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Fame & Fortune: Author Jeff Shaara
'Gods and Generals' author expands his father's legacy |
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Bankrate: Many writers never give a thought to the money.
Shaara: That's the biggest
mistake that wannabe writers make is that they don't recognize that
publishing is a business. It's not about the art, it's not about
literature, it's about business. The publishers that have survived
have survived because they're good at business. Some people think
you're a sellout if you write a best-seller. I've heard that stuff.
That's so ridiculous, but that's usually the way it is.
Bankrate: Wasn't it a
daunting task to be asked to pick up where your father left off?
Shaara: Was I afraid?
No. There was no fear because there were no expectations. The whole
idea was Ted Turner wanted to make more Civil War movies. Ron Maxwell
wanted me to do my father's kind of research, get into the heads
of the characters, put a story together, and then send him bits
and pieces of the manuscript that he could adapt for a screenplay.
It was always to be a movie. If whatever I produced was not worth
reading, nobody would ever know -- it would just go in the trash.
So meanwhile I'm representing my father's estate and "Killer
Angels" is now a No. 1 best-seller on the strength of the film
and four different publishers want a look at the manuscript. I sent
this thing off with no expectations and what I got was competing
bids. The Ballantine Publishing Group, which had "Killer Angels,"
recognized that they probably should do it, and they won the auction.
Their response was, "We don't care if it's a movie, we like
the book. We think you're a writer and we think you need to be doing
more of this. And by the way, here's a contract for the sequel."
I mean, my whole life changed with that phone call.
Bankrate: That
must have seemed like vindication of your father's body of work as well.
Shaara: It struck me right
off the bat that my father never got a payday like that. I mean,
this man won a Pulitzer Prize. He wrote four novels and 70 short
stories, never had a best-seller in his lifetime, never got a big
check. "Killer Angels" became a cult book; if you were
in the military or a diehard Civil War buff you knew of the book.
Even after it won the Pulitzer Prize, most people had never heard
of it, it did not sell, it was out of fashion. My father was a master
of bad timing. A Civil War book featuring the generals comes out
right at the end of the Vietnam War when nobody in this country
wanted to read a book about war. It languished and he was a bitterly
disappointed man.
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