|
|
|
Local author Cole Alpaugh’s book “The Bear in a Muddy Tutu” hit number 3 on Amazon.com’s Bestseller’s List for it’s genre just four days after its release.
Alpaugh is holding a book signing with proceeds to benefit the Dessin Animal Shelter this Wednesday, March 2, at the Community Library of Lake and Salem Townships from 6 to 8 p.m.
Alpaugh’s support of the shelter is personal.
“I believe every community needs to support an animal shelter. It takes so little and absolutely has to be done. The title character in this novel is a trained dancing bear that was abused by her first owner, then finds a whole new life after she's sold to a traveling circus. It's a little like what we experienced with our family's first rescued pet. We adopted a dog almost 15 years ago from a shelter near our shore home in New Jersey. He's a pit bull mix who'd been badly beaten by his first owner and was a little more than crazy,” he said.
“[The dog had] been scheduled to be put down after biting two people, but he just tried to lick us through the fence and we took a chance,” he said. “He went from being expendable to being a member of our family. It's amazing what giving an animal a little love will do,” Alpaugh added.
“Our crazy pit bull, Tino, has a pocket beagle sister named Bagel.”
Asked about himself, Alpaugh said, “ My first job out of college was as a newspaper photographer in the early 80's, starting with small daily papers in Maryland and Massachusetts, where I covered everything from bake sales to KKK meetings. My most recent paper was at a large daily in Central New Jersey, where my ‘true life’ essays included an in-depth story on an emergency room doctor that was nominated by Gannett News Service for a 1991 Pulitzer Prize. I also did work for two Manhattan-based news agencies, covering conflicts in Haiti, Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Thailand and Cambodia. But I'm far and away happiest coaching my daughter's soccer team.”
Q. What inspired you to write this book?
A. “I spent a good chunk of the 1980's and early '90's as a war correspondent for two Manhattan picture agencies. Maybe a glamorous sounding gig when trying to meet girls in bars, but it was sweaty, awful work most of the time. For what came out to be about a buck an hour, I went on at least a hundred patrols, basically trying to get shot at on three continents. If the patrol you latched onto got into a firefight, you might make four bucks an hour from photo sales. We learned to supplement our income by taking feature pictures during downtime. Some of the most amazing people are traveling performers in third world countries. In Asia, the circus is revered, even the ragtag bands crisscrossing the most impoverished regions of Burma, Vietnam, and Cambodia. My story -- BEAR -- is set along the New Jersey shore, but most of the roustabouts and performers were based on these people who made their way from village to village, often sending kids ahead to scout whether there'd been any recent fighting. In BEAR, I tried to convey the obvious pride carried by these folks, from the aerialists to the congenital twins in the ‘freaks of nature’ tents. I've seen real magic, the transformation that happens when an eighty-year-old man takes off his rags and puts on a glittering, handmade costume and leads a bear in a dance.”
Local author Cole Alpaugh’s book “The Bear in a Muddy Tutu” hit number 3 on Amazon.com’s Bestseller’s List for it’s genre just four days after its release.
Alpaugh is holding a book signing with proceeds to benefit the Dessin Animal Shelter this Wednesday, March 2, at the Community Library of Lake and Salem Townships from 6 to 8 p.m.
Alpaugh’s support of the shelter is personal.
“I believe every community needs to support an animal shelter. It takes so little and absolutely has to be done. The title character in this novel is a trained dancing bear that was abused by her first owner, then finds a whole new life after she's sold to a traveling circus. It's a little like what we experienced with our family's first rescued pet. We adopted a dog almost 15 years ago from a shelter near our shore home in New Jersey. He's a pit bull mix who'd been badly beaten by his first owner and was a little more than crazy,” he said.
“[The dog had] been scheduled to be put down after biting two people, but he just tried to lick us through the fence and we took a chance,” he said. “He went from being expendable to being a member of our family. It's amazing what giving an animal a little love will do,” Alpaugh added.
“Our crazy pit bull, Tino, has a pocket beagle sister named Bagel.”
Asked about himself, Alpaugh said, “ My first job out of college was as a newspaper photographer in the early 80's, starting with small daily papers in Maryland and Massachusetts, where I covered everything from bake sales to KKK meetings. My most recent paper was at a large daily in Central New Jersey, where my ‘true life’ essays included an in-depth story on an emergency room doctor that was nominated by Gannett News Service for a 1991 Pulitzer Prize. I also did work for two Manhattan-based news agencies, covering conflicts in Haiti, Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Thailand and Cambodia. But I'm far and away happiest coaching my daughter's soccer team.”
Q. What inspired you to write this book?
A. “I spent a good chunk of the 1980's and early '90's as a war correspondent for two Manhattan picture agencies. Maybe a glamorous sounding gig when trying to meet girls in bars, but it was sweaty, awful work most of the time. For what came out to be about a buck an hour, I went on at least a hundred patrols, basically trying to get shot at on three continents. If the patrol you latched onto got into a firefight, you might make four bucks an hour from photo sales. We learned to supplement our income by taking feature pictures during downtime. Some of the most amazing people are traveling performers in third world countries. In Asia, the circus is revered, even the ragtag bands crisscrossing the most impoverished regions of Burma, Vietnam, and Cambodia. My story -- BEAR -- is set along the New Jersey shore, but most of the roustabouts and performers were based on these people who made their way from village to village, often sending kids ahead to scout whether there'd been any recent fighting. In BEAR, I tried to convey the obvious pride carried by these folks, from the aerialists to the congenital twins in the ‘freaks of nature’ tents. I've seen real magic, the transformation that happens when an eighty-year-old man takes off his rags and puts on a glittering, handmade costume and leads a bear in a dance.”
Q. How long did it take to write? How many pages is it?
A. “The first draft took maybe three months. Then it went through four more drafts over another three months. My agent, Dawn Dowdle, is a meticulous editor who challenged almost every word, or so it seemed. I wrote BEAR after finishing a different, much longer manuscript, so it was a pretty fast process. BEAR is a little over eighty thousand words, which is fairly standard for a debut novel. It translates to anywhere from 270 to 320 pages, depending on whether it's hardcover or trade paperback.”
Q. What is the plot of this book?
A. “Here's how my publisher describes BEAR: Lennon Bagg’s daughter has been stolen away by his ex-wife, and he’s just learned the newspaper he reports for is bankrupt. While on his final assignment, Bagg knocks a policeman unconscious to save the life of a runaway circus bear, and suddenly finds himself responsible for a band of stranded roustabouts who’ve pitched their tents on a small island along the New Jersey shore. Eight hundred miles away, a young girl searches for her dead father on the beaches of Bermuda. Dead people, after all, become birds—a theory she derived from her mother’s explanation that when you die, you grow wings and fly away. A hapless cult leader and the sulking newspaper reporter hatch a plan to save the circus, which includes a plane ride into the Bermuda Triangle accompanied by a man who holds the record for being struck by lightning. And it’s starting to cloud up ... In The Bear in a Muddy Tutu, hope is something vigorously avoided because it usually means someone is about to be run over by a speeding car.”
Q. What feeling do you hope to leave the reader with?
A. Funny that you use the word hope. Hope is a recurring theme throughout this book. How important hope is, yet all the dangers that come from opening yourself up to it. In GARP, John Irving wrote about the sinister Under Toad lurking just beneath the surface. I suppose I'm just another writer who stole a bit of the Under Toad for my characters to deal with. But in every traveling circus I've encountered, sad stories easily outnumbered the good. One of my roustabouts in BEAR spent years perfecting an awesome defense against things that sneak up and cause pain. He learned to sit real quiet and still -- until he became invisible. If they can't see you, nothing can get at you.”
Q. What is the personal satisfaction of having written this book?
A. “I wrote for newspapers for years, but even the photo essays I spent months on had a the lifespan of one day. Newspapers are a mirror held up to a community, and good journalism is an absolute necessity in a free society.
But I wanted to write something to last. I know this book isn't important -- it's nothing more than a piece of fiction without any consequence. But ten or twenty years from now, the story might survive and won't have been
used to start a fire in my wood stove.”
Q. Have you or will you write other books?
A. “I have two other books currently being shopped around. One is a spy story, and the other is about a tsunami that sweeps across a remote island in the South Pacific -- the lone survivor is a young girl clinging to the back of
an old sea turtle she'd been caring for. The Turtle-Girl from East Pukapuka is a story about trying to find the way back home.”
Q. What else would you would like to see be part of your story?
A. “When my now 10-year-old daughter Tylea was born, we moved to our vacation home full-time. My wife, Amy, left her job as a bio-chemist, and I went from staff photographer to freelance. We simplified and downsized our lives so we could concentrate on things more important than paying a huge mortgage. Writing is incredibly satisfying, and provides a daily dose of validation. It's the same feeling at the end of soccer practice, when I huddle up my eighteen girls and everyone puts a muddy hand in the middle. I hope to do both until I'm really old. Uh, oh, there's that word hope. I should edit it out.”
