GARY PAUL CORCORAN

Born in Hartford Connecticut, Gary Corcoran moved with his family as a young boy and grew up in the world of orange groves and suburban tract homes south of Los Angeles in the 1960s. Bitten by the wanderlust bug at an early age, he abandoned college and traveled extensively through Europe and the Mediterranean, only to learn upon his return that he had been drafted into the Vietnam War. A child of the free speech, coffee house idealism of the early sixties and a survivor of the psychedelic journey that concluded the decade, he was a draft dodger and lived with that uncertainty until President Carter issued his blanket amnesty in 1977.

Author of numerous poems over the course of his life, he began to write fiction in 1992 and was recently named the winner of the Mayhaven Publishing Company’s Adult Novel Contest for 2004 and was one of five finalists in Oak Tree Book’s 2004 Timeless Love Novel Contest for his novel The Last Love of Eleanor Sands.

Mr. Corcoran resides in Laguna Beach, California. Visit Gary online at http://www.tripintomilkyway.com

 

 

PageoneLit.com: Where did you grow up and was reading and writing a part of your life? Who were your earliest influences and why?

Gary Corcoran:  Born in Connecticut, I was uprooted and moved to Southern California by my parents as a young boy.  We flew across country in a big prop plane, which I viewed as a magnificent adventure.  We came to live in a bucolic area, surrounded by rolling hills and orange groves.  To me the wide, open space out west was like being in a John Ford movie.  Only later was I able to see how this complete transformation of place and culture had a deeply unsettling effect.  I missed the Courier & Ives feel of New England.  I missed our vibrant extended family.  More and more as time went by, I withered in the arid, desert climate.  I missed the rain and snow.  I missed the change of seasons.  I felt sterilized by the lack of history around us.   To this day, reveries of those early years in New England hold great sway over me.

As to reading, writing and my earliest influences, my father loomed over my days growing up in California.  He was an utterly charming Irishman, possessed of an exquisite intellect, wont to quote Twain and Keats, all gab and wit, like the very best of his race, but his marvelous gifts were squandered on a plumber's trade and with terrorizing his family.  In later years, after my father retired, I watched him devour the local library.  We talked and talked then and became great friends.  But growing up as a child with him was entirely different.  I recall few books in the house.  Everything was chaos and tension.  My father came to distrust everything but blank walls.  Perhaps pain is the perfect genesis for a writer.  It certainly taught me humor and rebellion.  I was very fortunate to have an Italian mother with a great, big heart like the sun.  Though a peasant in many ways, she had the noblest of blood.  From her, I received the gifts of kindness and compassion, lessons that took me much longer to learn, yet without them I would have been doomed to a horrible destiny.

I began to read early on and my mother graciously fed this curiosity.  With my father's affection for Mark Twain, he was my first literary love.  The works of Stevenson followed, Kipling, then Jack London.  The sense of going off to see the world captivated me from the start, anything to escape the chaos at home.  My experiences as a young man reflected this urgency.  I was inclined to jump off cliffs and never much cared to sit around parlors sipping tea.  The final chapter of my youth played out as my friends and I sat up in the hills at night, watching the lights of encroaching civilization move inexorably closer.  About the time they finally overtook our rural bastion, I threw a backpack over my shoulders and hit the road.  In my days as a young vagabond, I wrote poetry and frequent letters but never had the proper patience or focus for writing until later on in life.

 

PageoneLit.com: Why do you write? 

Gary Corcoran:  There are so many honest answers to that question, but going mad otherwise is the first one that comes to mind.  Then, once started, there are a thousand reasons why one can't stop.  The ability to exorcize personal demons becomes important, seeing the world in mythical proportions, a search for lost valor and gallantry perhaps.  There is so little time for these things in the world any more.  To feel valiant, most men turn to war.  It seems in my life, and now in my work, some sort of crusade to find love and peace is forever manifesting itself, a drive to fulfill romantic tradition with pen in place of sword.  These motivations are with me every day, however misguided.  Beyond that, I simply love language and the magic it possesses.  Picasso had a canvas.  Einstein had the stars.  A man of my ilk has words.

PageoneLit.com:  Your new book "The Trip Into Milky Way" is a wonderful story set in the Vietnam 1960's -- -- Did you grow up during this era? How influential was the 1960's to you, your family and friends? Compare the generations of the Vietnam War and the Iraq War? Many differences? Do you feel this generation is reacting different to this War than that War? Why or Why not? What did you learn from writing this book?

 Gary Corcoran:  Yes, of course, I am of the sixties generation, and in writing this novel and in attempting in few words to define what that meant, who were we, what would mark precisely where we stood along the march of time, this formula occurred to me.  We were those old enough to remember vividly the day President Kennedy was shot, but still young enough to scream when the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show three months later.  One cannot speak of that era without mentioning the civil rights movement, the folk music/coffee house scene, free speech and the ensuing social radicalism, all of which marked our peculiar crossroad in history, but quite simply, without psychedelics and the Vietnam War, none of it would ever have been the same.  In writing Milky Way, I had pause to wonder, how did I become so adamantly opposed to that war at an early age?  Over time, as I told and refined the tale, the reasons why percolated back up into my consciousness.  I recalled listening to Peter, Paul and Mary sing All My Trials in the early sixties.  Something dark and ominous was suddenly lurking beneath the hula hoops and beehive hairdos of American society.  Dylan and Joan Baez appeared.  Every issue facing our society came to be articulated in topical songs, the energy of all those movements ultimately brought to bear on the Vietnam War.  Society in the sixties was deeply divided, the same as today, but with the draft, those divisions were far more vividly etched.  Perhaps there were greater joys, but also greater anguish.  Personal decisions were greatly consequential.  All but a handful could afford the luxury of being detached.  Quite literally, if you were a young man, your ass was on the line.   

As to how young people are reacting to the present misguided war, I am reminded of a discussion I had with a young lady in the 1980s.  She was fresh out of high school, and amidst what I saw as the cynicism and hopelessness of Punk and New Wave, I asserted that my generation had been very idealistic.  "But all generations are idealistic," she had told me.  Incredulous and doubtful about the veracity of her assertion then, I find myself fervently hoping it is true today.  To differ with our current President, war is not hard.  War is easy.  Peace is hard.  Of the thousand things I learned or relearned in writing this novel, that stands out from all the rest.  One need only go back to the enormous frustration the world felt as Saddam played his shell game with hidden weapons five years ago.  Now imagine what the world would be like if we had simply boxed him in with determined diplomacy instead.  One can only hope all of us have learned from this costly lesson.

 

PageoneLit.com: "The Trip Into Milky Way" -- Explain the title as it relates to the plot.

Gary Corcoran:  Frankly, the title came to me in the middle of the night.  I had been reading Joseph Campbell at the time and struggling with someway to evoke the sixties, while also conveying the theme of personal awakening that permeates Clay's entire quest.  And suddenly, there it was, flashing in my head at three in the morning.  The sixties were a trip.  An entire generation went off in search of enlightenment.  At some point, if fortunate enough, the eyes of your eyes were opened.  You realized.  I have been deposited on this far-flung spiral arm of a galaxy called the Milky Way.  To arrive where I started and know the place for the first time, as T.S. Eliot said.  And there was Clay at the end, musing along much the same lines.  The world was different for him now, but only because he had changed within.

PageoneLit.com: Who is Clay Matthews? 

Gary Corcoran:  Please see next question and answer.

PageoneLit.com: "The Trip Into Milky Way" has an ironic theme/plot where the main character (CLAY) winds up on a journey that is much more challenging and difficult than risking his life in a War --- Where did this complex plot come from? Any personal experiences here? 

Gary Corcoran: As a young man, I was a draft dodger and incarcerated in a Mexican prison for six months.  Everything seemed to be going wrong.  The aforementioned angst towards my father, the lingering residue of fifties conformity, the draft, whatever it was, there was a chip on my shoulder that remains hard for me to explain.  I came out of the chute of puberty like a bucking bronco, impossible to restrain.  A dear friend said of me recently, alluding to my conduct in the sixties and an episode I used in the novel, where both of us were fired for misconduct.  "Wow, I mean, you really disappointed that guy.  Like so many people who came in contact with you back then, he saw all this potential and thought, if only I could get this missile pointed in the right direction."  In that sense, Clay is undoubtedly a reflection of my inner nature.  However, when I began to write Milky Way twelve years ago, Clay Matthews came to life in ways I could never have expected.  In allowing a handful of people to read this novel before it was published, I found it necessary to admonish each one.  This is fiction, not a diary.  Don't think of me as Clay Matthews.  Please picture someone else.  I may have been equally reckless and daring back then, but I was never quite so redeemable.

PageoneLit.com:  In "The Trip Into Milky Way" you actually ask the question, "How in God's name had we remained so wildly hopeful after all that?" How did people remain so 'hopeful'? Is it the same 'hope' we have now or was it different? Explain.

Gary Corcoran:  As I offered further on in the same passage, I can only imagine it had something to do with Kennedy's presidency and the magic so many of us felt in the face of his intelligence and charm.  He lived on in our hearts and imaginations, long after he was gone.  Perhaps that becomes the most important characteristic to look for in a President, someone who awakens your dearest hopes and dreams.  Is that the same hope we have today?  I don't know.  For all Kennedy's flaws, for all one can say has been worthy about this or that president since, I don't believe anyone has come close to bringing out the same hope and idealism in us.  And I doubt any generation has fallen as far as we did by the year 1968, having already endured Kennedy's assassination, then seeing Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy shot, followed by the debacle of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.  America has never fully recovered from those days, in my estimation.  You could not help but feel cynical at the time, seeing a sophisticated democracy reduced to the stigmas of a Latin America junta.  Enormously powerful forces were moving within the fabric of our society, but unseen.  With that said, I do think we have come full circle and the country is ready again for a visionary leader.  And I think with so many new transparencies in our society, killing off someone out of convenience would be much harder to do.  As such, I think there is cause for old hopes to be renewed, young and old, mine as well as others.

 

PageoneLit.com: "The Trip Into Milky Way" is very rich in iconic settings -- "Our family owned a big RCA console TV..." you write, "our turntable to one side, AM? FM..." How difficult and important was it to go back in time and breathe new life into objects and items no longer in existence in a world of DVD's, Playstations and MP3 players?

 Gary Corcoran:  This was one of the most enjoyable challenges for me in writing this novel, a process that involved flashes of insight in the middle of the night as well as the significant research I did.  Undoubtedly those two things went hand in hand.  The particular passage you quote from was the result of many discussions I shared with the woman I love.  At one point, she had alluded to her personal experiences of watching the Vietnam War on the evening news with her family as a girl and it brought back memories of my own.  Still fussing with the opening of the novel at the time, I decided it was a great place to start.  Surrounding myself with anthologies about the era helped, as did listening to music.  Things like a bit of early Jefferson Airplane readily put me back into that time and place.  And there is the minutiae, like the scene on the train to Matzatlan, where Clay watches the bartender make two triangular holes in his beer with an old fashioned can opener, or when Clay puts a dime into a pay phone and turns the dial.  There were no pop tops then.  We had no push buttons.  As you so aptly noted, it is hard to imagine such anachronisms in our world today, and I hope by bringing them to life in this novel, a younger generation will experience the strangeness of that not so distant world.  It is utterly fascinating for me to recall how different the world was just thirty or forty years ago.  And attention to detail is important for me, in that writers can be historians, not just storytellers.
 

PageoneLit.com:  There have been talks/rumors of a draft - Your thoughts, perspectives feelings on this?

 Gary Corcoran: Very mixed.  On the one hand, I would not wish what I went through upon anyone.  On the other hand, I certainly understand Charlie Rangel's point of view in asking for it to be restored.  Before we so casually go off and start another war, let's make sure everybody's ass is on the line.  Otherwise, we simply have what amounts to a professionally paid mercenary force protecting a detached and apathetic civilian populace.

PageoneLit.com: What do you hope readers walk away with after reading   "The Trip Into Milky Way" ? 

Gary Corcoran: I hope they remember the sixties, remember how special it was, to have hoped and dreamed of a better world.  To accept our failures and forgive ourselves.  To inject a bit of that old hope and idealism back into our lives.  Probably we just got lazy when it came to doing the hard work, but maybe we're ready to try again.  Maybe younger generations will find themselves willing, too.  That people come away seeing their lives as possessed of great importance, something far more momentous than their dull job and the drab errands they run.  To see themselves on a mystical journey across the stars, not as automatons marching about pointlessly in a meaningless, mundane world, unfairly diminished.

PageoneLit.com:  "The Trip Into Milky Way" would make a great film -- Anything in the works? Who in Hollywood would you select to play your characters?

Gary Corcoran:  Not yet, but I hold all the rights and intend to be very selective, should it ever come to that.  The difference between a two star and four star movie is not much more than subtlety.  I would hate to see the former.  In that regard, I think one searches for the right director and gets out of the way.  Which director, I don't know.  Anybody but Oliver Stone probably.  As to the characters, Clay has always been pale, introspective with dark hair in my imagination.  John Cusack is probably the closest I can come to the character in mind.  And I've always thought Bruce Willis would make a great Stan.  Beyond that, I've not given it much thought.

PageoneLit.com:  How has your life changed since becoming a published writer?

Gary Corcoran:  Not much as of yet, though I can see how it is likely to play out.  A thousand more distractions than I have already.  For over twelve years, I have worked in obscurity, honing my craft, working in my current profession as necessary in order to pay the bills, just so I could sit down at my desk for a day, a week, a month without distraction.  All I wanted out of life was to write each day, spend some time at the sea, eat well, love my woman dearly, try to give back to this world the abundance that has been given to me, but such simplicity seems at risk now more than it ever was while simply changing hats back and forth.  We shall see, but of course, I wouldn't exchange any modest success for the way it has been.

 
PageoneLit.com:  What's next? 

Gary Corcoran:  I am currently working on a novel, Love in a Dying World.  I have two other completed novels and a memoir, but a nearly finished anthology of short stories, Tales From the Sixties, is what I would like to publish next.  In writing Milky Way and tossing aside all the anecdotes that wouldn't fit, I found myself compelled to put all those treasures of my early days to good use.  I think such an anthology would be a fitting complement in the wake of Milky Way's publication.
 

PageoneLit.com:  What was the last book you read? 

Gary Corcoran:  What are the several books I am reading.  It seems I always have a dozen of them going at once, mostly nonfiction.  Here's some of what I have lying around right now.  Inlandia, an anthology of essays and prose from California authors, mostly those who live or have lived in the southern end of it, Eavesdropping, great observations and prose from a blind man, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, Revolutionary Characters and The American Political Tradition, all of which speaks for itself, The Ambidextrous Universe, because I love peering inside the strangeness of our world, Intelligent Thought, an antidote to the intelligent design movement, and Black Holes and Time Warps, because I am forever trying to understand relativity.  Don't know if that will ever happen, but I intend to press on.

PageoneLit.com: Do you have any hobbies? What are they? How do they enhance your writing?

Gary Corcoran: Hobbies, I think, and scratch my head.  Given my other professional demands and the way I obsess over writing, such things are viewed as a luxury.  I do play the guitar and blues harp, if that counts.  Chess is something I enjoy very much but it has been years.  Perhaps the closest I come to a hobby is surf fishing.  Whenever I dash down to a little hotel I frequent along a desolate stretch of coastline in Baja California, I write at my laptop all day then go out to cast my line in the sea towards sunset, the surf surging at my legs and chest, a brisk wind blowing in from the horizon, gulls and pelicans chasing down the coast.  I feel alive in those moments, as if I were part of some great jeweled timepiece.  Experiences such as those inform my literary work more than anything.