A Word on Words; 3514; Gary Slaughter

fb liz from national television studio way celebrating offers literature and ideas for more than three decades this is word on workers with jobs ellen johnson even though once again welcome to word on words our guest gary slaughter from their assault onto the author of cottonwood summer and now cottonwood followup of the world were there straight ahead here we met down by accident a meeting of writers and

i hated that we live in the same town here in tomorrow's books violent so and we were in those i missed both of the book you should've been here joe cottonwood summer into the album for a lot of reasons you talk about cottonwood falling cotton would summer to know what you've done seems to me you've traded the an ongoing story that's about two young boys and i think of them as sort of this generation's social intervention that's what their lives in that occurred you get it and what you're writing this well i had some reviewers suggest and others have suggested the hardy boys because it's the main street is what all about the hardy boys and i thought about the ruler wars novel about tom swift all of those are a big i was a big fan

of the of the rewards the rewards lowland luck with the last book i write i gave it to my grandson greed he's now nine didn't relate to it and all it gets caught and would fall in cottonwood summer next summer for the idea come from actually i suppose you'd say came from my life growing up in a small town in michigan are in the world were to home front and my very best friend was a a man whose name is bill curtis and i hadn't seen bill for fifty years until the publication of cottonwood summer when he discovered he was the basis of this of the main character of mr danny yeah and he was quite amazed and even though much of its fictionalized bill has now taken on the persona of danny and he's quite popular in his hometown of phoenix arizona you write in the first person and dave's college ace yes that case case a character from her breath out how much of cases you are from i guess you'd say

that most of the juices made in the sense that i suppose any form of narration you know whether it be world a form of telling a story whether the first person or third person is coming from the author the chase is very much me and these two eventually young boys the setting war to push you are you're an officer and more war to end the surge well so with the song meaningful experiences because you recall at war with a wartime so well well that's a bit of a deception hi i was younger than i already have tended to be as the american narrative the story actually it is later i serve later i served in the fifties and sixties i was new oscar and served during

the vietnam and europe just the beginning of a nicer during the cuban missile crisis is remarkable how how much research was recorded the back got a dig into the culture of the war is of the forties well paid hey this may not there would be believable quite but not much and i guess i'm blessed because i'm i like a lot of people who don't remember the early childhood i seem to have a vivid recollection of things that happen to me at a very early age and frankly i thought everyone had that same knack or capability and and i think it has something to the fact that i had lived in the neighborhood that i detect the whole fleet vividly in these books and only until i was ten years old and i moved away so it's like a snapshot and i've kept that

image of that neighborhood and the people there very alive in my memory since then you were raised in owosso michigan ball was so magical was so many years and i never heard of or was on michigan but i should add yes i should have because one of things politicians american history with morley safer so i got that from your book that thomas he do at times seydoux plays a role in the lives of jason dady that's ray was from a law so it's really written a real place or is that a place from your right that these images of fiction and it is it's for my imagination to fictionalize version of the wassail it might help to know that ice started out writing a memoir a an autobiographical memoir of my i guess i should not back a step about six years ago my daughter sent me a book called grandpa remembers you've

probably seen these bedside and this book contains dozens of questions does it help me recall and record my childhood memories to share with my grandchildren and the first question is the recall was what was it like growing up in your hometown without book provided me about that much space well i wasn't quite enough room from he left so four hundred pages later eight hundred pages later i have describe part of what was four hundred pages for the summer they become local heroes and four hundred pages more another national hero let's talk about just briefly of the close says to really have to get a grip on fall we have to revisit some are a bit you hear these young guys had founded something called a forestry guard

and they became it was you have camera region their ideas is fictional a military base there are appeals that is there is for prisoners or who were germans end it was pretty exciting adventure you immerse them and in the summer as for where the idea for the story come from it was actually came from an actual incident that occurred in the force of michigan who was the michigan head a prisoner war camp and it's us hertz and two german prisoners of war from that camp escaped when i was five years old at the time this happened and you can imagine and it stirred my imagination rip me with fear as it did everyone in town these prisoners of war work together with the

civilians mainly women in our local can effect or the candy factory that was right in my own neighborhood to women assisted them to estimate this escape and within twenty four hours the four were arrested the pure the bees were returned to their camp there were mildly disciplined but the women were subsequently charged with treason is being more time that was a hanging offense and they were brought to trial and there were subsequently and what an exciting trial a fictional trial turned out debates i just recited cup when headlines from a summer not sealing girls mastermind break out four peeled baby bow but one of them and the other was a small town tennessee has turned loose that there's bad boy it's by among other things so the excitement of reading about these modern day thumb so isn't out friends the very good humor and i'm finding reading this

story end and then there was the year and then there was a report at the sheriff restaurants where he said that sergeant paul and john allison they had been edited by danger is in sketching for dangerous criminals afford and dangerous fugitives well they bring the story fallen to cotton would fall and they didn't go to church camp it's an economy and not a great adventure down the road for one field under the stove have written camp and you're not true that story are you no and that's in your division player probably play a major role in all four of the books the series and that's because they've played such a major role in my life in fact the subject appeared that is a very interesting most people most people don't realize we had over four hundred and twenty six thousand

years in this country during world war two you know white ridge road your natural gas there was the day of the veterans' hospital facility and he'll have his work there and i spent one summer working for my father i was a contractor and north occasions i head i shared my lunch with one or more the ordinance and a literal english leaked tournament i mispronounce my manager beside involvement in helena didn't write about with somebody that as alan turing no you know i run towards i think i'm not sure but anyway it perhaps with that recruitment remembrance from us open up in the book from the very beginning it's an if it's a gripping story not you put in church camps and you'd give us a great deal of thought the detail about the solar trials and troubled son and

fauna but going to church dampen at the outset the cases today in riga it's about a lonely said no more to read the chances of us is graded you are in their relationship all away through in real life so you then and then a thermo tiles as we were as mr fact we went to church can be religious and that was based on a church of christ church gap call rock lake about the movie that exist anymore in michigan and some of that those same adventures did actually happen they have a solemn multi faith experience that two of money for a methodist a baptist aim is to catholic don't want to do that well because it was based on true events bill curtis a guy who was very in the book oh yes and i used to get very early on sunday mornings when our parents were sleeping and they were working all kinds of hours during the

war and we are took off and tried to hit as many churches as we couldn't town to attend as many services we had complete freedom and none of the town back in those days nobody but the claps on kids like we have today as those and as a result we actually this good natured years every sunday morning and in turkey in as many religions as we could and there's an episode about billy or excuse me danny being baptized in the church right and this was a church of grace can't exactly and he'd already been baptized in the catholic church that is absolutely true and they did that quake and the history you know i i've thought as i got into it knowing that the that in the songwriting day and

live the love and the lives of the copley and guys before we were caught up in all of the excitement and danger and i knew that we read in that direction again but i couldn't figure out in my mind how you again of interest have endured into a dangerous crisis but the next thing i know i'm heavily into it and many have been kidnapped and that you know when i was going at the outset i had no idea the year the storylines sort of just come out of my imagination and unfortunate way i know that i want to continue the characters of lighter and bid battling her baking he had the bad guy pugh dove yes and somehow i wanted them to reap their revenge on danny yes for having taught of them basically yes and so i thought that with a connection at the farm and in the barn and so for that we could we could maybe do

work very well if you are very well and knowing that knowing the genre and i have absolutely no doubt is gonna come are right but i don't know how he's going to get out of there and the ransom note comfort we want fifty grand piano and safe passage to spy on a related note creative prisoners of war did you know how you know and i'm not quite certain when or how they came to me but i was very pleased it appeared to me that day my home office that were injured in the military as interesting to me your background includes motor company also includes eleven and one i don't mean this in any way be a pejorative of them are

really been a business life is really so open is it unfair to call him a technocrat well i guess i was a bit of a technocrat i hear it myself more as a as a translator bringing softer management skills and so forth to a very tactical environment that i've always done that sort of thing in my business career try to bring a measure skills to information technology professionals who are very poor managers and that's how i made my name in business for those of you just turned inward and we were talking to gary far about his new book cottonwood fallen about the book to receive cottonwood summer and then sold it and you wrote and lectured as integral technocratic but did you know that you have this gift to write fiction

i'm based on fire or you you appreciate this of course i knew because i was the feature editor for my high school newspaper or you know and i wrote fiction back then but then i had to take a forty year sabbatical and do business and then i came back to the six years ago when you know as i read our viewers of my generation to date and younger they will experience is it wasn't it was recapturing old movies all music i hadn't thought of it would you robinson in since i can remember and in the movies of the time in the in the songs of the period all come back to conjure up memories of a time when we were at war again but over time it conjured memories of a time when the when we truly

are worried about germans and italians and that you say in the city and it's interesting to me how you brought japanese internment in the story is an argument what you do a white pride as part of the lawyer from iranians bridges to be instructive to be instructed to people youngsters of my grandchildren's age and i wanted them to remember that that happened i wanted them to know that it happened and one thing i didn't know by the way is that there were ten thousand germans interned as well as enemy aliens in the same fashion that we had turned a hundred and twenty seven thousand japanese two thirds of whom were american citizens my i try to depict cabinet they're relatively objective way but yet it was a terrible chapter in our history and i

want people to know about you know i can remember and have said in public speeches calling internment of japanese hundred and twenty thousand people total so yeah so so yeah so you're considering the family behind barbed wire for the duration and all flaws but in telling the story i also include the fact that my mother who was with irish on all sides there and my father who was obviously seeing a lot of german their mission and some leader wore my siblings and i were astounded to hear our mother we didn't only was humorous wish the fact for sure at a higher body was an embarrassment for you to be german and the front of the now would cesar about long afterward but they but the media then

was filled with a pejorative representations of the germans as hans solo often the japanese as japs in an age of political correctness people are shocked to go back and read those headlines but we were at war and we were afraid and we were courageous and bold but we were also quite insulting way we dealt with its loyal americans were of german italian and typically japanese descent keiko and and that was a problem for me writing this book because i had to be careful not to explain that very thing that we were all of my notes seem to square with their sensitivities of today with this is the way it was happening we heard midterms jacqueline that trims crowd from the pulpit try our churches and our schools and our newspaper headlines in our

radio broadcasts it was a common label that we place on the enemy and i i guess it can be forgiven some plane but it was pretty a pretty radical anything about it in today's terms well you bring the governor dewey and ends the story assault on the telephone and congratulation boys on the heroism and to live and beyond on that new breakfast club of great mourning show that for thirty five years that captivated morning america first wrote about the second go to breakfast and that and so it's in the midst of the forty four political campaign dewey and they do know are so relates to leave let's delve a little beyond the breakfast club and fdr not to be outdone bring j edgar hoover long as reasons the two boys with heroic metal to metal reels of courage a trust or where did that idea come from and i i think my imagination can i get out of

it is saturated fat to make my point but i didn't want it of course wanted to mention dewey and the influence it had under us boys growing up in owosso michigan at the time because it was a it was a noble campaign answer will have more time to talk about that in itself but thomas e dewey by weight fdr one the smallest percentage of popular vote than he ever in any presidential election authority or four it was only fifty three point four percent of the popular vote and do it was criticized by staunch republicans for not attacking fdr more years he refused to attack ft r n n e policy and they're talking about is war policies his conduct of the war his foreign policies on any policy dooley took the high road to a fare thee well he did are millions of him and some of the columns as being the

man on the wedding cake and then he gets i would come across as a very nice man and as you say too nice for some of his republican colleagues who were critical but then it would be indeed come home and all was only afterward to be food and so i felt he came home to was so frequently because as mothers to live through it and i don't know if he came home right after the election i suspect so because he he hadn't a small number of local supporters and he was an attorney forget the good part of his adult current prosecuting attorney and one effect of protests here and in new york in these same southern district that rudy giuliani held it and was successful prosecuting the same kinds of mobsters that giuliani or prosecute the dutch schultz was one of his

successors in that sense but he did come along quite often and he has an attorney he was a corporate attorney to a number of other michigan corporations and businesspeople so he kept a local connection with a was one with michigan it was fdr it would've been quite in character for fdr knowing that the jury young lions came from you is reason to capture a piece of blue heroes of independent and one up for the summer and the government areas of government is it up well i and i have to take if that turn that show the labour of love for you though absolutely but it has been labor the worst part about it i suppose is the the long stretch of solitary confinement and my wife and i moved to nashville nineteen ninety nine about that time and it projects that i missed her year ended

and it out turned to my writing and my sense of myself to five years of solitary confinement in the home office unlike the tough for my house you know people don't understand that about writing authors have to put sue the pants in the future if it's going to work what you're i actually i try to get up an early early risers and i'm probably up clear keyboard by seven in the morning and i ride until i am exhausted which happens about noon hour one o'clock in the afternoon and then i stop you just won't come when no one would fictionalize is sitting on the children's wish rainier and suddenly snarky i did happen when i began winner because of that summer and fall are going to be hard act to follow i know that and i was trying to do better winner is going to be a christmas story and i was wracking my brain for

the better part of a year and try to come up with an original storyline about christmas that wasn't cool shade and headmen boiled over from some other booker other story and it finally came to me only about two weeks ago we had just a minute left what about is there gonna be a spring for dangerous yes yes well if you recall there's gotta be awaiting sharon springs yes so exactly promise the readers that way so i that's my way of keeping gary honest and there will be a spring well i thank you so much for coming to talk about summer and four to win and spraying thank you thank all of you for watching very short on the books cottonwood sell a cottonwood fall read them both loved for word on words and john tyndall keep reading