A Word on Words; 2431; David Hill

this week at vanderbilt university and i'm just in the once again welcome to world works and welcome also to that until a new album of a new book calls sacred does it nice to have you to talk about your very first novel you've written plays you've written screenplays and now this book is out and i must say that when it came i didn't know what to expect the west coast also writing about the south you captured the south year olds to thrive live forever mississippi so that's how west coast doctor and captured this out i guess i am i'm fascinated by it your character and i'm also fascinated by the fact that

chapter and the chapters you feel those different voices amelia the stage gillers lily a little over sharer on bum knee and issue a lot is that much of a hermit b are shifting emotionally does it take to move from one person out the chapter after chapter some chapters two three pages and then you're back into from rose toure is silly too i think it just came to me and i was like taking dictation and that odd they're almost like monologues these chapters and then they were armed when they were through talking they withdrew talking and then someone else would come it was a very om om as a passive experience for me to write this book it was almost more like a listening writing just so free pass through me what we have here is a is a deep

dark and frightening history we have a death a murder that is hushed up covered a black man fishing on a lake in a town where there are no blacks no juice southern town opens your figment of your imagination how much is this short like a glacier below prince george's a lot like of several places i've known i set the book in alabama could be out on your central mississippi which i know very well west to say sections of george aiken we call the deep south i think what would qualify there are certainly arent many places like it across the south you create jobs you create korea situation in the eighties which certainly you were his traveling almost

anywhere in the south in the fifties sixties and i wondered how it relevant that sort of closed isolated society is today how how will of how the klan mentality in whether the klan mentality still dominates and so to replace a way i suppose and small southern town still it still room i think that's right i think that it's not all pervasive at auburn and i think it's it's more shocking when you find in an uncertain situation in that eye i have created is news of a royal our most isolated situation but it's odd and i used it as a catalyst to tell i think a more important story because i think the book is about the year human fear and i think that if we look at the social problems that we face aren't in a broad specter our way we haven't done a very good job of art

we haven't gotten very far and i think that we have to look at situations in terms of individuals i think that i wanted to write a book that had that was about change and people you know i think that people are will we tend to change only at the point you know when we're our it's not that we're for one died a mosque for a woman live through tomorrow you know arm and i think that i wanted to do a book that top captured the the way people really change the way places really change which one person at a time one heart at a time now armed and following something there that i learned from tennessee williams which is that that you know the greatest battles the world has ever known are not the ones we recorded history books but they take place it within the individual's heart the common fear and certainly senator rose has lost the orient lily and rose

fears her husband i fell yes i love rose fears the secret that she knows years of not want to share rose fears her existence lilley seems to me fears herself more than in any gaps then and then and here's a it has because of the fear ryan foremost for much of his life that's right a style that is because at the beginning i mean it's an interracial love story on which ended in tragedy that's right where that story come from what i think that story came from anecdotes of people told me aside i was in alabama and mississippi louisiana ballot five or six years ago you know i've written several movies for television and one i wanted to do which actually on our never got made i'll lead me to sit and talk to a lot of people and dom are one gentleman in particular

auto me are several stories very similar to the south from his own memory very similar to the incidents that i used in the beginning of the book certainly after having a love affair with as he is confronted by the men of the community and told budget eu acknowledged that he forced himself on in or else and arel says she gives the rope that's right and then there's that there is that scene that really constant clark a paper in which he could still owe nobody goes and the warden you start running and it's a long time before you stop growing in spent starts walking and ultimately is marching

right away but that was a great well well it's also a mention the fact that that these monologues of different voices really narrate this this tale they're also it seems to mate is am for writer a problem of juxtaposing time those flashing back from the now and the problems that that so that loop of rose faces with their child who is a real group that's early her face is in her relationship with that with land her husband loves in absolutely cheats on him turned your back on morning that he loves her he knows what's gone all and the family himself to confront them and his passion

i think also it's grounded on fear fear of losing her that's right talk a little bit about that relationship goes because that's one thing that explodes in unexpected violence while i think that's out that really is is pretty our article about a woman who was one who was abused as a child and end she feels was raised to feel somehow are not good enough yeah and i think glenn is someone who has very dark thirty hides it very well in the world he seems he's a very decorous gentlemanly sort of personality dresses very well has a good job provides a beautiful home and yet you're has a deep op op secret which is the violence it perpetrates some point says love is the motown early on he says love is the most destructive force of will yeah so

and i know what he was talking about until until that moment of violence which in which she and which heat i was willing to kill because of low us and lily heart is a woman who saw his toys she feels very guilty because this man has provided so much for her and she feels very un worthy of that and when she dives odd seat on him as you say end up becoming bob was someone who really does see through her various arabic personality her sort of tawdry veneer which is michael arndt which ayres yes he is he's had since the maven italy game yes it's a banquet for he clearly is a bang theory michael it's much deeper yes but the un's envoy spot that

someone really valued her as a human being and that then has a pure passion for her frightens her because you know it's it's very odd being a love bizarre thing to do it's it's something that we'd all take for granted we promised listens to abuse england salt river near to i think no i think the gland her husband r she was the prime victim for him she was the prime market she had this set of vulnerabilities he wanted my does love her but he is he's twisted tom and he says it was yesterday doesn't know where his own identity stops and hers begins and she becomes more and more aware of it and frightened that top you know that that is going to lead to violence that's what she and end all roads have in common their friendship this extraordinary me in that they're so on likely dr out how how is it that the yard i think of my friends my male friends and hit it seems to me that i have don't go

laying in a friendly way on a close friendship with someone that is really different family whose values are as different as rosalie thirties yes but all the other hand ah they interact very well quite like help us buy in but they bought but they empathized each with the other sinks me very much so and that's the there's a discovery there are rows does not lie lily coming around a fur she does she doesn't are like her lose time she doesn't like the fact the way she dresses the way she looks i just not hurt other person on yet i'm the discovery between them is is the fact that both of them are living in situations in which they are oh where at least delayed somewhere down the road that they remain in them they're going to be seriously hurt or even killed and they become that primal desire to survive is

what each finds in the other and that becomes the catalyst for a great deal about you know the rest of the plot i think and that's all they need who else and rose of sharon's world is going to come to her and be their candid about what the reality of her daily life isn't that fear i think someone who lives in that kind of fear you know is in even though dead snow is armed he is he's a despicable human being on a once in the same room with a guy like that i don't wanna be his friend and yet as an author i have the luxury of sitting back and saying this is this is a man in terrible torment this is a man this is the most fearful person in the book that he is a destructive arm and arm dangerous but at the same time it's all driven by fear argue so fearful off that rosa sharon might leave him that he becomes a sober you know who beats around so lily lives with overheard the abuse and lilly's house is more

psychological and becomes more sexual but the end result in relationships like that is usually that someone has hurt very badly really carol as you set aside and andy kao as you say the sexual relationship between rows of german and actual solo monthly rate that's right that's right and you know i was not one of those waves that clearly the college wasn't in the area in the book so i think of the book too is a psychological mystery and so much of it as the book begins to spin back into time it's about people you know you sit up one day and you say how the hell did i get here how the hell did i become this person you know and for a rose of sharon we have to go back and we had to take a look at you pearl harbor and the dynamic of that world at that house that you're pro raised her daughter in and that you are really didn't want to be a mother etc and there you were how did you approach get that way well sure was this incident in her childhood you know where all of the black

people were driven out of the county to sell her father fall from grace she saw she was raised in our world that died spiritual it is a product of their own there's so many to refute limes the jumble the page at me one about but the metaphor for a hundred thousand five hundred houses burning an end and metaphors a birthday candle there isn't the line in which show a dead show is as the bow whether he and william martin a black man on the lake and he says something like gosh clinical eye clinic the area you write with with such facility in the lions say time has reached out and smacked me in

the eye and there is some biting humor book is there are some very funny and he goes oh i support what this program's about his service how writers write how authors of books get the story on paper did you know where the story was going again no i didn't i didn't know that i was writing a book about lyme no i didn't have an outline i didn't and i didn't know as writing a book i had i was in the middle of writing on two projects the television was very busy and i was at a point in my own life where i'm i wouldn't i would never have taken on are the project of writing a novel now a cell phone service look here we're registering blazers senior italian films were writing a book you said no i'm busy right now the book title and oh yes

absolutely took over and who is really bad because i am i have a lot of obligations a deadlines and i was the i write it night i write to you know probably ice get started serious about ten o'clock at night now right till four five in the morning sometimes you know even more and gabi he was getting wild there for a while because i had you know the television projects to complete and the novel which had completely taken over but i was having such a good time doing it i was learning so much about the joy just right just not writing for a deadline not caring whether or not it got published not given a group who thought what about or what i was just following it through and when it was announced to the end you know in a rough way then i went back and then i said one hour from that make this you know a story that's going to make sense to people certain things fall in certain places you know an icon of cut and pasted added and put it together so churches are taking away from me aren't always what ways even really was only there just you know and and you know you know that feeling when you're riding along the character says something or does something you

know they were gonna do when you go oh no now i knew that was a lovely is such a lovely feeling though because these things to me that they you know a surprise you use private so absolutely totally surprised myself now and so you do you worry about the song all those who've been sitting in that chair said look i do ten pages a day one told me not long awaited five pages that well it's five ten pages and then i quit you start eleven idol four five in the morning and let the juices are flowing you go right into the morning i just keep going as i do i write i'm a maniac and how do you know you write how you know you've written out well with us are i came to that character was finished talking you know i would come to the end of it they were whatever it was it is made that arkin was very clear to me that i was done and many times you know i would have the most exuberant feeling in the

world you know crawling into bed at you know five thirty in the morning mr weis saying who are you and you are by warren buffett yes i do and and do you would do you edit yourself a lot it yes but i don't let myself until i get all the way to be and i think now it's a five thirty in the morning you have finished this session and you don't see it until ten eleven tonight how much do you re read to bring itself up to date none or do you just look at it you know where you left off whenever that when during the day you're back into the story it's so you know i it's i was talking you know i sit down who's talking and they just are targets on was like a multiple personality it really is it son it's not a conscious thing at all with me i don't

do a lot of our planning i don't do a lot of outlining i understand structure our study structure and i know the value and i know it's important to note has to make sense was done but that's a late nights and mourning so when the lemon juice flow more freely own they view as a little you absolutely are absolutely end on there moments when you came along the block is where i have never been able to afford writer's block is one of my goals so yellow allen would be a gatorade that's right that's right up close on just not where syrian said you know it's me leaves me i just have to work through our i'm sure it's true i'm sure three or i'm being you know very thing that robert parker told me he said when i use a typewriter his white pickup the typewriter and throw it through the window and i couldn't i couldn't make it move the settlement is your processor has helped his huge flow of the memorial events both senses they're able

to get it i find that to be true as was terrified at first i thought somehow it would become less organic around awhile what so we know damn organic about steel typewriter a plastic electric typewriter opposed to if your ear but i had that in my head i was really afraid of it the prominent writers have are getting published and you had no following think affected been successful in place and no no i don't actually i think that are if anything it would have been an incoherence nobody in new york wants to read a novel written by some you know prince of great be a net were great pianists you know ah ah ah ah ah ah that's the years that the other that's right so it that well it's done ah how it happened i don't know i'm i finished the book i gave to my television agent in la because they banned book agency in europe and i see a man down four months passed by and the book agent call and said i apologize to you i just got your manuscript because he'd

been sitting in the tv agents of that our office that long because i mean i don't know when it was a tell it at under the book or a door stop they don't want to do it exactly and so i thought they were interested and i said oh well i guess i'm not a novelist you know i could do something else and down she writes reading in four days she ran over thanksgiving weekend i'd get into the agency the thirty first of august remember that was my nephew's birthday and on the day before thanksgiving i got the call saying i just got it at reddit i'm sorry probably the monday after thanksgiving and she said i'm gonna sell this buy christmas and i said i would go on the grass whatever you'd either be nice but i just i liked to depend on it you know i was not burning to buy that they're now back into your committee absolutely absolutely you know and i just had to show up for work to do today we're already now did good done to the publisher j going down in la take a right and it

would it wasn't offered to several days they added they yes they are the first they were the first was given two and a target a media right now we said my agent said it and i know anything about the publishing world are we said god you know would like to you know show around and i think they were for publishers bidding on it before it's all the the whole process took a month we had a we had a guarantee from doubt when we did that immediately yes immediately a phenomenal story and been quite unusual for a first or better yet so big so quick and so easy i really you know i feel very guilty about that you know ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ah listen live well what there was some joy but also some pain associated with doing it paid in that you do that we shouldn't do and some who know that was very very worried

about losing those both months ago that again absolutely i'm out i'm six hundred fifty pages into a new novel it really get six hundred and fifty pages know what does that mean this book is something like an honor for us in as three maybe something like that yet on the next book is going to be price outside i would say least twice that size probably a thousand pages it so hard multi generational story of a southern family beginning in eighteen sixty three at the fall of experts and you take them through to the present and year and years where you literally year two thirds of the way into it that's right please the first pass at it and i you know i don't know how much i'll have to re work and throw out all that later i don't look back until i get to the end sane sane format different voices know this is their person narration very much through is a very traditional armed

stop at least it is now i'm really tempted though you go back and turn some of those chapters in the first person i liked doing that and i guess it comes out on friday in a dramatic reversal and looking at the bed and sacred us or the title come from the second test i refer to as the us all of the south and the soul of the south became sacred army are well it's a place becomes sacred when you buried your get it when they go back to the land that we can go back to the soil they turned to dust in your life arises out of it and that goes on for generations that's that's you know exactly where the well was more low point was that the working title would be yes putin to god so i did and it is very funny because i had great resistance to the time all the way for great resistance or the noncommercial

university i had from the polish law did you allow that that was what i was gonna ask alastair yemen i've heard from family or that you said i'm not responsible it's time my title wasn't a publisher when would let me use that kind of problem of how do you prevail the i am are our top director who came up with this wonderful cover you'll go yeah a lot of it is an anti it you know when you look at that cover it makes perfect sense to you that that book is called sacred us so he won the battle for me i haven't acknowledged when i saw that cover artist was so pleased with that well look i'm back again david hill author of sacred us has been our guest on your own words your host as dan jansen was chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt university this program was reduced in the studios of wbez and national when i'm in need

on dancing and are invited to the next edition of a word on

words my guest will be david hill he's written three plays he's written for the screen you've written for television now his first novel sacred does it's a story of the south the story of mystery violence of fear of love of redemption join us next time for word on words when david hill will talk about