It’s not “Harry,” it’s not “Hunger” and it’s not him, either.
“Stars in the Texas Sky,” the eighth novel by Snoqualmie Valley author Stephen Matlock, may not fit in with the best-sellers of the young-adult genre and it’s obviously not based on his California childhood.
But the novel, which tells the story of a 13-year-old boy growing up in post-war, pre-civil rights movement Texas, is the first one that has been published.
“I published it because I thought it was a good story, a good book,” Matlock said of the book he published through Amazon. “It talks about what it was like to go from an innocent boy to a man, and having to decide within yourself what is wrong and what is right.”
Lest you think Matlock is enamored with his book simply because it’s his book, know that Matlock has one word to describe his seven previous efforts.
“Terrible, they were terrible,” he said.
This story forced Matlock out of his comfort zone, he said, once he realized he did not know anyone who was not exactly like him. So he talked to people with upbringings similar to that of the main character, and imagined what it would be like to make the decisions the character had to make, at that age, and in that America.
“I read over 100 books about that time period, trying to get myself into that world,” he said. “State of Texas, pre-electronic age, radio stations are few, no TV stations, newspapers are small community newspapers with Teletype. World War II just finished and some ideas are beginning to leak out of the Northeast.”
The lead character is 13. Matlock said literary agents suggested he make the character older. Matlock rewrote the book with the protagonist a year older and it just was not the same.
“I couldn’t have him have the same sense of naiveté that he had at 13,” he said. “Thirteen just seemed like the perfect age.”
Agents also told him this wasn’t the right book for the young-adult market, more character-based than incident-based.
The lead character is 13. Matlock said literary agents suggested he make the character older. Matlock rewrote the book with the protagonist a year older and it just was not the same.
“I couldn’t have him have the same sense of naiveté that he had at 13,” he said. “Thirteen just seemed like the perfect age.”
Agents also told him this wasn’t the right book for the young-adult market, more character-based than incident-based.
“This is not a novel that fits the likes of Harry Potter or ‘The Hunger Games,’” he said agents told him. “It moves at a different pace and it’s not going to fit the typical genre of the young adult for right now.”
After hearing all the naysayers, Matlock said getting the book published was a big success.
He wrote his first novel in 2004 and then wrote a novel per year. “Stars in the Texas Sky” started in his writing group. He was given a prompt and 15 minutes to write about it. The prompt was “watching someone run a red light.”
A quarter of an hour later, he had 1,000 words written. He kept going until less than a month later he had novel No. 8.
“I wrote the novel in 22 days,” he said. “It took me a year to edit.”
Matlock said he has no big dreams of large checks coming his way. In his blog, he wrote with amusement about getting his first royalty check.
“It’s in the TENS OF DOLLARS!” he wrote.
Instead of riches, he focuses his sights on a different goal.
“Success to me would be if people think of it as a useful novel to use in school,” he said, “to tell kids what it was like in America in the 1950s.”
Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or [email protected].
Filed Under Community Community Features