A Word on Words; 4233; Don Winston

from nashville public television's stood in the way of celebrating offers literature and ideas for more than three decades but this is a word on workers' jobs vaughn johnson in the local once again the word on words my guest today is john winston is a native of nashville are now works in los angeles an actor writer producer is a new day with his first novel swanee a paranoid throw as one of yours says this is one thing where one all novel readers summed it up by saying nothing is what it seems in soy it's much much darker than some eyes have you talk about swallowing thank you perhaps an ennis added it's one am and it is the real slowly as that school girl mattie and this is a paranoid through and i don't know for some of run into that paranoid talk about that might happen without apparent heart attack it invigorated the panel another

i'm wondering what voters wanted was an above wall if it because of the us and what i kind of it i'd i went there to do research i didn't deal with the administration i went straight to the students and i contacted a member of the sae fraternity at a different school that i went when i went to do research i called the fraternity house and say can you show me around and you know is very well aware of the school so the kids in the students get a huge kick out effect that was coming and because these days things go viral when the book came out the students on and that it was out the administration didn't really know but and i don't know how the alumni feel about it but i do know i had been in email contact with a vice chancellor coral and with their director of communications and they get kicked out and they think it's fun by chance last christmas coming back from new york i sat next to on a plane jon meacham who of course is a big so i know i just want to graduate and then the live show the house and tornadoes england he i love the players and what's

not allowed such a magical place it he's sort of a character in the book in a way not not specifically with us about the us open his religion in the book nature is this one a graduate who is who it rises to great heights and famine becomes the head of newsweek magazine and it turns out he has a history with other people in the book or not you'd think through their arms and an end and you begin to name distinguish a long long line and beyond it oh a national magazine editor showed up there and i knew with john immediately there are some people you can identify in the sun in the sun browned on all but last fall by corey briscoe to come from coming out not talking about where it comes from before he goes up on the hill the enrollment school book in your mind how did you

create cody as early as the young man who was so the struggling at a scholarship thought he was not going to be able to make it and part of the story is the struggle of how it how it does make you take us through the process almost blown bubble right the entire story is seen through one person's eyes it's a very narrow point of view which is cody market was a high school student in east brunswick new jersey with a concert a single parent home like rutgers was in his was in his academic future absolutely workers was a natural place for him to go and he hasn't sort of domineering mother who is a bit of a narcissist fed wants to keep her son close by ad he thinks it was it like there with the lights absolutely yes and i was insolent together and does a one and to go anywhere and then when he's on his way directors actors all signed up using page his deposit very late again he gets a letter from a school in tennessee called swami that is

dangling the idea perhaps of a scholarship mama that wanted to go oh there's one and i don't want i don't want my low boredom of them saw them is ahmed who knows what'll happen to him and as a wannabe left allow absolutely dead so they had the first third of the book is that struggle between the two of them is he gonna fly fly the group and leave the nest and go to this strange school that is respected him very late in the game so that his mother's suspicious he's not suspicious he thinks it's fun isn't a dvd of the latter really comes from a student id of stone leader let's talk who knows that he has been excluded and now is reaching out and tell them we want you back we want you cody you're in us income an era and of course he is there is because of mom some ambivalence about much i mean you get the sense that when i resigned over his art on and now known are absolutely scientists put them just from the photos just from the armed the ddt they send him showing the whole world it's like it's sort of like disneyland and because it's such

a magical hogwarts type cinematic beautiful place and he is he it's it's it's for the coming of age story in that he wants to go there he wants to you could just sucks in air and the tension within his mother is back and forth as to whether or not he will actually be allotted to do it and eventually she gives him end up and lets him lets him go for reasons that become clear going to try it but you know let's not without you you suspect a few tears on her part what can have munnell boy and what got me in the united and down there and will you ever say oh my sister fire every mother goes through the same thing i'm sure every single moment could go off to college some far distant place you know i'm in the middle of that it's a moment i wish him well meanwhile both i just i'm not going there was salmon most of its own going on the

right and she is the breakdown right at the violence in the latter the student leaders is the result of the emotion and this is in the early nineties and he's a campus leader and the and he really sort of put his arms around gori marco and embraces him and gives him some guidance along the way where it is to where it is so where does somebody like that come from i mean i mention in your mind what would you create good you know you needed and yes we needed a guy we needed someone to to be the mentor the big brother to cody to show in the way because when you are a freshman school very often there is i know i had it as a freshman there is someone you look up to and so it has been there who knows more about the school than you do who knows how to discern attach yourself to be a mostly and so what i know and i knew i needed that they were plot reasons why putin as well very specifically but as far as emotionally for cody he needed a guide he needed someone

he'd sort of ob wan kenobi to show him around the school and two but his complete trust in him that was his first friend there in before he got there is this is the guy ross we reached out to him to say you know what come here on scholarship scholarship it's fine to great schools agrees place in the world to me and so he trusts him and he becomes his mentor and so he was a very important part of the story especially when you went out on long island and look intersected with people there i've been to meet somebody like that certainly they're there or is he totally out of your own imagination that's pretty much out of my imagination i didn't meet someone quite like that when i was there but when you look around the campus any one of them could be like that because they all have that a lot of them especially upper classman had that experience and confidence of freshmen don't have so i just remembered from going to

college where i went we had a home we we had her big brother figures as well a big sisters whenever was there was someone there who knew the place and i think that's very common among people go to college that there's someone upper classman you look up to now there is also be an actress and ellis only and i don't know when you introduced me to the dean exactly are feasible you know i'm wondering what his role in this and dump caught up in a story by this time then i won an interview storm he almost seemed like an extension him almost like a mentor on foreign soon for that he's the followers cut every answer to every question the solution to every problem if there is a beer mostly the

bigger man on campus than anybody else he's that they don't know where they come from you know in your own college experience or is he again totally out of your imagination he's totally out of my imagination looking back i had i had professors at princeton who who had his store or in his energy and sort of the know it had everything that there is to know just the ultimate wise man and the big dog so i knew certain people like that he kind of spring from my imagination in the school needed a top leader i needed it again and in this case he becomes code he's academic advisors which is slightly strange in its own right that the big guy on campus and the big game is the academic adviser of cody our character that he put in that sprang from my imagination and that i want anyone needed someone like him i visualized an absurd picture what you wore i pictured on that sort of living room he said in a busy signal or was not too dissimilar from this one bed bed

you could get you could pass for to secure and in that sort of it he was the that the y is very accomplished man that you immediately instantly trusted with all your trust and faith and because you know he knows more than you do and you wanna learn from them and cody wants to learn from the map or some news over one that this is going to be his advisor and the mattress and has not only in the story went to swanee and he spent his entire life they're ever since uses it says is as harvey you know it's his domain right now are less let's talk for a moment about the paranoid thriller but you know lance first of run across the paranoid thriller words that come from in your life and then i think it sets a paranoid thriller apart from sort of the traditional normal thriller and a traditional thriller even such as our mysteries as agatha christie tom clancy or stephen king

there's a there's a good time as a bad guy from the very beginning and they both know about each other and the storey is a struggle between the good and bad guy and the hope with a good guy either neutralizes or stops it kills the bad guy and that becomes the story in a paranoid thriller is a good guy but he a dozen know and we don't know if there's a bad guy or not because the parable of the good guy or girl is determined to live his life in this case they need to turn to the college of a wonderful college ariely and he takes it all on he has agreed all the countless culture be able to keep his grades up economy get more like the debate and they'll have a problem and so he gets a full scholarship to foreman in the right in the meantime though amassing around him that he is in the norton is in denial or sort of malevolent forces that start to collect around him that he's not even aware on all of factly injured monti's warning just curious if you know i'm not very clear how much i love the school vouchers that that his arrival

on my things in the lobby of the va it was way the reader gets a call a dramatic irony that we know there's a problem because we have been confirmed as an alternate approach we're aware that is gradually unfolding it took me a little bit to get onto it though it took me a little bit it just took me a bit to really grasp where you were where you were leading man what you were doing with the mindset of cody yes of everybody cheer i mean by that time withdrew its not just not just code is not just aren't mentors not just letting now it's in the strumming you got me on for a month now not up there that's that's kind of it was its weight were in and i studied certain other one of the masters of the paranoid thriller is the author that is no longer with us but he and people know his books in the movies may on the way one big role but we do anything he is sort of a master of the night studies of that that i play with on my own and

it's just that tension that happens when the lead character is incomplete now there's a problem and here she is determined to have a happy normal life ignoring visiting the nile is the thing that we all go through in life when we ignore we deny problems that are massing around this and that causes trouble because israel trouble for cutie and and in detention also is that the escape door is always open and he could always walk out he can always leaves wanting in fact he does go home for christmas and as a reader and a writer and a reader says don't go back don't go back but then i have to send him back and forth or because he has to solve the problem so dramatically that has to happen but secondly it but i think this attention and suspense that he's going back into the lions' den again still in denial that there's a there's a real problem and by the time the tension comes is that by the time it realizes that indeed it is

houses on fire then it's too late and they got him as the news titans and he's trapped then how'd you get out and that's what that's what kind of is that to cause them the suspension and the tension that's the dilemma that simple and that's the paranoia about you just tuned in i'm talking to tomlinson about to debut book for a it is called and it is a pro and draw on so and so must talk a move on the university of kent lord come from anybody ever knew you know i mean i'm not talking about the i'm not talking about the world's health and then to evolve book but you know you present in the nation in the present and so oh as a problem solver or problems you're ah care here are firth and indeed

dot edu the problem go to the knobs and he's going out to work about one of the things that cody is an abuse to adverse times is bows for yeah i know let that part of the story was so again that i can hear the cheers economou mouth but code is immersed in an urban song like a strong break share a lot surrounded by that and that evolved from your experience in researching this warning well having that particular that's why i think it's a decent college especially when you first go there for many people it's the first time you're away from your parental control and people sometimes door while at first and you have access to things like color when olive oil he does not want to come and there were there were times when he was smarter yes but he's confused as to why there is e does pass out and wake up in strange places all over

campus repeatedly which he thinks is just from the blues in a near monopoly and he's confused by his own behavior that gov ad at that that's again part of that history and was gracious offer is crazy some you know unknown and usually gets in trouble are you struggling it isn't even the grade point average he loses a scholarship so he always has that hang over his head and the demise of this and ross reminds me of this scene is that the dean and the mother speak about his is great going down so yeah he and his classmates are which will meet there will be many of them we meet go through this crazy you know freshman just now been let out of the home and on the line here you take me through the first for this book every every kid who ever want to call it every parent you ever have a child one way to college is part of the

first chair is strong for scholarship enabling what you went through it too you took a look at the upturn to the goal of campos so many adoptions boat and eric there are so many different aspects of first through and everybody can relate to and i get a coke and i think this is a lesson that you know this is a normal there's going to be a normal student enrolling in a normal school on his gonna be normal is not going to be paranoid right panel of the last thing on my mind and the next thing i know along i'm beginning to realize it's like i'm paranoid valle family gradually dropped so parts of of the story here then and i'm caught up in that well i dont

realize you've got me lookin into it before i understand everybody's going to be talk about how unique that way that catches in in the mystery of paranoia it's that it's part of the fun of as i go into the twisted fun and i mean i'm not really paranoid i think that not everybody is worried about some audio spoken about i'm thinking about your acting against the americans you know conspirators and procedures are all sure absolutely and sometimes in good reason as right as a song about a reason here for some paranoia absolutely he should've and the paranoid come or seven anyway so much happier and so with a girl and so much more so we're sorry folks on the hill i didn't know it did that and after the way that they did that that's the fun of it is to get is that the slow burn of the story and to trap the reader into

that story and wade one way i did it a gift to give away something is a measure the pros in the storytelling is pretty simple so there almost reads like a children's story for adults because you want to is a mother jones story what i do on a simple declarative sentence with legitimate or taken advantage right tamara write it and i tried to work on that just because what you allow your thoughts as a renewed works thank you and i'm glad to know that well even though the battle in that area there are these fires at it were but because the goal is to has arisen as a writer is to from the beginning to disarm the reader and to get the reader to underestimate the story so that you dr are not on guard for trouble that like you did hopefully coast through the story and then the trouble starts to mass around you like it does with cody year before you even know it and the way to do that is to not tip your hand and again

like i said the reader knows is that the trouble it's called a particular but i caught a lull the reader into trusting me and a trusting that everything's going to be ok up by writing it in very simple phrases and that if i may you lonely you at me like to sleep on non caught the wearable for naught that's clear and sunny our laws in all whistling is contagious yes it's catchy and then it's not just code in is not just his mentor was not just as being if the institution is paranoid sure and the final the finals root ingredient of a paranoid thriller that turns the kids into nightmarish is that whatever that the hero in this case cody fears is happening toward the end it's not nearly as bad as what is really happening so that's the final twist and step of the paranoid thriller is that it's much much worse than even thinks it is and that's what gives its final

and what is happening to a reader just to tell you you were just what happens to you in that you suddenly are caught up in it and gradually you understand the depth and the intensity of a paranoia that they told right i'm not sure i was for a while that that and it doesnt happy and that he doesn't think about it that that's that that is probably the filing very apparent now why did you decide on having an event going on and it made him a few people smile rubble now right but not very bright did you feel like you had over osama bin to quality at the end of the story yes because i'm this that way naturally i don't like the story has a happy ending its a twisted happy ending it's the wind in my book where you know it's a mixed metaphors i have been in booker's sure i know i mean i think with the main character is the hero gets when he or she

wants that makes a happy ending sure what they want to not be that and he looked at the budget that they get a drop in its happy and so that's what i kind of work to get toward head down because i am and i'm a big fan of stories that end on a dark no even though the story can be kind of dark i like it in the unhappy when the main character is that what you and when you take even structure it's daily either of the books or were screenplays or ugly or not much of a banned writer i'd rather not wait to the last minute deal in their line have to step on it and had been that way since college and poor miners it's premature eight o'clock a ticket or killed somewhere around five or six that he didn't break the military for some exercise is good for the brain that i keep it pretty structured in many ways it buys was we're done for the day forget about that side

which a subconscious work and don't think about it again a travesty that if we can it's a pretty regimented own schedule of them and if i have a lock or something i just have to trust the city of tripoli is gaza's what happens on that morning when you wake up and the news is not sitting on his show was when interior and the words just won't come on the ports won't come in yesterday's staff same flow impossible typical form for me what i would do or through the mud that way i do is i think you just stay there you stay there and trust the news will come back and you don't run away from it you don't you show up every day to work and you have to trust that news will come back and you made a good running they are veteran day but you don't run away from that made you get up and take a walk shortage of navy and one i lit by the hollywood sign so it is all kinds of hiking around if i need to get away i could get out and

hike around combat but i always come back i don't be discouraged i can to be upbeat person and i don't get discouraged very easily from stumps out when it get me down at that suggest that many people on the only on the mountain there for you we're hoping you didn't ever come by to walk away five by idiots which are next book and another one coming out november called the paranoid thriller called the union club which takes place not in saudi but in san francisco mongolian gone mama don't be sure of the year after that might be a moment of detroit the victor hugo's just that's right across the way toward takes place too far from vermont <unk> that explain i saw that in that struck me and i will restore and i got at it inside to war than that you know i was reading a book at the time i didn't know of a book that i get to read it and it's about a young woman who marries her college sweetheart

this family is a member of the club there's sort of the kennedys of san francisco so when they move back to san francisco and move into the clubs as they look for a place to live physique it comes back to join the family is a lot of you're in this really comes out and about maude was that will be available the book on my right now is a thriller that takes place in bucks county pennsylvania a summer stock theater which really exists called the bucks county playhouse is the place at another young actors that goes there for the summer for some are stuck to get experience in musical theater the professional level and on that and i loved this book and i hope a big was wanted or wounded few very forgiving crowd out there the vote was what you know on a good word of warning for thank you so much for coming back thank you thank you and thanks all of you for watching on johnson in gulfport own words you must keep reading

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