An Interview With Laura

There is a segment in the closing pages of SEABISCUIT in which the author answers questions put to her by a newspaper columnist. I think this portion of the volume touched me as much as the manuscript itself.

The columnist asks her about her early influences and literary models; who they were, and how they effected her. She gives an unexpected answer.

Laura responds:

“I think I decided I wanted to be a writer one summer afternoon in my childhood, when the neighborhood pool I was swimming in was temporarily closed due to lightning. I snatched up my towel and huddled on a big porch with the other kids, waiting out the storm. A man I had never seen before sat down on a plastic lawn chair near me, brought out an illustrated copy of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and offered to read it. Most of the kids left, but two or three of us stayed to listen, sitting cross-legged on the floor around him. As he read, I fell so deeply into the narrative that the thunderstorm around me seemed to be rushing out of the words themselves. My head was ringing with those words as I walked home. I never knew who this man was, but I never really got over that day.”

I think the last paragraph is almost magical. I found myself weeping as I read it. For this is a marvelous example of what I’ve always called “Moment Ministry.” And to think that this “man without a name” had the awesome privilege of impacting a child who would become one of the great writers of our time! “The man with no name” found himself in a momentary time and place to influence a few, and for his great love of literature gave unselfishly of himself, with no agenda other than his love for words, and the audience who could be influenced by them. Even if that audience was just a few children by a pool on a stormy day.

And oh how this nameless fellow influenced young Laura Hillenbrand.

*You know by now how fascinated I am with “those who have come before us” and “the passing of the baton.” We literally stand on the shoulders of giants, who in turn stood on the shoulders of giants. History is replete with stories of how one caring person impacted another who impacted the next.

And as with the “man at the pool”, it has always been true of “those without names”, as it was ever true of “the notables” and “the greats.”

 

*I think Laura Hillenbrand “wrestled with demons” and won. I think she has a great deal to teach us about the tenacity that we must possess to overcome the tenaciousness of life itself.

You see, Laura experienced food poisoning in 1987, and developed a rare and life-long reaction to this illness; Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, with additional symptoms of Vertigo.

She says:

“Writing this book was immensely important to me, but my illness made it very hard. I had to accept that there would be a large physical price to pay for undertaking this project, and that I would have to pare away the rest of my life to save my strength for what I wanted to do”

and

“There were days when it was almost impossible to move, but I usually found something I still had strength to do. If I was too dizzy to write, I did interviews. If I was too weak to sift through books, I sat still and wrote. Sometimes I worked while in bed, lying on my back and scribbling on a pad with my eyes closed. Though it was hard to do this, there was never a point at which I became discouraged. These subjects were just too captivating for me to ever consider abandoning the project. The price I paid was steep. Within hours of presenting the manuscript to the publishers, my health collapsed completely.”

*I think that too few ever really comprehend the sacrifices of the giants on whose shoulders we stand.

*And we are their present-day surrogates on the earth. Once having started the journey, we will never be content “sitting on the sidelines just watching the parade go by.

*But it’s not only about denying self and sacrificial offerings. There is such reward, often more intangible and felt, than tangible and touchable, in our earthly service.

And Laura concludes:

“As difficult as the illness made the writing and research process, I think I also have it to thank for spurring me into the project. Being sick has truncated my life dramatically, drastically narrowing the possibilities for me. For fifteen years, I have had very little contact with the world. The illness left me very few avenues for achievement, or for connecting with people. Writing is my ‘salvation’; the one little area of my life where I can still reach out into the world and create something that will remain after I am gone. It enables me to define myself as a writer instead of a sick person.”

 

 

By William McDonald, PhD w/ excerpts from a interview with the writer of "Seabiscuit," Laura Hillenbrand

**I ask that if you copy and paste my blogs, share or download them to your hard drive that you include my name and source line which I always include at the bottom of each blog