Lauren Hillenbrand Tells All

I saw the movie, then read the book, and Lauren Hillenbrand sold out. Gary Ross ("Seabiscuit" [the movie]) did NOT do justice to her book. I know that Universal paid her a LOT of money for the film rights, but the film did NOT come close to the book as an historical document. Seabiscuit is a great book. My chum — Tom Terrific in Madison, WI — proclaimed it to me a year ago, but sloth that I am, I just got to it in the late summer. Seabiscuit — in life and unlike the film portrayal — was a character. He slept a lot. He ate a lot. However, he ran like no other horse before or since. What a competitor! At one race track, the Biscuit's stall was in sight of the track. Seabiscuit had to be moved to another stall out of sight of the track because his trainer — Tom Smith — feared the horse would injure himself trying to get out of the stall to run with the other horses. Seabiscuit was arrogrant. Seabiscuit was good. It took special jockeys to ride Seabiscuit. John (Red) Pollard and George Woolfe were special jockeys. Charles Howard (the owner) was a special character, too. Read Seabiscuit if you haven't. It's never too late to read a great book. If this be (fair & balanced) huckstering, so be it.

[x NYTimes]
September 3, 2003
10 QUESTIONS FOR . . .
Laura Hillenbrand

The author of "Seabiscuit" answered readers' questions about the book turned movie, her obsession with horses and living with chronic fatigue syndrome.

Q. 1. Your book is so wonderfully written; it's completely absorbing. It enters my heart when you speak for the feelings of the horse, as if Seabiscuit is describing what he's going through. My question is why this subject? How long did the research take?

A. Thanks for the compliment. I stumbled on the subject accidentally. The basics of Seabiscuit's story have always been moderately well known among racing fans, but at the time that I came upon it, no one had ever explored the lives of the men who handled him. In 1996, I was going through some old racing material when I came across a few bits of information on Seabiscuit's jockey, owner and trainer. It struck me as fascinating that an automobile magnate who had devoted his life to making horses obsolete would find his greatest success managing a racehorse with a frontier horseman. I was intrigued enough to look a little deeper. I quickly realized that I had found an extraordinarily dramatic human story to go with the equine one. I spent the next four years researching it.

Q. 2. I am a historian. How did you move through to make this time period "live"? In other words, what helped you in bringing this particularly harsh period of time to life on paper?

A. I think the secret to bringing immediacy to any nonfiction story is to ferret out every detail that is there to be found, so that the reader feels like an eyewitness. To do this, I consulted a very broad range of sources, from record books to living witnesses, and everything in between. I studied every film and photograph that I could find, and acquired complete newspapers and magazines from the period and read them cover to cover so I could put myself in the mindset of the men and women of the era. I researched what things cost, what books and movies were popular, what the weather was on a particular day, anything that might help me stand in the shoes of an average American of the Depression era. I was very fortunate in that Seabiscuit was covered very heavily in the press and followed by millions of people, so there was a lot to be found.

Q. 3. Do you credit any works of "artful nonfiction" that had an important influence on the style of your telling the Seabiscuit story?

A. My goal as an historian is to make nonfiction read as smoothly as fiction while adhering very strictly to fact. I read a lot of nonfiction, and have certainly been influenced by such superb historians as Bruce Catton and David McCullough, but the writers who have had the greatest impact on me have been novelists. Michael Shaara's masterpiece "The Killer Angels," an historic novel about Gettysburg, has had a tremendous influence on my writing. Tolstoy has also been a wonderful teacher, namely "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina." Other writers I read over and over again, and try to emulate, include Austen, Wharton, Fitzgerald and Hemingway.

Q. 4. I was born in 1938, so the book's description of that era made me feel as if I was learning something of the world in which I grew up but of which I remember virtually nothing. I was so enthralled by your book that I am hesitant to risk spoiling the images in my mind by going to see the film. Were you satisfied that the filmmakers did justice to your masterful work? What part of the movie differed most from your book? Which part of the book was left out that you would have liked to include?

A. In writing my book, I had the luxury of devoting as much space as I wished to the story. But movies must adhere to extremely strict, brief timeframes. Consequently, most nonfiction stories that become feature films end up severely truncated or so radically fictionalized that they are barely recognizable. I knew that Seabiscuit's story, with its perfect cinematic structure, dramatic and fast-paced scenes, and colorful characters and setting, was the ideal material for a film, but it was hard to envision how a screenwriter could adapt such a complicated tale without stripping it bare or losing the essence of the subjects.

When selling the film rights, I felt that my first responsibility was to ensure that my subjects' story wound up in the hands of a filmmaker who would be as true as possible to who they were. I knew that there was no way to avoid some fictionalization and streamlining, and I had no objection to that, so long as the movie was consistent with the true nature of its subjects and their era. After speaking to several directors and producers, I chose writer/director/producer Gary Ross.

I never had a moment's regret about that decision. Filmmakers are famous for weeding authors out of the creative process, but my experience with Gary was entirely different. Each time he needed to alter the story, create a composite character, or pursue a theme, he called me to see what I thought of it. It was immediately obvious that he was passionate about being faithful to the facts and the individuals involved. His passion showed in the final product, which I found enthralling. What struck me was not what was missing, but how deftly Gary managed to weave so much of the story into so short a time without it feeling compressed or rushed. Gary did an exceptional job, and I am immensely grateful to him.

Q. 5. Concerning the fact that Universal bought the rights way before you started writing did you manage to concentrate on the true facts and never think of the adaptation-to-be? In other words, did the deal influence the way you pictured the story in your mind?

A. I sold the movie rights two days after getting my book deal, without having written a single word of the book. Before I started getting calls from people proposing to make a movie of the story, I had never even considered what it would look like on film. In the 24 hours that I spent interviewing with those who wanted to make it into a movie, I gave a lot of thought to how I would like to see the story told, but once I chose Gary Ross, I mentally consigned the project to him and forgot about it. I was completely absorbed in the hunt for information and the process of writing, and trusted Gary to do a much better job than I ever could in adapting it to the screen.

Q. 6. How did you learn so much about the inside game of horse racing; e.g., the way jockeys acted, the manner of thoroughbreds, the brutality of the sport? Where you raised in horse country?

A. What I know about horses I have learned in a lifetime spent in their company. I grew up with a motley crew of horses on our family farm; my sister Susan and I would make bridles out of twine and ride the horses bareback around the cow pastures. As a small child, I was taken to Charles Town Racetrack in West Virginia, where I saw my first racehorse, a gray named Blue Barry. I was smitten. Each weekend, Susan and I would ride the Greyhound bus to the local Maryland racetracks, talking horses with the retirees who rode out with us. I never placed a bet. I'd just stand by the rail, watching. As a teenager, I read obsessively about racing, papering my bedroom walls with Andy Beyer columns from the Washington Post and collecting every book I could find on the subject. Prior to writing Seabiscuit, I wrote for Equus magazine, penning stories on equine medicine and behavior, and I learned a great deal there. I had enough of a background to feel comfortable writing about the sport, and learned a great deal more while researching the book.

Q. 7. In your book, how did you develop accurate descriptions for so many minute events? Did you ever have to guesstimate what probably happened, or were there always historical witnesses? As one example, there is a description of a conversation between a hospitalized Red Pollard and a hospital nurse that evidently occurred the day that Seabiscuit ran and lost in San Antonio, and I read it with some real curiosity as to who served as the source. Who was your source for this conversation? If the nurse was available to you, and actually described the conversation, then I would ask how you feel about the possibility that people may not remember the exact words that transpired 40 or 50 years before (I can barely remember what I said yesterday)? What is required for it to be an accurate history?

A. That's a great question. All the facts and quotations in my book, including the details, are drawn from solid sources, often multiple ones, and I never added any fictional or "guessed" information of any kind. I simply don't think you can invent anything and still call your book nonfiction. I was very fortunate in that there was so much information out there, enabling me to include a lot of detail and a surprising number of quotations. Reporters were present for many of the major events in this story, and they frequently recorded entire conversations or scenes in detail. In the example that you cite, the conversation was recorded as it happened by a prominent reporter who was in the hospital room, and he published it in his newspaper. In many cases, quotations and facts were recorded by multiple sources, so I could check one against the other. I kept a master list of journalists who regularly covered Seabiscuit and kept track of who was reliable and who was not.

In terms of living sources, you're right -- memory is a fallible thing, and I proceeded with caution in using information from such sources. When a living witness gave me information, I was often able to cross-check it against 1930’s sources. I was impressed with how accurately these people remembered events from so long ago. The vast majority of the quotations I used came from written sources from that era --newspapers, magazines, letters, telegrams -- or audio, not living witnesses. I used very few quotes for which a living person's memory was the only source, and then only when the quote was very brief, such as the "So long, Charley" that George Woolf yelled back to Charley Kurtsinger in the War Admiral match race.

Q. 8. I read your New Yorker article about your chronic fatigue illness. It was beautifully written and quite moving. Do you plan to do a book on the subject, or will you stick with horses? Can you tell us what your next subject might be? How does the success of "Seabiscuit" affect the way you approach writing your next book?

A. The New Yorker piece was the hardest thing I have ever written, both because I am struggling with vertigo, which makes reading and writing punishing, and because it’s very difficult for me to find words to express the devastation that my illness brought to my life. It took two years to write the article. Eventually I might want to write a book about my experience with this disease, but that is a daunting prospect. My career has given me a way to find a separate identity outside a disease that governs every detail of my life. I'm not sure I'm ready to focus my career on my illness, because I would lose that escape. I doubt that my next book will be related to horses either. One of the things that I love about my career is the ability it gives you to roam through many different subjects, and I'm ready to learn about something new. I will go where the stories are.

I don't think that the success of "Seabiscuit" will have an impact on me when I write my next book. People keep telling me that there will be a lot of pressure to have a similar success with my next book, but I don't feel that pressure. I didn't write "Seabiscuit" with the goal of having a big bestseller. I wrote it because I loved the story and wanted to live in it for a while. Had the book been a commercial failure, I'd still be happy, because writing it was such a joyful experience. As I approach my next book, my attitude is exactly the same. I am so fortunate to have a job that takes my mind to fascinating places. I don't need anything more than that. I will search for a story that engages me as Seabiscuit did, and I'll do my best to tell it well. The rest is out of my hands and I'm not going to waste time worrying about it.

Q. 9. I am astounded that you produced a book like this while so sick How were you able to conduct interviews and do the necessary research I imagine it entailed?

A. C.F.S. causes a host of symptoms, from fevers, chills and night sweats to cognitive problems and impaired immunity, but the symptoms that are most debilitating for me are exhaustion and vertigo. I had to find a way to work in spite of those symptoms.

To deal with the exhaustion, which renders me bed bound at times, I did everything I could to limit my energy expenditure to tasks related to my book. For the years in which I was writing, I did virtually nothing else. I put a refrigerator in my office, right next to my desk, so I could eat while I worked instead of walking downstairs. On some days, I'd lay on the floor, spread all my source materials around me and work there. Sometimes I'd lug my laptop to bed and write while lying down. There was no way for me to travel to distant libraries, so I used Interlibrary Loan services to arrange for books and newspapers to be sent to my local library from the Library of Congress and other libraries. I hired a former jockey to go to Kentucky's Keeneland Racecourse, which has a comprehensive racing library, and photocopy like crazy for two days.

My other major obstacle was vertigo, which causes my surroundings to look and feel like they are spinning or pitching up and down. The symptoms never go away, but reading and writing greatly exacerbates them, as does looking down. My boyfriend jerryrigged a device to hold source materials upright, so I could avoid looking down. I put my laptop on a stack of books, so it was at eye level. When the vertigo was very bad, I'd lie in bed and write on a pad with my eyes closed. It was punishing work. At the end of every day I was quite nauseated from the vertigo and exhaustion, and in the final weeks of writing I was so overworked that my hands shook, but somehow I got the book done.

Q. 10. We've heard about your struggle to write at times, under the overwhelming sway of chronic fatigue, whose symptoms of vertigo, profound exhaustion and pain demand a purposeful, disciplined schedule of rest. What have you won through this experience? What part of it, if any, has been too big a price to pay? How is the chronic fatigue now that the book is done and the movie's in theaters? What words of encouragement or advice would you give to others suffering from C.F.S. about setting goals and achieving dreams such as yours?

A. I did not take good care of myself as I wrote this book, and I am continuing to pay for it. The day after I turned in my manuscript, my health collapsed. My exhaustion became much more severe, and my vertigo returned in force, making it impossible to read more than a few lines a day. Three years later, it has relented slightly, but I am still severely limited in my ability to read and write. I write an occasional magazine article, but it takes weeks and leaves me miserably dizzy. I am still unable to read a book; I do all my "reading" via audiotape. Strength-wise, I am improving, but I am not as strong as I was before I began this project. Thanks to the success of the book and the movie, my schedule has been extremely exhausting, and I am hopeful that once my life calms down a bit, my health will rally.

It has not been a good three years health wise, but I'm not sure I would say that it was too big a price to pay. The book was a blissful escape for me, giving me the chance to walk around in the lives of three fascinating, vigorous men who lived a life of motion -- a life opposite to my own. And though I have sacrificed my health for this project, in a way I feel that the book has given me a way to triumph over my disease, because I was able to achieve something in spite of it. Finally, it has given me a platform from which to be an advocate for the 800,000 people in this country who suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome, a greatly misunderstood and very serious disease.

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