Why It Took ‘Forrest Gump’ Author Nearly 20 Years To Write A New Novel

After the colossal hit that was Forrest Gump, author Winstom Groom was running on empty. Twenty years later he is ready to pick up the writers pen and boy does he have a story. El Paso is a book that follows the same recipe but in a refreshing way.

Key Takeaways:

• Before he served in Vietnam, author Winston Groom says he wanted to write but didn’t have anything to write about. Going to war changed things.
• He wrote non-fiction books about the Civil War, the American West, World War I, World War II, the history of aviation and the history of Alabama football.
• As the characters in the novel crisscross the desert of northern Mexico, they encounter a grizzly bear and witness a bloody bullfight as well as the great monarch butterfly migration.

“The novel follows an intellectually-disabled, kind-hearted man who is witness to big events in American history. Eight years after Forrest Gump was published, its Oscar-winning film adaptation (starring Tom Hanks) turned it into a best-seller.”

http://www.npr.org/2016/10/03/496412606/why-it-took-forrest-gump-author-nearly-20-years-to-write-a-new-novel?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=books