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Interview with Hal Higdon
You have worked as a freelance writer for half a century. You have written hundreds of magazine articles. You have published 34 books. Why are you only now getting around to writing a First Novel?
Until recently, I never had an idea for a novel capable of holding my attention as a writer for more than a few weeks, a story line that also could hold the attention of readers. Or—and most important--that would sell to those readers.
And that idea is?
What happens in the 72 hours leading up to a major marathon? What individual dramas involve the 50,000 runners who arrive at my fictional Lake City Marathon hopes in hand?
Your book offers 50,000 characters?
Some characters obviously receive more attention than others. The race director. A TV reporter. Their romance drives the story. A celebrity more famous than Oprah. A supermodel raising money for charity. Fast runners. Slow runners. Reporters. Spectators. Workers. Volunteers. There probably are more than 50 named characters, people with at least a paragraph devoted to them. Marathon very definitely is a multi-character and multi-dimensional book.
How long have you been writing Marathon? When did you start?
I can’t offer you a Eureka moment. Five or ten years ago, I decided it might be fun to write a novel about a marathon. Over a period of years, I began to devote more time to it. I had a couple of false starts. I’ve been working more or less full time on the book most of the last two or three years.
Has the switch to fiction proved difficult?
Actually, I wrote four previous works of fiction, although for young readers. ABC-TV made The Horse That Played Center Field into an animated film. Good writing is good writing. In non-fiction, you need to describe places and people. You use quotes. You manipulate events and dialogue. I learned early as a writer that every magazine article has a beginning, a middle and an end. That works for novels too. Even in non-fiction, the writer has to create a story line and move it forward to keep the reader from being bored. You need to know where you’re going when you start the book. Fortunately, in a marathon there is a definite end as runners complete their 26-mile 385 yard journeys.
But isn’t fiction more difficult than non-fiction? In non-fiction, the facts are there. In fiction, the writer has to pull those facts out of his head.
That’s not entirely true. It certainly is not true in Marathon, which might be described as fact-based fiction. In some respects, writing fiction is easier, because you have the opportunity to invent and elaborate and embellish the truth. If covering a real marathon for Runner’s World—Boston, New York, Chicago—the winner might finish a minute or two in front of the second-place runner, minimizing the drama. In my novel, I can create a finish that features several runners sprinting for the tape on the final straightaway. My only limit is my own imagination.
Based on your own career as a runner. You have run a few marathons, so know the sport.
Among the advice offered novice authors is to write about some subject you know intimately. Having run 111 marathons and having trained marathoners both in person and online, I did know the sport. Nevertheless, I researched the book as though it was non-fiction. While working on Marathon, I attended many marathons as observer: riding the press truck in New York, hanging out in the Medical Tent at Boston; observing action at the Expo in Chicago.
Speaking of which, some clever readers might notice a similarity between your fictional Lake City and Chicago.
I grew up in Chicago. My wife and I live in a small community just across Lake Michigan. We can view the Chicago skyline from our front windows. Naturally, there will be a disclaimer saying, “All the characters, places and events in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.” Realistically, however, I can’t hide the fact that I served for many years as training consultant to the Chicago Marathon. The first draft was very close to Chicago; as I continued through numerous rewrites, the lines between Lake City and Chicago began to blur.
So it is “coincidental” that your book features a Hilliard Towers, and Chicago has a Hilton Towers.
Strictly coincidental. No resemblance between Burnham Fountain and Buckingham Fountain either. Or the start and finish lines on Columbia Drive versus Columbus Drive.
What about the characters? Based on real people?
Many are composite characters, often based on several people. A piece of this person; a bit of another. Most major characters are completely fictional. Race director Peter McDonald does not exist in real life. No doppelgänger exists for TV reporter Christine Ferrara. The same with supermodel Naní, although Kim Alexis answered a few questions related to her marathon experiences and there’s a woman who I see sometimes at the gym where I work out who I visualized while writing about Naní. While sipping a cup of coffee in Starbuck’s, I saw a dark-haired woman playing with her long hair. I said to myself, “That’s Christine!” I saw the woman for maybe five minutes, but I think of her when writing about Christine.
Starbuck’s? And there are several scenes in a Starburst coffee shop in the book.
Another coincidence.
What about Don Geoffrey, contributing editor for the fictional Running Magazine, author of a best-selling training book, consultant to the marathon, also known as “The Turtle?” Did you look in the mirror when you wrote about him?
Actually, I got the name Don Geoffrey by combining Don Kardong and Jeff Galloway. He earned the nickname The Turtle, because he was smart, not slow. Like the Tortoise and the Hare, he won races by staying behind and watching faster runners self-destruct in front of him. Early in my writing, I pictured Joe Henderson while thinking of Geoffrey. Then I decided to give him a beard, so he began to look like Wulf Blitzer. In one respect Geoffrey is me. He exists not only in the first person, but also as a third-person observer, who hovers outside the action until one climactic scene at the end of the book.
Care to talk about Celebrity X?
Yes and no. We could post a “Spoiler Alert” and ask readers to stop reading so as not to learn X’s secret identity. X is central to the story line featuring mid-pack runners, those finishing around 4 hours. Should his or her plans to run the marathon be known in advance, it might create a paparazzi storm and turn the race into a carnival.
“His or her?” You’re being cute.
The reader meets Celebrity X in the first chapter. But not until the end of Part I, Thursday, does the reader learn X’s identity. During the writing, I had several dozen readers—both runners and non-runners—who both checked for typos and critiqued the book. Only a few guessed Celebrity X’s identity in advance. I can’t control interviewers or reviewers, but I would like to preserve that element of surprise for those who buy the book.
You described Marathon as “fact-based-fiction.” Would you care to elaborate on that term?
One of my favorite authors was the late James A. Michener. I’ve read most of his books and even met him in South Africa when he was researching The Covenant. I was on a lecture tour, and we were staying at the same hotel. Michener wrote history books, featuring fictional characters, but spread over centuries. In contrast Marathon covers only four days: the 72 hours leading up to the marathon, and the eight or more additional hours during the race. In discussing fact-based-fiction, I need to point toward the late Arthur Hailey
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Whose best-selling books include Airport and Hotel.
Books in which you learn how a modern airport similar to O’Hare Field in Chicago works, or how an aged hotel in New Orleans functions. The facts are real; the characters are not. In planning Marathon, I read a half dozen books by Hailey, mainly to see how he did it, to pick his brains as a craftsman. I analyzed the first few chapters of Hotel, paragraph by paragraph to see how he captured the readers’ attention.
How did he capture their attention?
Hailey cut to the chase in the first few chapters. Within a dozen or so pages, he introduced the reader to the various plot elements: a syndicate trying to buy the hotel; a crooked bellhop; a hit-and-run driver; and the romance between the hotel manager and one of his assistants. My copy of Hotel is well worn with paragraphs marked in yellow, sentences underlined. I literally rewrote Hailey’s first chapters to create my first draft. I owe Arthur Hailey a debt. My son David asked me to summarize my book in one sentence. This is what salesmen need to do when walking into a Border’s or Barnes & Noble to talk the store manager to order 1 copy or one hundred. They have perhaps 15 seconds to make the sale. Here’s their soundbite:"Marathon, the novel by Runner’s World’s Hal Higdon, describes the 72 hours leading up to a major marathon, similar in scope to the best-selling books by Arthur Hailey, Airport and Hotel." Those books and the movies made from them date back to the late 1960s, yet in talking to young people, I am surprised by how many know the works of Arthur Hailey.
Who will your book appeal to: runners, I assume?
Runners, but Hailey’s books appealed to people who did not necessarily travel in airplanes or stay in fashionable hotels. While writing, I visualized my target reader as a woman, aged 32, who put her career on hold to raise a couple of kids. She has as her dream some day running a marathon, maybe using it to raise money for a favorite charity. And when her husband comes home from work, he watches the kids so she can go run. Non-running husbands will enjoy the book too as will the millions of people, who know someone at work who runs marathons. I’m hoping that like Arthur Hailey’s books, Marathon can attract a wide audience.