| Sometimes story ideas walk into your life. They knock on the door, sit down and share a beer with you. You might foolishly think -- oh, that was an interesting person I met. Days later you realize: oh, that was an interesting story I met. My novel, On a Night Like This, started with a visit from a once-close high school buddy of my new husband. Neal got a phone call from him after five years of no contact. "I'm passing through town," he said. "Give me your address. I'll be there in an hour." He pulled up in his truck a couple of hours later. He was bad-boy charming and cowboy handsome. He hung around for a few hours and a few beers. He told us a little about his life: he had already left one marriage, a couple of kids, and probably dozens of girlfriends along the way. (We later learned that his kids hadn't seen their dad in years.) He moved from job to job, town to town — he was now living in a trailer somewhere. And then he told us this story. He met an old classmate at their twentieth high school reunion. She was dying of AIDS. He fell in love with the woman. She had a four-year old child. "What happened?" I asked, entranced. He shrugged. "We spent about a year together. When she died I bathed her body, then brought her daughter in to say goodbye to her." "What happened to the girl?" I asked. Another shrug. "Dunno. Lost touch," he said. When he left our house, his story stayed. It lodged somewhere in my imagination and wouldn't let go. There was something terribly wrong about his story — something I wanted to fix. This story — about a down-and-out guy, falling in love with a dying woman — needed a different ending. In my ending, the guy had to be saved. A few months later I sat down to write that story. Neal's friend became Luke — by Chapter Two my own character pushed him out of the way. The four-year-old became a sixteen year old. And the dying woman — now dying of cancer rather than AIDS — so powerfully touched Luke's life that both of them were transformed by their relationship. I'm sure lots of stories walked into my life that year. There's a reason one story stays behind when the storyteller leaves. Other stories get forgotten soon after the lunch dishes are washed and put away. In my own life I had just tumbled — wildly, dazzlingly — into love. Love transformed my life. I wanted to write about it every day. And I'm raising teenage daughters. How could I write a book without using all that raw material? None of this is a conscious act for a writer. We write our stories because the stories won't let go. It's only after the story's written that we can even begin to consider: hmm, I wonder why I chose to tell that story. I haven't seen Neal's friend since
I wrote On a Night Like This. I wouldn't be
surprised if he read the book and didn't even recognize
his own story. It's my story now. The writer: Ellen Sussman's novel, On a Night Like This, was published by Warner Books in February 2004 and became a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller. It will be translated into German, French, Italian, Dutch, Danish and Hebrew. She has published a dozen short stories in literary and commercial magazines, in addition to winning Redbook's Short Story Contest and Paris Transcontinental's story contest as well as a Writers at Work fellowship. She published a “My Turn” column in Newsweek in December 2003. She has taught at Rutgers University, UCLA, and Johns Hopkins University. She lives in Los Altos Hills, California and teaches private writing classes out of her home. Her website is www.ellensussman.com.
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David Ulin admits to a fascination with seismicity. Penelope Moffet shares memories of Dorland Arts Colony. Wil Wheaton feels the love at his first reading. Kat Meads finds she is a California author afterall. Dayna Dunbar on the road from screenwriting to novels. Pamela Ribon on an unexpected outpouring for Oakland libraries. Gayle Brandeis on the dreaded author photo. Mark Lee tells us what it was like to ride with the Pulpwood Queens. Aimee Liu on the renewed interest in the international novel. | ||
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