December 15-19: Wally Lamb

[Bethanne]

This week we welcome the phenomenally popular Wally Lamb to Center Stage. Lamb’s new novel, The Hour I First Believed, deals with a family’s crises in the aftermath of the Columbine Massacre, and it’s sure to be a much-discussed 2008/2009 title.

 

Lamb's first two novels, She's Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True, were both number one New York Times bestsellers and selections of Oprah's Book Club. Lamb was also the editor of Couldn't Keep It to Myself and I'll Fly Away (winner of the 2008 Connecticut Book Award), volumes of essays from students in his writing workshop at York Correctional Institution, a women's prison in Connecticut. A graduate of the Vermont College MFA in Writing program, and a nationally honored teacher of writing, Lamb taught high school and university students for 25 years and continues to work as a volunteer facilitator at York. He has been awarded the Pushcart Prize, the 1998 Governor’s Arts Award (State of Connecticut), the NEA grant for fiction, and the Missouri Review William Peden fiction prize. He lives with his family in Connecticut.

 

Lamb’s post-“Oprah” fame, he has admitted in interviews, put pressure on him and his work. He told USA Today in September of this year that while it would be “a thrill” for him if Oprah reads The Hour I First Believed, “I struggled quite a bit with trying to start this third novel. I had all those Oprah readers with their expectations in my writing room. I had to open my office door and shoo everybody's expectations out of there.”

 

It took him nine years to write this new novel, and according to The Hartford Courant, it contains everything from “...the Columbine massacre; Hurricane Katrina; the Civil, Korean and Iraq wars; the abolition movement; women's prisons; child abuse; alcoholism and drug addiction; post-traumatic stress disorder; the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire; mazes; ancient myths; family secrets; Victorian diaries; Mark Twain – and the Miss Rheingold contests...”

 I think that means that there are lots of things we can all ask Wally Lamb about while he’s our guest author. Welcome, Wally; welcome, Center Stage participants and readers!

[Houses_Vicodin]

I have been waiting rather impatiently for this next book - so thank you, Mr. Lamb for The Hour I First Believed!  I loved both She's Come Undone and I Know This Much is True.  I can't afford to spend too much money on books, but I am a huge reader.  When I saw the length of the waiting list at the library for your new book, I went right to Barnes and Noble and bought it.  I have it sitting on my nightstand.  I am saving it to read over Christmas break when I can take my time and savor it, rather than grab small snippets to tide me over (my usual reading style in my hectic life).

I was wondering; what motivated you to choose the Columbine Massacre as the subject of your latest novel?  What is your secret to writing such incredibly moving characters?

HV

[Redcatlady]

I recently read She's Come Undone, and I wonder if you're going to continue Delores's story sometime down the line.  If not, what do you think she'll be doing now?

Redcatlady 

[Stephanie]

Wally,

I've been a huge fan of yours for years.  I first read I Know This Much is True because I was looking for a book that was more than 250 pages long that I could spend a good bit of time with.  Your title fit the bill perfectly, but unfortunately, it was so good that I read it in four days anyway.  Of course, when I found She's Come Undone I was completely awed by your ability to get into the head of a female so thoroughly. 

I'm looking forward to reading The Hour I First Believed -  I put it on my Christmas list, and I'm fairly sure it's under the tree at my house.  My self-control is waning... I'm seriously considering reading it in the wee hours, and re-wrapping. 

Thanks for some fantastic work - you know you can never retire, right?

Message Edited by Stephanie on 12-13-2008 05:18 PM

[Bonnie824]

Welcome and thanks for coming online Mr. Lamb. I can't discuss your newest book (it is on my Christmas wish list though) but loved your first two novels. I am amazed at your diversity of characters and your ability to make them sympathetic. How do you come up with your characters? Observing people around you, pure imagination, a combination?

Bonnie

[fargosue]

Greetings from the North,

We met at your book signing in Fargo recently-thank you and thank you for being here now...I've just started your new book. I am engrossed in the story already-it has pulled me in from the very beginning. I am intrigued with the way that you enter each characters internal thoughts and thought process...how does that affect you? For Velvet Hoon how did you help her make decisions? she is a fearful character, afraid it seems and yet bold...that is just one example that I am thinking of.  Each of your characters are full and real and their psyches are raw. At some point I am wondering if you were too...

[Wally_Lamb]

Hi, everyone. Great to be with you all, although I have a reading I'm rushing to prepare for and so have to make this a shorter visit. I'll have more time to spend with you tomorrow--I promise.

HV, the school shootings at Columbine were preceded by a similar tragedy at a high school in Paducah, KY. I had maybe three or four degrees of separation from that event, as I have cousins who attended that high school and were good friends with the older sibling of the shooter. I would worry about her from time to time--someone whose life, through no fault of her own,had changed dramatically and frighteningly. So I suppose that's where my concern began. Also, because at the time I was a dad of teenage sons, and because I'd been a high school teacher for 25 years, school shootings troubled me deeply. One day I Googled "school shootings" and a tidal wave of material came back at me, much of it about Columbine. The most disturbing of that material was the downloadable videos that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris had left behind in which they explain their actions in a laughing, mocking way.They challenged me to better understand, and so, reluctantly, I entered a maze of sorts and did not emerge until nine years later, after the manuscript was finsished.

My secret to creating the characters that move you is to discover who these people are by writing in their voices. Simultaneously, I worry about them in a parental way. I write to find out if they're going to be okay, and if they're going to move past their flaws and become better people. I root for my characters but don't always feel that I can control them.

[Wally_Lamb]

Dear Redcatlady,

For a brief update on Dolores's life, look in The Hour I First Believed. She makes a cameo appearance in the new novel, although some readers miss the fact that she's in there. The cameo is my way of waving hello to the readerswho have been so supportive of and enthusiastic about my first novel. Thanks for your question.

[Wally_Lamb]

Stephanie,

Thanks! No plans to retire any time soon. And if you want to cheat a little about what's under that Christmas tree without rewrapping, here's how. Get on the bathroom scale and note your weight. Then pick up the package and reweigh yourself. If you weigh 2.2 lbs more, then someone's given you my novel for Christmas. That's the weight of my weighty book. Happy holidays!

[Wally_Lamb]

Hi, Bonnie--

It's a combination of all of those you mention. I enjoy writing as people other than myself because it allows me to move pass the boundaries of my own life experiences and learn about things and people I'd not known about before. Here's an example: I have two older sisters and grew up as the "baby" of my family always wishing for a brother. So, as Dominick in IKTMIT, I had a brother and then learned what it might be like to be a twin, a man whose brother is mentally ill, and what it might be like to have to answer the question: Am I my brother's keeper? Thanks for a thoughtful question.

[Wally_Lamb]

Hey, Fargo Sue. According to the Today Show, it's bone-chilling cold up there. Those sugar beets you folks raise must be frozen solid!

Velvet was a troubled girl that I could never quite control but a character for whom I rooted from first to last while I was creating the story. She was influenced, I think, by some of the wounded-but-tough students I worked with while teaching high school, and also by some of the women in the writing workshop I run at a maximum-security women's prison here in CT where I live. That's been a real eye-opener and an opportunity to work with some wonderful students who write to better understand themselves and their actions. 

Hope it warms up for you all in Fargo. Until then, wear your longjohns!

[taboomolly]

Mr. Lamb,

I am most of the way through your newest book, which I am really enjoying. I appreciate this discussion we are having in this forum. I wanted to thank you for your INTMIT, as I felt the characters emotions and trials in an empathetic way that I had never before experienced. It has remained my favorite novel.

I look forward to reading more of your work.

[aprilh]

Wally,

I am a huge fan of all your work. I'm almost finished with The Hour I First Believed and am loving it. I'm finding myself not wanting the book to end. I love all the characters in the novel, flaws and all. Do you ever feel it hard to let go of your characters at the end of a book after spending so much time with them and getting to know them so well?

[Bethanne]

---

Wally_Lamb wrote:

Hi, everyone. Great to be with you all, although I have a reading I'm rushing to prepare for and so have to make this a shorter visit. I'll have more time to spend with you tomorrow--I promise.

HV, the school shootings at Columbine were preceded by a similar tragedy at a high school in Paducah, KY. I had maybe three or four degrees of separation from that event, as I have cousins who attended that high school and were good friends with the older sibling of the shooter. I would worry about her from time to time--someone whose life, through no fault of her own,had changed dramatically and frighteningly. So I suppose that's where my concern began. Also, because at the time I was a dad of teenage sons, and because I'd been a high school teacher for 25 years, school shootings troubled me deeply. One day I Googled "school shootings" and a tidal wave of material came back at me, much of it about Columbine. The most disturbing of that material was the downloadable videos that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris had left behind in which they explain their actions in a laughing, mocking way.They challenged me to better understand, and so, reluctantly, I entered a maze of sorts and did not emerge until nine years later, after the manuscript was finsished.

My secret to creating the characters that move you is to discover who these people are by writing in their voices. Simultaneously, I worry about them in a parental way. I write to find out if they're going to be okay, and if they're going to move past their flaws and become better people. I root for my characters but don't always feel that I can control them.

---

Welcome, Wally -- So glad you were able to stop in for a bit today. Hope the reading goes very well!

Bethanne

[Bethanne]

---

Wally_Lamb wrote:

Hey, Fargo Sue. According to the Today Show, it's bone-chilling cold up there. Those sugar beets you folks raise must be frozen solid!

Velvet was a troubled girl that I could never quite control but a character for whom I rooted from first to last while I was creating the story. She was influenced, I think, by some of the wounded-but-tough students I worked with while teaching high school, and also by some of the women in the writing workshop I run at a maximum-security women's prison here in CT where I live. That's been a real eye-opener and an opportunity to work with some wonderful students who write to better understand themselves and their actions. 

Hope it warms up for you all in Fargo. Until then, wear your longjohns!

---

Wally, I loved FargoSue's question about Velvet, and your answer, too. My question: after writing for a while about Velvet, what do you think we all should know about teenaged girls/women?

[Stephanie]

Wally,

I'm really restraining myself, but my nine-year-old did confess to making sure the book was under the tree.  However, the kids will be harassing me to go off to the park, etc. during the vacation, so I will be reading your novel under a tree. (The best part about Florida!)  I'm afraid my bathroom scale is just not that accurate - and that's intentional.

When I began IKTMIT, I was really baffled as to what strange thing might be going on between the brothers. There was even a time when I wondered if there was a twin brother, or if some bizarre metaphysical occurrences were involved.  

Did you know exactly where that story was going when you were in those first few hundred pages?  Or were you led by the characters?  The back-story was incredible, and I wondered what came first.  Were you led back into the past by the brothers' present story, or vice versa?

[Redcatlady]

---

Wally_Lamb wrote:

Dear Redcatlady,

For a brief update on Dolores's life, look in The Hour I First Believed. She makes a cameo appearance in the new novel, although some readers miss the fact that she's in there. The cameo is my way of waving hello to the readerswho have been so supportive of and enthusiastic about my first novel. Thanks for your question.

---

I read The Hour I First Believed today, and I did find where Dolores appears.  But in She's Come Undone, the guy in her life is named Thayer, and he has a son from his first marriage.

I'm confused!

Redcatlady

[Wally_Lamb]

From Stephanie:

Did you know exactly where that story (I Know This Much Is True) was going when you were in those first few hundred pages?  Or were you led by the characters?  The back-story was incredible, and I wondered what came first.  Were you led back into the past by the brothers' present story, or vice versa?

Stephanie,

IKTMIT began in 1990, as America was gearing up for the first Iraq war, when the first President Bush was in the White House. I was teaching high school back then and had organized an oral history project in which my students were to interview subjects who'd been teenagers during the Great Depression. One of those who volunteered to be interviewed had been a pacifist during World War II. A religious zealot who had thought he could stop the war by making a personal sacrifice, he'd followed what he perceived to be a Biblical dictate and cut off his hand and removed his eye. He was promptly admitted to the state hospital and given shock treatment--the scary kind of past practices. He remained hospitalized until the mid-1980s. His story was a harrowing one, of course, and my students were afraid to work with him. That's how this man became my interview subject, and that was how he became the inspiration for Thomas Birdsey. I interviewed him several times and got to know him fairly well. I was moved by his sad story. One of the things that most moved me was the devotion of his faithful brother, who was mentally stable and who drove for many miles each Sunday to visit him. That got me thinking about the good faith of men who, whether resentful or not, become their brother's keeper. That was how Dominick Birdsey came into existence. In the end, Dominick and Thomas's brotherhood bears little resemblance to the story my interview subject told me, but that was the springboard from which I dived into the waters of I Know This Much Is True. As for the backstory, by which I assume you mean the story of Domenico, the Birdseys' narcissistic grandfather, that was fueled by my reading of the early twentieth century Sicilian writer Gabriel D'Anunzio. After I read D'Anunzio's short stories, I wrote Domenico's story in a frenzy. I've never written so fast and effortlessly. This probably sounds strange, but when I look back at that material, I'm never quite sure where it came from or how/why I wrote it. It seems far beyond my own life experiences. Perhaps I was tapping into the collective unconscious? Who knows? I certainly don't.

[Wally_Lamb]

My question: after writing for a while about Velvet, what do you think we all should know about teenaged girls/women?

Dear Bethanne (Moderator Extraordinaire!)--

My experience as both a high school teacher(25 years) and a writing coach for incarcerated women (9 years and counting) tells me that the voices of girls and women must not be squelched, dismissed, or silenced.  Women and girls have stories to tell, secrets to reveal, and things to teach us. Thanks for a great question.

[Wally_Lamb]

I read The Hour I First Believed today, and I did find where Dolores appears.  But in She's Come Undone, the guy in her life is named Thayer, and he has a son from his first marriage.

I'm confused!

Happy to clear up your confusion. Near the end of She's Come Undone,  Dolores marries Thayer Kitchen. In the interim between my first novel and my most recent one, Thayer has died and Dolores has become a widow. She meets Caelum's buddy Alphonse when she decides to sell her deceased husband's yellow Mustang.