Author of Carrying Albert Home
- What inspired
you to write this novel? After
the film October Sky, which was loosely based on my memoir Rocket Boys, was released, I
realized that it probably had left a decidedly erroneous impression on who
my parents were and what they were actually like. Far from being an angry
bully, my father was actually a kind and quietly heroic man. Not a plain Jane
wimp as shown in the movie, my mother was not only a gorgeous young woman
but a feminist well before her time. When giving speeches, I began to tell
the story of my mother's pet alligator and my dad's reaction to it as a
fun story on who they really were. It was the most popular story I told
and pretty soon, wherever I went, people would say, "Please tell the
alligator story." After a while, it occurred to me that the story of
Albert the alligator and how my parents carried him home might make a good
novel. When I suggested the idea to my agent, he immediately took it to
William Morrow/HarperCollins, they loved it, and now I needed to write the
damn thing! And so I did.
- What is it
about? The novel takes place during the Great
Depression and it's about my future parents, Elsie and Homer, and how they
carried their pet alligator, a handsome and thoroughly delightful creature
named Albert, from the West Virginia coalfields to the sunny village of
Orlando, Florida. During that journey, according to the tales they told,
they encountered desperately poor families on the road, got caught up with
a bunch of radicals, accidentally robbed a bank, rode the thunder road
with bootleggers, and wrote poems with a crazed poet. My future father
also played for a semi-pro baseball club, joined the Coast Guard, and
fought pirates. Elsie worked as a nurse for a fabulously wealthy man, ran
a boarding house along the South Carolina coast, and learned to fly an old
airplane. Both of my future parents would go on to star in a Tarzan movie,
and survive the greatest hurricane in Florida history. They also hung out
with John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway and a famous movie star, Buddy
Ebsen, he of Beverly Hillbillies fame. In fact, their journey was Buddy's
fault since he was the fellow who gave a baby alligator to my future mom
as a rather strange but quite meaningful wedding gift.
- Why should
someone invest time and money reading your book? Carrying Albert Home will lighten the heart of its
readers while also providing some deep insight into the nature of love,
not the easy kind of love but the love most of us experience throughout
our lives.
- What are some of
its takeaways? I think the last paragraph in
the Introduction to the novel says it best: After Dad went off to run heaven’s
coal mines and Mom followed to tell God how to manage the rest of His
affairs, a quiet but persistent voice in my head kept telling me I should
write the story of their journey down. When I heeded that whispering voice
and began to put all the pieces of it together, I came to understand why.
Like a beautiful flower unfurling to greet the dawn, an embedded truth was
revealed. The story of how my parents carried Albert home was a bit more
than their fanciful tales of youthful adventure. Put all together, it was
their witness and testimony to what is heaven’s greatest and perhaps only
true gift, that strange and marvelous emotion we inadequately call love.
- What challenges
did you overcome to pen this book? The first challenge was to assemble all the
stories my parents told me over decades into one coherent tale. Once that
was more or less done, the next challenge was to figure out how to best
tell it. I decided to tell it as they lived it interspersed with scenes
where my parents are telling me about their journey and why. Another
challenge was making an alligator into a lovable character. As it turned
out, that wasn't hard. Albert was a lovely little 'gator with a big smile
and happy personality. The rooster who also went along was a little more
difficult since I was never certain why he was there and what he meant.
The rooster will probably be a topic of much discussion in the book clubs
that choose Carrying Albert Home.
After he read the book, my brother told me he thought the rooster was . .
. well, on second thought, I better let readers figure that out for
themselves.
- Any advice for
struggling writers? To
be a good writer, you have to be a good reader. Writers should study books
and authors they admire and figure out what they're doing that makes them
successful. It isn't a matter of copying another author's style but being
aware of the techniques those writers employ to tell their stories and
make their readers want to turn the page.
- Where do you see
book publishing is heading? When I started being
published, all the old publishing houses were solidly in control of the
book market. These days, of course, the big Internet booksellers are
moving steadily into the publishing business. Increasingly, authors are
also self-publishing, utilizing the Internet as a way to get their work
out to readers. I try to be successful in all arenas by writing for the
big New York publishers as well as occasionally publishing an ebook on the
Internet. Where it will all go from here? I have no idea. The trick for me
and for all working writers is to stay flexible.
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Brian Feinblum’s views,
opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his
employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him
at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the
third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2015
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