A Word on Words; 2919; Stephen Harrigan

owen jones and the once again welcome to world words i guess the inherent in the book the gates the alamo welcomed world were tanks pretty good at it talk about the a bout this book which is an all but run it in historical facts right and we have both fictional characters so and non fictional characters nobody other than to have to have story and let's begin with this you do you get a sound out of silicon sand used in you take a certain gymboree to davy crockett that program and the heroes who lost their lives there and you make them come alive and interact with the witcher three leading fictional character you're living touring artist lola berry aaron the bottomless pit

talk about that process and how can you take fact and from fact create fiction well i think almost every novelist does that in one way or another i mean you start with the facts of life around you and then you weave a fictional story it through that an historical fiction is not that much different in every every novel takes place in a in an atmosphere of love of history he would've this contemporary novel so again in this book i i wanted very much to create b the sense in the reader what it might like to have been to have lived through this period of history and and the other people who argue vociferously that you can't do this is wrong somehow morally ethically wrong to to create a fiction out of the out of the factory what about words and davey now we are a dry mouth are incurring friends mouth right

and really gauge the outlawed in front royal found it interesting in a dating again you know there is no real way to know everything arm almost anything aside from some of traverses reaches the honor those are very scant factual you have those letters that he's allowed but i must say the dynamic works the fact that it was so it's a long involved process tried to conjure up another time then and then in particular trying to understand what really happened at the allen west let's go back the few moments historically been so focused on where we were with that us citizens who have moved into the texas character and that's part of mexico right end and incidentally

mexico at that moment is not a slave nation now it's very much the opposite that finally center and and this struggle occurs the alamo is really the triggering event that leads us the last ten years to fight for independence for texas well there's this pretty fair i mean they independence was declared on your second which was four days before the alamo felt so it's it's it's not exactly right say was the instigating of that necessarily but it was with the biggest in the chain of events that led to them the size of texas an analysis and right and then of course the whole of texas inmate and in the southwest which does lead to the mexican war which led to get

to to come out of that whole history so it runs together and we forget that the war to taxes and opponents was not the us for this mexican of mexican not all that comes working now it's about nine years like or actually less than that but really in the end this was a fight for them that this spectacular the interesting thing for me about about the texas revolution which occurred in nineteen thirty six was that it was a mexican civil war about when you said that american citizens were living in mexico and texas of the times true but what unit remembers of these now we're now mexican citizens the cultural live invited by mexico to colonize it's very disruptive that section of the other four northern frontier and they had taken the oath a lot of of allegiance they become

catholics and so it became like a situation of a misunderstanding bruised feelings of love of political and the misunderstandings and then a lot of the same things that went into the american revolution was feeling of being governed by a distant land and really a responsive government so it was you and the same time mexico was a terrific upheaval is ill or our right after another so this was all their enduring as you say the nine years right and then there's another even older until us declared war i in an effort to annex mexico but that says in every generation texas broke ultimately goes to war against against mexico right i'll let me just go back to that declaration oppose the second declaration of that was and that plays on that because when taxes declared independence there was no way for

certain for the people inside the alamo to know why they didn't know lou they were they were fighting for there's a lot of pre roe wright no they were i mean they were hoping that they knew that the convention was meeting two to consider the matter of independence and they were in traverse was was worth writing letters saying i hope you declare and that's what we're here for essential but they never know and i write about it was often in prison in a mexican prison not at this time that was not not at that moment austin had been jailed in mexico and eighteen thirty two of the late writer thirty four and and what was in prison for a long time for sedition and was finally released and also was one of the most mild mannered people in texas at the time he was a very patient and moderate man but even he and this is an inevitable more between the

collison takes us and the mexican government was inevitable and so he did he at this time was he was not involved he was out and he was in the united states raising money for the revolution i am and died not long after by and then you and then we should go with those two up to our characters are fictional characters you put a merry a widow of two years in inside a sort of low in that her young son terrell a boy as soon as mother earth survive any an attack a face as disfigured as result of that into their world comes up in a world of the opening i guess is jim bowie and shot him it comes at a botanist a business and has to roll about the countryside in and examine the flora fauna are such as it is and the

texas plains country and down and then the more sort of thoreau and also encourages them up so lowe's only those of the characters in the main part of the story right now we take you to the pro because it's you take care of the seminole way he has been narrowed unintelligible and he's up there for this great what's in the first celebration of love bug of the alamo and socially of texas of the family and and and and he is advertised as the lawyer messenger who got out and then he collapses on stage and i would swear i know we lost a

lot of the numbers without legs or i could maybe he knows one thing about fiction and then they you can create a character like a caddie you got nine line and they're oh certainly but william on that platform and country for my country thinking maybe this is the end and of families are leaving it is alexei are nowhere he's a young man and anxiously lot to fight for his or his country's independence against the mexican and the us talk about the mother and son relationship goes against the very complex before we get through this and there was one word that is almost want to do in this book was for whole way elmo down from mythology and make it into a real human of that with real human scale characters and so i always thought that at the heart of the book would be very elemental and sort of a love story are sort of weird love story then there is

a mother and son story and it's a song about a mother trying to hold onto his son is growing up and growing up out into a world that that is changing el is frightening frighteningly and so a lot of women have responded very favorably to the good because they didn't expect to see at the heart of a novel about the alamo of a novel a minute story about a mother and a son but those are the kinds of signs that i was most interested than to try to walk this and bring it down to it to him a minute then you create i guess ill is now is a romance novel love affair not so not alone and it's a love affair to the extent as a lover is a lover never consummated a league in a real good chance we're trying to be very sensitive bottlers a possible man of the of the of of a

resolute principled man in a land where there was very little again leading with women right i just want to i don't know where it came from or what year but it but it but like all his character jesus or a certain i'm right and this is what develops an and it seemed to me like he is on a window and all his background so but he had he had a very you know a character like that scene very plausible to me a nineteenth century texas somebody who was sort of yoke to his own ambition at the expense of his own emotions and our eyes it felt right and sunlit field camera is some weird way with with the with the main story of what was happening at the alamo to have this kind of emotionally withhold character trying to to deal with that struggle with his own inadequacies all you need was a with a horse and a dog and ultimately of the mandate from sutton right he was working for an nba throughout the story and he

bumps into term jumbo size when a suspected him of being a subversive for a mexican think the yankees by the time to be mexican spot right the americans think he's of the texans that texans think is the texans take sick and taxis nasa was a video of that let's turn for a moment that would come very early in the book you say they're fighting about what they should be called right here about to do and the learning is whether the loss of valley officer tex icann's taxi horns tech sessions finally texans and then that they're there and they were called tech seems during this early period a minute finally settle on that for wildland that i'd just rather texans so it was i thought was the new delaware talking to talk to me a little bit about the character that

comes into work late joe joe joe was this that this is of the five or six point of view characters in the book job was the only one who really existed he was the slave girl travers who was the commander of the alamo and he was a very peculiar position because you know our minds in popular lore the alamo is this glorious fight for freedom were more men stood up against tyranny and sold their lives doing and all that but for joe and for other other black people and texas it was it was tough fight el they were there were slaves and they really on the fight was to keep them and slave money just tell our audience that those of you who are just in it were talking with the inherent in about his book and it's the alamo it's a book that's out now in paperback after getting great reviews of them in hardback edition we're lucky to have you hear let me just go to jail for a minute there is a moment in the book davy crockett

but still the ultimate question was a mexican condo and all and only come in to freeze the gloomy will issue the name joseph i guess so and crockett says funny or real patriot now the truth is when they come in show survive the close he is blind and you and you create a dialogue there after that after his survival is there any evidence of welcome the others are some and he was there couple newspaper accounts about him trying to escape he was conveyed his property from from that as colonel travis is probably to his law partner and worry because the plane a slave again and he he did try to skip several times and i've speculated somewhat might get into leisure and then

there are people in that there's a book being written right now about joe which may give us a little more biographical information about it but it was a real character and and was the only know is that again the popular image of the aisle most of all the defenders dodd well it probably do except for one and that was joe you also suggest in there that there may have been more then at the last minute there was there was an additional complement that came in and i will know how many of those might've gotten runaway in the battle itself was so chaotic it was messy in terms of of it wasn't confined to the mission or four of the alamo it did spill over the walls and i think it's very likely that was a one or two people might've gotten away now as you have the story of crockett is a more literally was their will are you havin taking

got out and yet there are you know intending darrow out and helping il est the telling mary you try to do that and when he does it and you say that there is some historical evidence but that indeed the place they made the sojourn out and then and then gain back that that's based on recent research though as historian thom woodley ambassador who has put together a book of pretty to my mind recently convincing hypothesis that crockett led a late reinforcement into the helmet what happened to the simple across of a crossing the river of the sable river and brought a group of men back in and so i just her took that ran with a novelist actually know how many rebel mohammed because seven year at polyethylene and that is what makes it difficult to accurately count how many were there any remedy that if indeed he did that the no

more men at the alamo well i think there were more than the alamo with it anyway because if you look closely at the mexican sources are fairly consistent saying something like two hundred fifty forty or fifty seven men and ended that we've always heard hundred eighty three hundred ninety seven i think i think it's a really good guess that there were over two hundred men fighting at the alamo how many were effective how many were sicker would we don't know but it was a debate rigorous and we thought oh i guess new ceo with peak emotional point in the fictional story comes when they're a boat and the story is not all of them think that this novel is about sex i mean that terrell as a young boy does have sex with a rather sick sick

young woman a dj blessed virgin's about the cactus and i'm alone he tells his mother acknowledges that she later he's found by him with two sections soldiers so there is there is there is some of those little touches salacious just the salacious just because of the salacious than that but he never leaves home because the young woman at the annual event and then dives commit suicide and terrible is off because his mother if they choose and she finds out the truth she then goes the alamo to let him know she was alone ask him to forgive or to tell them that she loves them

and our telomeres also sort of it and some of the other ideas are decided at alamo i mean do you think the gauge the alamo would mean sad and tragic ending and for a lot of love and it was at an aging clinic but far but for our but carolyn and mary jane is upset it nowadays laura hope for your website the leaders wanted wondering about let me pilot <unk> others how writers write in a new written one of know what it is you know you know were other end of the eight years from start to finish you know a lot of that time was research going through old diaries and journals and reading all the books i'm talking

to historians but it was a it's hard to find time to sustain them out of time to ride in the sun and doing other things and i'm a screenwriter as well but it took me i would say as far as writing the book goes public two solid years when you sit sit down to write i have yet that the thirty years ago on the show an author lecturer wrote standing up but the williamson of to right although i did have one novelist and so he writes in the air but but when you win you sound right i'll do you work at it as a day job doesn't just come in spurts when you can find it well it's it's a job from amman it's as a vocation that its better treated as a jet other night i get to go out of an office in my backyard and i report for work every day about

victorian time and i work all day and two until five or six then all fall for the opera for large and then what i find very helpful for man i'd better of encourage other riders to do this to feel having trouble is go back for an hour at night it's amazing what an accomplished an hour because if you have if you're the kids in that if you have kids or even to compress that will then just go back and revisit it for just a few moments and you make some notes for the next day's work or serve finish up i thought you had that day and you're you can be you can be i think my theory is you could write a book and your field work one or two hours but i like and what my time expand more than that just counts long after all the analysis a year late morning in the end the neural than means i'm in the words echoing the city says a graphic

our effort a college coach and to join together and then it's a lot of ground to stop they are an insidious top lawyer has ordered rules or off which i think you know you if if if you've got a head of steam building up and i said don't waste it all in one rush you know that what i do typically is if it's going well and i guess i feel that i outta stop for various reasons i make some notes ideas scraps of dialogue you know the camera adam i'll outline the key and then just take off and go eat lunch and company out of a comeback chances are all the roundup ready to hit again pandora five can come back to an extent lesser you listen we're going to bring in an old son they remember something about terrell a

very or a clinician and you say i've got to get that their one job and then you know it's it's this is wrong i think isn't running as a mystical that i mean that it is there is a very strange elusive quality to it but basically you can you don't have to be in a trance knows where the illusions i think that writers have you you're just you're just wright mm hmm you're writing a family history planets going me i'm ok but on what might change is not absolutely riveted on all michael go wander over here and make a few notes i won't shift the whole base of operations over to the novel at that time but that i will certainly keep tabs with the main it's the moments scattered around that well read to be working on more than one project i worry about they use that metaphor sometimes around them use when you show were

whispering in your ear and is really going and suddenly and rise up just won't come in and you try to fight through it you're well i mean there are you know there's no means am in my opinion there's your them years and then you have to keep you have to keep yourself available for inspiration and the only way i know to do is just a city or just try and again to try to demystify and it's not you know is some of the best writing i've done have been during some of its longest days ahead we're just saying one nothing would come and go back and look at the builders liars perfectly fine and you earn those burst of inspiration but you know that is sitting there at your desk and we knew through i mean you know of birth the baby and noble will right but is there the sense of satisfaction deep satisfaction yeah and you know it's it's really that the tremendous feeling of accomplishment but this long coat and you don't know what to do with yourself it's over

a lot for walking orders six weeks to immigration aisles going from a war zone to the next that well i can't believe this book and what's next twenty working on no well right now i've got another nylon work and i'm working on a contemporary novel set in nasa astronauts and i just finished a screenplay they're working they're filming right now a western reimagining of king lear starring patrick stewart and marcia gay harden the film in mexico right now and is it possible to put those two things together at that at that at the same time to work on both those projects are you going from astronauts on from the iowa senator dick listeners of blubber from the sublime to the sublime well he adds it's just the you know the moving moving my tension over a little bit it's the same process and how long list but it takes a lot less time i'm hoping the uk have done and a year and half percent

and the publisher will come out a year after that you can i give you live right here outside i'm still here surely we're talking today was the narrative about his new book the gates of the alamo but a great pleasure the heavier i hope you will come back and one usa by to watching the warlords the preview and johnson