An Auburn Autumn FAQs

     1.Did you attend Auburn?
2.What is your connection to the 2001 incident?
3.Why did you write this book?
4.Is the book about your fraternity?
5.Did you talk to people at Auburn before writing the book?
6.How did you research the book?
7.Why a novel? Why not write a non-fiction book?
8.What message are you trying to convey in this book?
9.How long did it take you to write it?
10.I heard some of your fraternity brothers are not very happy with the book?
11.Do you have plans on visiting Auburn for discussions or lectures?
12.Did you write this book to simply get rich?
13.Just exactly how much is true and what’s made up?
14.Did you talk to any of the offended or offending fraternity members while writing the book?
15.Will there a be a sequel?

1.Did you attend Auburn?
This is perhaps the most popular question I get. I did not attend Auburn. I’m a graduate of Tennessee Sate University, a resident of Georgia and a native of Arkansas.

2.What is your connection to the 2001 incident?
The party participants were wearing shirts of an organization to which I belong. Several other members of the same organization traveled to Auburn to attend a meeting with our organization’s national president and the Auburn University president. There was thick tension in the room, but also an overwhelming presence of arrogance. I decided that night,about five years ago, that I would write a book about the event.

3.Why did you write this book?
Several reasons and they all seemed to keep evolving as the book continued to grow. Initially I wanted some revenge. But after a few trips to the campus, I saw people who were not at all like the people I saw in the picture. At that moment, I knew I had to be fair to Auburn and show readers that Auburn is not all a bad place, but it’s a place where a few people did this bad thing. I also wanted to show the economic disparity which exists on a college campus. Money matters and so does power. I think this a big factor in the scandal and the outcome. Another issue I wanted to address in the book was giving young men power over another through the act of hazing and how detrimental that power can be. 

4.Is the book about your fraternity?
No. The book mentions two fictitious fraternities. One of which is representative of the good and bad that I’ve seen in fraternities. The other depiction is of a wealthy fraternity that can be a representative of any prestigious fraternity on a college campus.

5.Did you talk to people at Auburn before  writing the book?
I took about five trips down to Auburn and spent all day each time. I had casual conversations with a few people about game day, the Tiger Walk, Toomer’s Drugs and other things that are an intricate part of Auburn. I didn’t reveal to anyone at Auburn that I was writing the book. It’s always been my practice to keep my projects close to breast. It was especially important with this project in attempt to thwart any attempts at stopping the book's publication.

6.How did you research the book?
While visiting Auburn, I collected almost every possible newspaper article on the event from the Opelika-Auburn News and several articles from the Auburn Plainsman newspaper which is pretty much the campus newspaper. I also grabbed some information from the special collections section in the Auburn library. I practically lived on the Auburn University Web site reading university speeches, press releases, visiting the Web sites of professors and reading lecture material. I think was as close to being an online student as I could be without being enrolled.

7.Why a novel? Why not write a non-fiction book?
That’s an easy one. I’m a novelist. I write fiction books. In my estimation, fiction allows a writer a tremendous amount of freedom to vacillate between various subject matters and cover a variety of issues. The best reason, however, was given by Ralph Ellison when he gave an acceptance speech after winning the National Book Award in 1953: 
Despite my personal failures there must be possible a fiction which , leaving sociology and case histories to the scientists, can arrive at the truth about the human condition, here and now, with all the bright magic of the fairy tale.

8.What message are you trying to convey in this book?
Tough question. I think more than anything else that power and class often prevails over justice. Goliath beats David nine out of 10 times. And that the Deep South will always be…well the Deep South. I also tried to convey that the actions of a few can tarnish the good deeds of many. I really wanted this book to serve as a record that this event happened so that perhaps when incoming freshman who had no prior knowledge of the event will think twice about how they exercise freedom of expression. I wanted young men to know the boundaries of the power they have over peers. 

9.How long did it take you to write it?
I probably begin pecking at in shortly after the incident, but a period of poverty and desperation dissolved my motivation to write. Then I started again some years later and picked up steam last year to get it done and into production.

10.I heard some of your fraternity brothers are not very happy with the book?
That’s true. Some of my fraternity brothers who were at Auburn or who were close to Auburn during that time have raised issue with the content. And that’s their right. The mere thought of the event brings up old scars and I think they may have a difficult time understanding that the book is not about them, nor is the fictitious fraternity a recreation of their particular faction on Auburn’s campus. I've communicated with a few of them at great lengths and some of them have agreed to read the book with an open mind while a few others remain quite disappointed in the work, which is completely understandable. The great majority of my fraternity brothers, not associated with Auburn, have enjoyed or are really enjoying the book. 

11.Do you have plans on visiting Auburn for discussions or lectures?
I hope so. When a book does its job, it brings people together and generates dialogue.

12.Did you write this book to simply get rich?
If I wanted to get rich writing a book I would have written something like The Down-Low DaVicni Code. I’ve written six books and none of them have caused Uncle Sam to so much as think about my tax bracket. At this juncture, writing books is all about addressing issues and giving the world something I think it needs.

13.Just exactly how much is true and what’s made up?
The great thing about the extent of my research is that the lines get blurred. Readers will hopefully get swept away and it won’t matter which parts are true, but the message and the plot will be what’s most important. A few things stand out. Most chapters that begin with a newspaper headline are pretty much how everything happened. 

14.Did you talk to any of the offended or offending fraternity members who were on campus during the incident? 
No. Not one single person… from either side. This, in my opinion, would have greatly influenced the work to the point where I was writing from one or the other’s perspective. In fairness to the plausibility of the work each side had to be flawed while at the same time applauded. Had I spoken to my fraternity brothers, I’m all but certain I would have written the book on their behalf. I did, however, give the first draft to some great test readers who gave me polarizing critiques and both critiques caused me to go back and change several points in the books.

15.Will there a be a sequel? 
I’m afraid that there are sequels to this event every year.  I learned of a similar incident that happened last year on another campus. While there won’t be a book sequel, there may continue to be problems like the one outlined in the book.