After Years of Struggling Writing Books for Children, Author Louis Sachar Scored with Holes
Now with a movie in the works, he's enjoying his new fame February 9, 2003By JEAN NASH JOHNSON
Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN - Above the garage of the Leave it to Beaver-like house, a sunny room with muted yellow walls and purposefully placed furniture is tucked away like a private island. Like the writer who claims the space, it appears quiet and unspoiled, with no glaring sign of celebrity.
A wall out of immediate view is laced with framed book awards for There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom and other early Louis Sachar titles. As the author strokes his dogs Tippy and Lucky, he mildly apologizes for not having put up the numerous honors for his most recent work, Holes.
The 1998 novel about an outcast sent to a boys' reform camp to dig holes has racked up awards. The two biggies, the National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the venerable Newbery, were given in the same year, the first book to be so distinguished. Room decorating has not been a priority, the soft-spoken Mr. Sachar explains. Holes and the aftermath have kept him plenty busy.
The Dallas Children's Theater production based on the book opens Friday, following last year's successful run in Seattle. The Walden Media film, starring Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, Henry Winkler, Eartha Kitt and Shia LaBeouf, comes out April 18. Louis Sachar wrote the play, and he wrote the screen story. Mr. Sachar was on location for the 10-week film shoot. And he has a cameo in the film.
But his fame, at times, has surprised even him. And he rebuffs the notion that his life may change this spring with the movie. "I'm not so sure that the film will make the name Louis Sachar any more popular. I don't know that people pay attention to the author and screenwriter when a movie comes out."
Power in the struggle
Twenty years ago, Louis Sachar was a long way from winning any attention. As a struggling writer, he wrote about things he liked.
He hadn't always wanted to be a writer. He grew up on Long Island, the son of a shoe salesman. His brother Andy was considered the writer in the family. Louis played Little League and did extremely well in math. The family moved to California when he was 9, and in high school he developed a knack for writing. "My brother's influence was strong. I looked up to him. I started reading Salinger and Vonnegut, and it seemed really cool to read and write."
Louis took off for the University of California at Berkley in 1976 with no pie-in-the sky notions of making a living writing. "I sort of looked at it in high school, the way I looked at baseball and Little League in second grade. I loved it, but I didn't really think I could make a living doing it."
At post-Vietnam War Berkeley, he really didn't have any other great interests, but the solid math student chose economics as a major. When he wasn't doing course work, he wrote.
He studied Russian but found himself in over his head in a senior-year class. He dropped the class immediately but needed an alternative credit for graduation.
A young girl was handing out fliers on campus, and he took one. "Help. We need teacher's aides at our school. Earn three units of credit." That sounded easy enough, so he signed up. The Hillside School was walking distance from the campus. He had been hired as the yard-duty teacher (the one who hands out the balls at recess). The children were so interesting, he began writing about them.
"Each day I would think about a different kid in the class and write a short story. The school was typical except that it was Berkeley in the late '70s—a great mix of kids. They were smart and nice and with it."
From the Hillside experience came 1978's Sideways Stories From Wayside School, his first published work, about a 30-story high school, one class in each story, thus 30 short stories on 30 kids. Fewer than 10,000 copies sold.
"I never thought I would write children's books. I hadn't read any children's books since fourth grade, maybe E.B. White, who I like."
A love for kids
He kept writing at night while holding a day job in a sweater warehouse and, later, enrolling in law school. Over time, he received fan mail from students and teachers from all over saying they had heard about Sideways and wanted to get a copy. But it wasn't available through bookstores or libraries, and the publisher had gone under.
"The biggest disappointment was to have succeeded in writing a book, have it published and realize that it doesn't mean anything if no one can read it."
Texas schoolchildren were among those who did latch on to Sideways. Davis Elementary in Plano commanded the author's attention.
In particular, a group of fifth-grade girls wrote to say their teacher, who had read Sideways to the class, thought he was great. They told him "she was available," and that he should come for a visit.
"It was hilarious. I had never heard of Plano. But I wrote back declining the invitation and saying your teacher sounds really hot."
A good friend in the Dallas area talked him into coming for a visit. The school, on short notice, worked Mr. Sachar into their assembly schedule.
The "available" teacher had arranged for colleagues to entertain Mr. Sachar and his buddy at a country-and-Western club. He and the teacher didn't connect, but he took great interest in the school counselor, Carla Askew. "We got along right away. Neither of us danced, so we sat and drank beer and talked the whole time."
In There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom, the next book he wrote, a counselor named Carla Davis helps a bully. The book won the Texas Bluebonnet Award but not before several dates with the real Carla, whom he married in 1985.
By then, the San Francisco author had written two children's novels, Johnny's in the Basement and Someday, Angeline. They had limited success, but it was clear that he needed a break, if he was ever going to eke out a living as a writer. He knew he would concentrate on stories about kids on the outside. He was never one of those on the outside, he says, but that particular character study was most intriguing. Children of all types often are undersold, he says.
"When I write about kids, I think kids haven't changed. People always say, 'Kids today are not like the kids we grew up with,' but they're the same now as when I wrote my first book. The kids who read the Sideways book are really reading about their parents. Those kids were 9. They're now 33, 34."
There's a Boy turned out to be a huge test. "When I finished that book, I thought it was the best thing I'd ever written." But his editors forced a rewrite—one with which he now agrees.
The story about a bully who is his own worst enemy was published in 1985. That year, Sixth Grade Secrets also came out, and Sideways was re-released in paperback. It was the break he was waiting for.
Finally, the magic
With There's a Boy, Mr. Sachar was becoming a voice for kids, telling their stories in sympathetic and entertaining tones. By 1987, the year his daughter, Sherre, was born, Sixth Grade Secrets also was becoming popular, and Sideways was reaching a new fan base.
After several years of living off Carla's schoolteacher salary and the few legal briefs and appellate cases he took, Louis Sachar the author finally was liberated. "I would say it was around 1988 when it became clear to me that I could make a living writing."
With some book successes under his belt, Mr. Sachar gathered his family and moved to Austin in 1991, where Carla the Oklahoman would be closer to home. Holes, by his own admission, is Mr. Sachar's most complex work. It took 18 months to write. The characters—unruly boys and the not-so-well-meaning people in charge of them—represent the best and worst of society. The author fashions each one with depth and creates a plot that twists and turns until the very end.
For the most part, the transition from book to screen was smooth, he says, but there was one obvious deviation. In the book, the main character, Stanley Yelnats, is an overweight boy. Readers get the feeling his size is integral to the story. That changes in the movie with the portrayal by the slim Shia LaBoeuf (Disney's Even Stevens).
"In the book, I made him large because he had to be strong to carry Zero," one of the other boys, up the mountain, Mr. Sachar says. "I don't think the essence of Stanley is about his size."
Going Hollywood
He still is in awe of his experience last summer with the film world. When he talks about the shoot and his cameo appearance (Carla and Sherre are in the scene, too), he's like a schoolboy who has taken the ultimate field trip.
Director Andy Davis was bowled over the first time he read the book. And from the moment of his initial meeting with the author, there never was a question about who would write the story.
"I mean, who better? We wanted him to be involved," Mr. Davis said. "Nobody else knew the characters better than Louis."
The author-actor is back in Austin trying to resume a normal life. Two hours of writing every morning after Sherre leaves for school and after he walks the dogs. He never talks about what he's working on. When he's not writing, he plays bridge, a serious passion. "I'm not championship level, but I'm right under it."
The next big Holes happening will be the movie premiere in April, and the Sachars plan to be there. Maybe Holes the movie and Holesthe play will make the name Louis Sachar even better known. Either way, it will be sublime.
"I always feel like I live two lives. There's the famous Louis Sachar and then there's me. The 'me' is the one who just writes in his room everyday and plays bridge and doesn't see a connection between writing in his room and the books that are out in the world."
He's still taken aback when someone asks for an autograph. "I want to say, 'No, I'm this Louis Sachar. You want the other guy.'"
