It is one of those questions that has always intrigued me. Where do writers get their ideas from? What is the genesis of some of the great works of literature? A new book ORIGINS OF STORY by Jake Grogan explores this terrain. Grogan, in his tome, reveals the inspiration behind some 202 works and it makes for some very interesting reading.
One would never in a thousand years guess the very humble origins of one of the classic American Civil War novels Gone With The Wind. Margaret Mitchell was a prolific reader and on a regular basis she sent her husband down to Atlanta’s Carnegie Library tro get a new batch of novels for her to read. Mr Mitchell became increasingly peeved and exhausted by his wife’s regular requests for him to go down to the local library. In the end he said to her, ‘For God’s sake can’t you write a book instead of reading thousands of them? By way of further encouragement he bought her a typewriter. Margaret Mitchell took up the challenge offered by her husband, sat down at her brand new typewriter, and she began work on her own novel. The rest is history….
John Irving’s THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP also had unlikely origins. Irving grew up not knowing who his father was. He became increasingly frustrated by his mother’s refusal to divulge his father’s identity. Irving confronted his mother and said if you don’t tell me who my father was I will write a book about our family as it is. His mother nonchalantly said she couldn’t care less. And so Irving sat down and started work on ‘Garp’.
Phillip Roth’s classic racy novel PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT had a suitably seedy background. Roth had originally written a satirical monologue for the risque musical ‘;Oh, Calcutta’. Roth’s monologue didn’t make the show. Undeterred Roth took out extracts from his monologue and from these excerpts started work on one of his most famous famous and comic novels.
Once seen, Tony Kushner’s epic play ANGELS IN AMERICA, can never be forgotten.The story behind the play is that Kushner fell in love with Bill, a Broadway dancer, struck down with AIDS. At the time, we are talking the nineteen nineties, AIDS was a death sentence. Kushner had a dream where he saw Bill in his pyjamas, being sick in his bed, and then the ceiling caves in, and an angel flies into the room. It is this image, that was the starting point, the inspiration for Kushner’s masterpiece.
Another story to end on. This time about E.L.Doctorow, whom former American President Barack Obama called one of America’s greatest novelists. It’s a story that gives hope to anyone who wants to become a writer. Sometimes the inspiration really is only 1% or even less of the equation.
The story goes that Doctorow was at his typewriter having a very bad case of writer’s block. He was asked in an interview with the Paris Review in 1986 what came first. Doctorow replied, “Well it can be anything. It can be a voice, an image. It can be a deep moment of personal desperation.
“For instance, with RAGTIME, I was so desperate to write something I was facing the wall of my study in my house in New Rochelle and so I started by writing about the wall. That’s the kind of day we writers sometimes have. Then I wrote about the house that was attached to the wall. It was built in 1906, so I thought about that era and what Broadway Avenue looked like then; trolley cars ran along the avenue down at the bottom of the hill; people wore white clothes in the summer to stay cool. Teddy Roosevelt was President. One thing led to another and that’s the way the book began; through desperation to those few images.” And so began RAGTIME, as bestselling novel which was turned into a movie.
Recommended, Jake Grogan’s ORIGINS OF A STORY : 202 TRUE INSPIRATIONS BEHIND THE WORLD’S GREATEST LITERATURE is published by Cider Mill Books and available now.