Ask the Author: Phillip Lewis
Answered Questions (3)
Phillip Lewis
Wendy - good morning, and welcome to the Carolinas! You have picked an absolutely beautiful part of the state to live in (as you know, of course). I love it out there and visit as often as I can (particularly the Nantahala Outdoor Center, which is probably half an hour from where you are).
I grew up in West Jefferson, which is in Ashe County, up in the northwestern corner of the state. Old Buckram is not modeled after West Jefferson, nor is it modeled after any specific place in the mountains of NC, but it was written to be true to that part of the state. It is, perhaps, an amalgamation of several small towns in the mountains of NC in which I spent time during my childhood. If you haven't done it yet, you should consider getting on the Blue Ridge Parkway and driving north up toward Blowing Rock and Boone, and then through Deep Gap (home of Doc Watson) and Glendale Springs, and on out toward Sparta. If you did that and stopped at some of the small towns along the way, you might see some of Old Buckram there.
Thank you for picking up a copy of The Barrowfields and for giving it a read. It comes from a very honest place. Please let me know what you think once you've finished. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
Very best,
Phillip
I grew up in West Jefferson, which is in Ashe County, up in the northwestern corner of the state. Old Buckram is not modeled after West Jefferson, nor is it modeled after any specific place in the mountains of NC, but it was written to be true to that part of the state. It is, perhaps, an amalgamation of several small towns in the mountains of NC in which I spent time during my childhood. If you haven't done it yet, you should consider getting on the Blue Ridge Parkway and driving north up toward Blowing Rock and Boone, and then through Deep Gap (home of Doc Watson) and Glendale Springs, and on out toward Sparta. If you did that and stopped at some of the small towns along the way, you might see some of Old Buckram there.
Thank you for picking up a copy of The Barrowfields and for giving it a read. It comes from a very honest place. Please let me know what you think once you've finished. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
Very best,
Phillip
Phillip Lewis
Hi, Jacqueline! Thank you so much for the kind words. The book represents several years of very hard work and comes from a very honest emotional place. It means the world to me when people connect with the book and find it meaningful.
I am definitely thinking about and working on a new book, although it's always slow in the beginning. More than anything, I'm catching up on some reading now and in the background I'm trying to identify what narrative voice I'm going to use, and what structure and shape the book is going to take. It's kind of like trying to put together a giant puzzle when all the pieces are mixed up and upside down. At the moment I'm revisiting all of Flannery O'Connor's short stories and loving them.
Thank you for reaching out and saying hello.
I am definitely thinking about and working on a new book, although it's always slow in the beginning. More than anything, I'm catching up on some reading now and in the background I'm trying to identify what narrative voice I'm going to use, and what structure and shape the book is going to take. It's kind of like trying to put together a giant puzzle when all the pieces are mixed up and upside down. At the moment I'm revisiting all of Flannery O'Connor's short stories and loving them.
Thank you for reaching out and saying hello.
Phillip Lewis
If I were forced to pick, it might be Madeline and Porphyro from Keats's The Eve of St. Agnes. Beyond the beauty of the language in the poem, I love Porphyro's passion: "Meantime, across the moors, Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire . . . ."
I've always been a sucker for improbable tales of deeply romantic love, although couples in the classical Romeo-and-Juliet sense rarely make appearances in the literature that historically I've enjoyed the most (a fact which I did not realize until standing in front of my bookshelves this morning pondering the question you've posed here. You don't find a lot of that sort of thing in Poe and Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy, for example).
Some runners-up might be: Westley and Buttercup, Sophie and Stingo, Queequeg and Ishmael, Brick and Maggie, Sherlock and Irene (from A Scandal in Bohemia, not the recent movies), and how about Scott and Zelda as portrayed by Tennessee Williams in Clothes for a Summer Hotel? That was horribly bleak, though.
If you had asked me about my favorite movie couple, I might have said Clarence and Alabama from True Romance.
My favorite real-life couple was Chopin and George Sand (Aurore Dupin). See also Henry Miller's August 14, 1932 letter to Anais Nin. I find this to be extraordinarily powerful ("woman, woman, woman"). I'd love to see a relationship this compelling in a work of fiction. I know it's much easier said than done.
I've always been a sucker for improbable tales of deeply romantic love, although couples in the classical Romeo-and-Juliet sense rarely make appearances in the literature that historically I've enjoyed the most (a fact which I did not realize until standing in front of my bookshelves this morning pondering the question you've posed here. You don't find a lot of that sort of thing in Poe and Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy, for example).
Some runners-up might be: Westley and Buttercup, Sophie and Stingo, Queequeg and Ishmael, Brick and Maggie, Sherlock and Irene (from A Scandal in Bohemia, not the recent movies), and how about Scott and Zelda as portrayed by Tennessee Williams in Clothes for a Summer Hotel? That was horribly bleak, though.
If you had asked me about my favorite movie couple, I might have said Clarence and Alabama from True Romance.
My favorite real-life couple was Chopin and George Sand (Aurore Dupin). See also Henry Miller's August 14, 1932 letter to Anais Nin. I find this to be extraordinarily powerful ("woman, woman, woman"). I'd love to see a relationship this compelling in a work of fiction. I know it's much easier said than done.
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