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Perchance to Dream
East Blue Hill’s Robert Taylor Has A New Novel and
a Great Life
By Jennifer Osborn
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“I love every second of it. I wouldn’t want to do anything
else.”
—Robert Taylor |
In his
book-lined study at his East Blue Hill home, Robert Taylor
writes his novels and short stories by hand, then types them
into a computer. Taylor will launch his latest book with a
reading at the Blue Hill Library Saturday, June 15.
staff photos By
Jennifer Osborn |
BLUE HILL—A
Texan living in East Blue Hill is fulfilling his lifelong dream of
writing.
Perhaps just
as wonderful, the writing is getting published.
Robert
Taylor’s third novel—“All We Have Is Now”—was just released by St.
Martin’s Press.
Taylor will
launch the book with a reading at the Blue Hill Library on
Saturday, June 15.
Then he is off
to the West Coast to give more readings, followed by an appearance
at the Bangor Public Library July 9.
In the fall he
will tour other regions of the country.
“I love every
second of it,” he said of his writing career. “I wouldn’t want to
do anything else.”
The idea for
“All We Have Is Now” came to Taylor after Matthew Shepard was
murdered.
Shepard was a
gay 21-year-old Wyoming student who was beaten to death by two men
in 1998.
“I started
wondering how such a thing could happen, and what it would mean
for the people who were left behind,” Taylor said.
But, Shepard’s
death was just the seed, he said. “It became an entirely different
story.”
It is the
story of Ian McBride, an older actor who has already dealt with
the loss of a longtime lover to AIDS. After more than a decade
alone, he and a younger man, also an actor, fall in love.
The young man
becomes the victim of a hate murder while visiting his family in
Texas.
The book is
about “coming to understand life, love, death and grief,” Taylor
said.
Taylor said he
had briefly considered obtaining the transcripts of the 1999
Shepard trial, but decided he did not want to be bound by what had
happened.
“I decided to
create a believable trial myself,” Taylor said.
To that end,
he asked for help from friends, one a Bangor trial lawyer and the
other a Hollywood screenwriter.
The trial
lawyer explained the basic steps of a murder trial to Taylor.
The novel’s
characters did the rest of the work.
The process of
writing, in fact, is the process of discovering who the
characters are, he said. He thinks of himself more as a medium
for the work than its creator.
“You think of
yourself as writing this,” said Taylor. “You think you’re the
author? No. You’re making yourself available for the story to come
to you.”
When he was
writing the murder trial, Taylor said, it just “roared” out of
him.
It took him
nine months to write “All We Have is Now.” He writes his first
drafts longhand on a yellow legal pad, revises, then revises again
while typing the manuscript into a computer.
When the book
was finished, he sent it to the screenwriter for a critique. It
turned out the screenwriter had just finished serving as jury
foreman on a murder trial.
Taylor drew on
his experiences living in Washington, D.C. and Texas, as well as
his knowledge of acting, acquired in his youth.
“All We Have
Is Now” won’t be his latest publication for long. Puckerbrush
Press in Orono will publish a collection of his short stories and
a novella, titled “Revelation,” in the fall.
He has written
two more novels, yet to be published, and is at work on his sixth.
His first
novel, “The Innocent,” was published in 1997.
Taylor wrote
and edited for several magazines for twenty years. He described
that experience as helpful in his life as novelist.
Working on a
magazine, “there was always a deadline… always something that had
to be done,” he said.
With that
experience to aid him, Taylor doesn’t wait for “inspiration to
fall out of the sky.”
If he is
having trouble writing, he will work through a manuscript—not
rewriting so much as re-examining.
Taylor
considers rhythm to be one of the most important elements in a
work of fiction.
Because his
prose is simple and straightforward, he said, a story’s rhythm is
what gives it emotion.
In the scene
in which McBride learns of his lover’s death, for instance, the
prose is a choppy succession of pain-ridden one- and two-word
sentences.
Taylor, who
was born in 1940, was a U.S. Army captain from 1963 to 1967. He
served in Vietnam and received a Bronze Star.
“All We Have
Is Now” will be the editor’s selection for August for “Insight
Out,” a gay book club.
Saturday’s
reading at the Blue Hill Public Library will begin at 1 p.m. and
will be followed by a reception at Blue Hill Farm Country Inn.
Information:
374-5515. |
