Writing The Coalwood Way
by Homer Hickam
When I wrote my memoir Rocket Boys, I told the story of how I and five other West Virginia coalfield boys built rockets that flew miles into the sky. Along the way, we also managed to snare a gold medal at the 1960 National Science Fair. The book turned into a best-seller, translated into eight languages at last count, and was even made into the popular film "October Sky" (an anagram, by the way, of the original title). When thousands of fans and -- my publisher -- asked that I write a sequel, I decided I would rather write what I call an "equal," a memoir within the memoir, a story within the story.
The attentive reader of Rocket Boys will note I didn't have much to say about what happened to the boys or Coalwood, our home town, during the fall and winter of 1959. In fact, during the first draft of The Coalwood Way, I wrote several chapters about our most wondrous 1959 Christmas Pageant and all the events that lead up to it. I personally thought the chapters told a great story but, as much as I hated to admit it, they didn't fit into the overall theme of the book. For one thing, I was having a lot of trouble during that fall with an odd sense of sadness that would come on me without warning. Such an emotion didn't fit well with the optimism I displayed in Rocket Boys. Reluctantly, I decided to pull the chapters out -- but they would prove to be the core of what would become The Coalwood Way.
There were a lot of new stories to tell about Coalwood. One of them was about my dad -- he was the town superintendent -- and the mysterious enterprise he started in a dangerous (and some people thought haunted) section of the coal mine. It was the same place where his father had gotten his legs cut off by a runaway coal car. Also, just as that autumn turned into our coldest, snowiest winter, Coalwood's float, designed by my mother, lost the competition in the McDowell County Veterans Day parade -- the first time that had ever happened. The women of the town had turned against her as a result, claiming she'd gotten "above herself." On top of that, I managed to let Chipper, my mother's beloved pet squirrel, escape into the mountains. The unique way Mom fought against adversity made her story fun and compelling.
One of the more powerful themes of Rocket Boys as well as The Coalwood Way was the relationship I had with my father. It held the key to the strange sadness that beset me that fall and winter, and also its cure. And, of course, I could not write a Rocket Boys follow-on without including the Rocket Boys themselves. Roy Lee had decided he was the high school lovemaster, for one thing, and he was determined to get me ready for those "fast" Cape Canaveral NASA women. I also decided to include the story of two Coalwood girls, one bound for glory on a dream, the other headed for catastrophe because of her flaunting of the rules that governed our town.
By wrapping these threads tighter and tighter until the miracle of Coalwood's greatest Christmas Pageant, I had the tale of The Coalwood Way, my "equal" of Rocket Boys.
The Coalwood Way will not end the stories of my hometown: I'm busy this fall writing the third book of what I consider the Coalwood trilogy.
Homer Hickam recommends:
The Man Who Ate the 747 by Ben Sherwood
The Last Dive by Bernie Chowdhury
Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian
Author photo by John Earle.