Millie Bobby Brown's Nineteen Steps From Stranger Things Star to Author

Millie Bobby Brown's Literary Debut: Navigating the Complex Tale of Bethnal Green's Forgotten Tragedy

In the annals of British history, the Bethnal Green tube disaster remains an enigma, a haunting memory veiled in obscurity. It unfolded amidst the cloak of night on the fateful 3rd of March, 1943, a moment etched in time when a woman's misstep triggered a calamitous cascade down the station's stairwell. The grim outcome: 173 lives were extinguished in the blink of an eye. It is the most profound civilian casualty of World War II on British soil, an eerie testament to the perils of haste and negligence.

But what's more astounding than the tragedy itself is the clandestine conspiracy that shrouded its aftermath. Government culpability, concealed within the station's unfinished and perilous entrance, was a dark secret promptly swept under history's rug, allowing the magnitude of this catastrophe to fade into oblivion, until now.

Enter Millie Bobby Brown, renowned for her role in "Godzilla: King of the Monsters," and Kathleen McGurl, a luminary in the Women Facing Away literary genre. Together, they've embarked on a journalistic odyssey akin to Woodward and Bernstein, resurrecting the Bethnal Green disaster from the shadows of time. Their collaboration, "Nineteen Steps," marks Millie's maiden venture into the realm of quasi-novelistic expression, spanning a formidable 372 pages of generous print.

Within this literary tapestry, readers are introduced to Nellie Morris, her vivacious younger sibling Flo, the comely neighbor Billy, and a cacophonous ensemble of Cockneys, echoing their distinct "Oi, mista! You me dad?" colloquialisms. Amidst her duties as the mayoress's aide in Bethnal Green, Nellie yearns for the cessation of Europe's wartime turbulence, an earnest wish for the indomitable Churchill to confront the nefarious Hitler head-on, ushering in a tranquil era of tea and crumpets.

The narrative then meanders through wartime Bethnal Green, where Nellie's heart is ensnared by an American G.I., and the devastating actuality of 173 lost lives converges with the plot's unfolding drama.

Millie attributes the inception of "Nineteen Steps" to her grandmother, Nanny Ruth, a survivor of the Bethnal Green tube disaster, whose personal account has become a cherished family heirloom. In an enigmatic blog post, later inexplicably unattainable but quoted in The Guardian, Kathleen McGurl alludes to a treasure trove of research bequeathed by Millie and her kin, alongside a profusion of creative concepts. After a series of virtual rendezvous on Zoom, Kathleen assumes the mantle of the novel's architect. A rare admission by a ghostwriter, revealing that the named author's role essentially encompassed a couple of virtual tête-à-têtes, a secret unveiled merely through the pages of "Nineteen Steps."

The narrative's inception is a prosaic affair, initiated by the phrase: "It was hot — the kind of heat that makes you long for the weather to cool down." Subsequently, a procession of approximately 150 pages unfolds, laden with cameo characters ominously expounding upon the dubious safety of Bethnal Green's stairwell. One is reminded of a novel set aboard the Titanic, where passengers randomly speculate about the perils of icebergs, despite their eventual demise being a foregone conclusion.

"Nineteen Steps" is not an opus expected to achieve literary eminence. Personal expectations barely stretched to mere adequacy. It functions as an objet d'art, a journey into uncharted literary waters for a burgeoning actor, albeit one transcribed under another's penmanship. Yet, even when viewed through this prism of curiosity, its taste leaves a lingering anxiety. It espouses a simplistic, almost binary account of World War II, venerating figures like Churchill and Montgomery without critique. However, even when we eschew historical intricacies, "Nineteen Steps" unveils itself as a disconcerting work, its lexical palette scarcely more intricate than that of a children's book.

One might be tempted to bemoan the contemporary publishing industry's state, where such a work enjoys publication while budding literary talents languish in obscurity. But lo and behold, Millie Bobby Brown, has already embarked on transforming her novel into cinematic reality, as she recently disclosed on Lorraine, substantiating that the novel's true purpose was a cinematic adaptation. Our anticipation knows no bounds as we await the celluloid interpretation of this curious tale.