany, to Cold War-era America, to the mysterious time space, a library filled with books containing the memories of those who bore witness to history.
Comments