Daniel Wallace — A Passion for Writing
by Greg Petty
June 2010
I had the good fortune of interviewing Daniel Wallace after a presentation he gave in Chapel Hill in May. Mr. Wallace is the author of four novels including Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions, Ray in Reverse, The Watermelon King and Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician. He is also a regular contributor to Our State Magazine. His stories, essays and novels have been published in over two-dozen languages. Mr. Wallace currently serves as the J. Ross MacDonald Distinguished Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Big Fish was made into a major motion picture in 2003 directed by Tim Burton. The movie starred Albert Finney, Ewan McGregor, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange and Danny DeVito. The story is a fantasy drama that revolves around a traveling salesman and his son who he has managed to alienate because of his gift for fantastic stories about his life. As the father becomes ill, he and his son begin to mend their relationship. It is a mystical, humorous and heartwarming story of reconciliation between a dying father and his son.
In addition to writing, Mr. Wallace is an accomplished illustrator. His drawings and cartoons have graced the pages of major American and foreign magazines such as the Los Angeles Times and Italian Vanity Fair.
Daniel was born and grew up in Birmingham, AL where his father owned an import/export business. He attended Emory University in Atlanta for two years and then, after visiting his sister in graduate school at Chapel Hill, transferred to UNC-CH. His course of study, not surprisingly, was English and Philosophy. Mr. Wallace is currently married and the father of two children, Henry and accomplished artist Lillian Bayley Hoover. His wife Laura is a social worker at SAS in Cary.
The path to his future career as a writer was a circuitous road with many twists and turns. After coming close to obtaining his degree he decided to go to work in his father’s business and lived in Japan. While he loved the people and country of Japan, after two years it became clear to him that he was not going to excel at the business. "It was a hint to me that the business world was not for me." He returned to Chapel Hill/Carrboro to devote his time solely to writing. After the trauma of rejection by publishers of five novels, Daniel finally began to write stories that were meaningful to him and what he wanted to write. Big Fish was published not long after that revelation. His books have been variously described as magical, a roller-coaster ride, haunting, imaginative and engrossing.
Daniel’s presentation at the Seymour Center was entitled "A Writer’s Life: What’s Behind the Curtain" He related the story of getting the keys to a 1974 Monte Carlo at age 16 and staying out so late that his mother was already in bed many nights when he returned. He began the habit of slipping a note under her door that he was home and safe. Before long he started writing her a story and slipping the words under her door. In his words, "Out of nowhere came this couple, Carla and Dwayne. I wrote a little bit about them every night. Dwayne was an ex-con who couldn’t go straight, and Carla was his understanding woman. They had that kind of love that transcended common sense &mdash destined to die together in a hail of bullets, or accidentally kill themselves snorting detergent. In a trailer in the woods behind a boat shop, Dwayne drank beer like water and whapped the dog with a rolled up newspaper and watched television slouched in a Lazy Boy, lids half drooped over his blood shot eyes. Carla just loved him and wanted her dream of love to come true.
"But they had it tough. Just when you thought things would brighten up for them, bam, Dwayne would rob a 7-11 or bring one of his weird friends home, and things would fall apart again."
Eventually his mother woke up in anticipation of looking for the story and the next morning would ask what was going to happen next? "I wouldn’t tell her of course. I liked the idea of her having to wait for the next installment, but… the truth was, I really didn’t know. Like everything else in my life, I had no idea what would happen next." His mother has since given him back some of the treasured stories he slipped under her door.
When asked about the discipline of writing he had several pieces of advice for those who are interested. Number one was to set a daily writing goal of so many words. Writing has to involve what you are passionate about, so maintain and convey that passion in your writing. Other gems of advice for his students include the importance of succinctness, using simple words instead of a complicated ones and "writing stories that have a real conflict. Somebody wants something and there’s somebody who is keeping them from it… that is what all stories really are about."
When I related to him that one writer described the writing process as akin to getting into your car at night and turning on the lights, you can only see as far as the lights project and so that’s what you write. He replied, "That is the way I write. I don’t have a preset outline or plan… the joy of writing is that I do not know how it is going to turn out!
His new book Cure for Blindness is to be published later this year. A tale of two sisters in a small town, Mr. Wallace described the book as a Grimm’s Fairy Tale for adults. I hope Boom! readers are now as anxious to read it as I am.