inRegister Magazine Review of Comet

Thanks to Donna Perreault and Baton Rouge’s inRegister magazine for a fine review of The Night of the Comet.

inRegister

The Night of the Comet

By Donna Perreault
Published Oct 31, 2013

The mystery of our parents’ union: Who hasn’t felt its power? It’s the condition for our existence, the prelude to our birth. To an adolescent sorting out issues of identity, how he ended up with his parents can be both fascinating and perplexing. That’s the experience of 14-year-old Alan Broussard Jr. in George Bishop’s great new novel, The Night of the Comet. He puzzles over his parents’ improbable marriage during the year it unravels.

We learn in the prologue that the Broussard family of Terrebonne Parish is heading toward a crisis. Bishop admits, “I’d always envisioned starting the novel with a cliffhanger.” Junior, as he is called, is grown up now and living in Baton Rouge. He finds himself recalling the night in December 1973 when he watched his father climb a water tower with the apparent intention of leaping to his death. Does he do it? Why does he despair? Find out in the ensuing saga, told from “a strange kind of adult-boy point of view hybrid,” Bishop told inRegister. Junior’s voice conveys the “naiveté of youth” leavened with mature insight.

The eponymous comet that sets Junior’s story in motion is Kohoutek, predicted in 1973 to be “the comet of the century.” So says Alan Broussard Sr. to his high school students in the fictional town of Terrebonne. “You’re in for a real treat this year,” he promises at the semester’s start. “Something really special.” Alan Sr. is an Earth and Space Science teacher and a passionate amateur astronomer. In Junior’s eyes he’s awkward and wacky, a source of daily embarrassment. But as Kohoutek barrels earthward, Alan Sr. becomes a local celebrity.

Junior notes this transformation warily, seeing his dad stir up awe and anticipation in everyone—except his wife, Lydia. But the teen has his own passion to tend to: for his new neighbor Gabriella. The comet, he feels, is an agent of change. But to what end? Bishop notes, “Without getting too symbolic about it, the comet heralds Junior’s arrival into adulthood.”

Comet Interview in Wilmington Star-News

Ben Steelman of the Wilmington Star-News (NC) posts an interview with me about “The Night of the Comet,” here. Thanks again, Ben.

From Nut and Honey to “Night of the Comet”
Monday, September 30, 2013 at 5:52 by Ben Steelman

Book lovers will suffer a sweet agony Tuesday night (Oct. 1) — two terrific book events, happening at almost exactly the same time, on different ends of Wilmington.

Over at the Northeast Regional Library, local author Dana Sachs will be doing a program on her latest novel, “The Secret of the Nightingale Palace,” beginning at 6:30 p.m. (Don’t know about Dana? Click here.)

Meanwhile, over at Pomegranate Books, 4418 Park Ave., UNCW alumnus George Bishop Jr. will be giving a reading from HIS new novel, “The Night of the Comet,” at 7:30 p.m.

This is painful, since Sachs and Bishop are friends who earned their MFAs almost at the same time. Sachs, moreover, promotes “Night of th Comet” on her Facebook page. Bishop was originally going to start at 7 p.m., but he’s delaying a bit so that some people can at least peek into both events.

Anyway, it would be good to see Bishop, who now lives in New Orleans and hasn’t been back to town in a while.

This is an intriguing guy. As Beau Bishop, he was a former teen actor, who had guest roles on several TV series (“Fame,” Diff’rent Strokes”) and in a 1988 movie titled “Teen Vamp,” which he now describes as “dismal.” Wendy Brenner of the UNCW creative writing department has been shooting out links to this Kellogg’s Nut and Honey commercial that Bishop did in his younger days. To see it, click here.

Later, Bishop found a new career teaching English as a second language in countries around the world.

Katharine Walton, the Chapel Hill-based literary publicist, interviewed Bishop about his international travels, his acting career and more. Here’s a transcript:

Q: We’re expecting another “Comet of the Century” soon, with Comet ISON heading our way this fall. What’s the expectation for astronomers, or for novelists, for that matter?

George Bishop: Auspicious — definitely! ISON is coming as my book is taking flight, so to speak. Just like Kohoutek, Comet ISON (named after the International Scientific Optical Network observatory) has gotten a lot of people excited. It’s a sun-grazer, which means it’ll sweep awfully close to us. It’s been in the news for months now; astronomers say it’ll be at its brightest between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Of course, there’ve been the usual doomsday predictions and conspiracy theories swirling around ISON: some say it’ll strike the Earth, or that it’s not a comet at all, but the mysterious “Planet X,” or that it’s really three UFOs. I’m just hoping I’ll get a chance to see it. I’ll be on the lookout.

Q: The backdrop of “The Night of the Comet” is the coming of Comet Kohoutek in 1973. For those of us who don’t remember Kohoutek, what made it so special? Why’d you choose it for your novel?

A: Kohoutek was billed as the “Comet of the Century.” Astronomers predicted that it would be bigger than Halley’s, maybe the greatest comet people had ever seen. Although I never saw the comet myself, I remember the tremendous sense of excitement surrounding it. Kohoutek was like the rock star of comets. It was everywhere in the media: on the TV, the covers of magazines, the front pages of newspapers. Songs were written about it, and viewing parties were organized all over the country. Kohoutek was supposed to arrive right at Christmas-time, too, which made it seem especially portentous. Religious fanatics said it signaled the end of the world; they were calling it “The Doomsday Comet” and “The Christmas Monster.”

But then it failed to live up to all the hype — and it really was a spectacular failure. Hardly anybody saw it — it quickly became known as “the Flop of the Century.” Even today, Kohoutek’s thought of as the laughingstock of comets.

As a novelist, the path of Kohoutek suggested an obvious dramatic arc to me, the kind of shape we look for in a good story: that sense of rising expectation, and then the climax (or anti-climax, as the case may be), and the dénouement. Besides, call me a sentimentalist, but I kind of pity the comet. I mean, who wouldn’t? I figured Kohoutek deserved another chance to shine.

Q: Speaking of which, Shelf Awareness noted “The Night of the Comet” might spark a run on telescopes. Do you own one? Do we need one to see this comet — or to read your novel?

A: “The Night of the Comet” isn’t really about astronomy; it’s a novel about relationships, and dreams, and love, set against the backdrop of this oncoming comet. So, no: no knowledge of astronomy required for reading my novel.

I only have an amateur’s appreciation for the stars myself. I didn’t know much about astronomy when I began writing this book, just the usual half-remembered facts from high school. So I enjoyed finally getting to know that part of our world a little better. I read Carl Sagan, and Stephan Hawking and books like “The Amateur Astronomer’s Handbook.” I kept a chart of the constellations tacked to the wall above my desk, and I studied online historic star maps, trying to figure out constellations and moon phases for the year 1973.

I read all about comets, too, of course, and found a couple of fun, sensationalistic books written about comets, one published in 1910 at the time of Halley’s return called “Comet Lore,” and another that came out during the build-up to Comet Kohoutek called, appropriately enough, “Kohoutek!”

I have to confess, though, that I’d still be hard pressed to identify more than a few constellations. And I still don’t own a telescope, although since writing the book I think I’d like to get one now.

Q: It sounds like the comet also functions on a symbolic level in your story. Is that right?

A: In a broad sense, sure. All the members of the Broussard family — the main family in story — are going through some dramatic changes in their lives, and so in a sense, the comet comes to stand for everything they aspire to. Their hopes, their desires. At the same time, the whole country was going through some pretty dramatic changes then, too.

While writing the novel, I came to think of this age of Kohoutek — the early ’70s — as a transformational moment in America’s history. They were the country’s awkward adolescence, you could say, when it was transitioning from the boundless, youthful optimism of the post-war boom years — think of Disney’s Tomorrowland, for example —t o the more sober, complicated years that followed. This was accompanied by the gradual falling-off of a fascination with space exploration and a belief in science as the great hope for the future. A decade later, the tragic Challenger space shuttle disaster pretty much marked an end to that era.

Q: You were an actor in Hollywood before you became a novelist, weren’t you? How does that background influence your writing?

A: The past really does stay with you, doesn’t it? Yes, it’s true, I was an actor for almost a decade in Los Angeles. I did a lot of TV commercials, guest-starring roles on sitcoms, and I was the vampire lead in a somewhat embarrassing B-film called “Teen Vamp.”

I studied acting when I was in Los Angeles, and I believe that’s influenced my writing in how I go about building a character. As an actor, you’ll try to invent a whole biography for a character you’re playing: their childhood, their fears, their hates, their passions. I do the same with my characters in writing. I’ll even act out scenes in my apartment — which probably causes my neighbors some concern. The other thing that I took from acting, especially from studying plays, was an appreciation of good dialogue and scene structure, how to build dramatic tension.

Q: After acting, you worked as a teacher all over the world. Slovakia, Turkey, Indonesia, Azerbaijan, India . . .

A: Japan, too. Right. I taught overseas for almost 12 years.

Q: How does that experience play into your writing?

A: While I was living overseas, I actually wrote two expat novels — you know, Americans abroad. Those novels are still on the shelf. But one thing that went into “The Night of the Comet” from my years overseas was my teaching experience. The main protagonist in the story, Alan Broussard, is a high school science teacher, and so a lot of his feelings and challenges as a teacher come from my own background in the classroom.

Q:. What brought you back to Louisiana for this story?

A: It’s a little surprising even to me that my first two published novels should be set in Louisiana. Maybe it’s because, despite being away for so long, my years in the South really were my formative ones.

Like the narrator in “Comet,” I grew up in a very small town, Jackson, Louisiana. That part of the state, East Feliciana Parish, is more pine country than bayou, but it gave me a feel for the setting of my book. Like the fictional Terrebonne in my novel, my hometown had only a couple of gas stations, a handful of shops, two schools, and a water tower. For a boy, it provided a certain sense of containment and knowability. I could circumnavigate my whole world in a half hour on my bike. Those were the kind of things that found their way into this novel.

For more about George Bishop, click here.

From Lancaster, PA

From Lancaster Online (an Edition of Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era/Sunday News)

Bookends
Sept. 22, 2013

Focus on Fiction at E-town

New Orleans novelist George Bishop will talk about strategies for creating and nurturing fiction writing Wednesday, Sept. 25, at 4 p.m. and read from his new novel at 8 p.m. at Bowers Writers House, Elizabethtown College.

“The Night of the Comet” is a coming-of-age story set in Louisiana in 1973. Alan receives a telescope from his science teacher/father so they can witness the approach of Comet Kohoutek. But the 14-year-old is more interested in studying the “heavenly body” of his neighbor and classmate.

The book earned praise from reviewers from Publishers Weekly to People magazine, which said it “does a heavenly job telescoping the heady promise of youth tinged with the sorrow of lost dreams.”

For more information, contact Jesse Waters at writershouse@etown.edu or 689-3945.

Comet at SIBA

Look at the snazzy new flyer my publicist made for the Southern Independent Booksellers Association conference, going on this weekend at the New Orleans Sheraton.

I’ll be signing books this afternoon from 2:00-3:00, and then speaking on a panel with the indefatigable Susan Larson from 3:00-4:00.

flyer1

flyer2

Comet is Bestseller in Mississippi!

“The Night of the Comet” is No. 8 on the bestseller list in Mississippi, according to the Jackson Clarion-Ledger. Thanks again to all the wonderful independent bookstores I’ve visited there.

Clarion-Ledger

Top Mississippi Reads
Sep. 14, 2013 |
clarionledger.com

1. “The Education of a Lifetime,” Robert Khayat, Nautilus, $24.95

2. “Mr. Tiger Goes Wild,” Peter Brown, Little Brown, $18

3. “Are You Ready?” Charlotte Oakley, ed. Univ of Mississippi, $35

4. “Smoke and Pickles,” Edward Lee, Artisan, $29.95

5. “The Storied South,” William Ferris, University of North Carolina Press, $35

6. “The Resurrectionist,” Matthew Guinn, W.W. Norton, $25.95

7. “Fancy Nancy,” Jane O’Connor, HarperCollins, $17.99

8. “The Night of the Comet,”George Bishop, Ballantine, $25

9. “The Delta: Landscapes, Legends and Legacies of Mississippi’s Most Storied Region,” Melissa

Townsend, editor,

Coopwood Publishing, $45

10. “The Illustrated Man,” Ray Bradbury, Simon &Schuster, $7.99

Compiled by University Press of Mississippi. Reported by Bay Books (Bay St. Louis); Lemuria Books (Jackson); Square Books (Oxford); Turnrow Book Co. (Greenwood).

Listen to The Night of the Comet on the Radio!

Radio Boy

Now you don’t even have to buy the book. You can listen to The Night of the Comet this month on National Public Radio.

The Radio Reader, Dick Estell, is reading The Night of the Comet on his syndicated show, hosted by public radio stations all around the country. It begins today with the first of 23 episodes. Dick does a great job with the books he chooses, so you can be sure it’ll be a good read.

Check listings for your area at The Radio Reader’s station schedule, here.

You can also listen online; check The Radio Reader’s internet schedule, here.

Comet is Required Reading in NY Post

The Night of the Comet is in the Required Reading section of today’s New York Post. Thank you, Billy Heller.

nyp-logo-230x32

Required Reading
by BILLY HELLER
Last Updated: 11:33 PM, August 17, 2013
Posted: 10:16 PM, August 17, 2013

The Night of the Comet

by George Bishop (Random House)

The comet in question is Kohoutek, which for people coming of age in the 1970s caused some hoopla. In Bishop’s funny and endearing follow-up to his novel “Letter to My Daughter,” Alan Broussard Jr. gets a telescope for his 14th birthday from his amateur astronomer dad, a science teacher at the high school in their Louisiana bayou town. But Junior is less interested in Kohoutek than in lovely Gabriella Martello, whose family lives in a mansion within telescope view — with a lifestyle that catches the attention of Junior’s mom.

San Francisco Book Review on Comet

From the San Francisco/Sacramento City Book Review, Aug. 15 (the good bits):

“The Night of the Comet offers a snapshot of a moment in time and then fills in all the back story of the circumstances preceding it. A coming-of-age tale liberally dusted with starry trappings, the book perfectly captures the interminable feeling of high school—how the days drag and the future looms yet seems as if it will never come—as well as the heightened sense of drama that suffuse events at the time, as first loves and infatuations take on near-cosmic importance.”

Comet in Hindustan Times

I finally made it into the Hindustan Times. (Thanks, Reuters.)

Hindustan Times

Friday, August 16, 2013
Reuters

The Year That Comet Kohoutek Tore Through Lives

Alan Broussard is 14 in 1973, the year the comet Kohoutek was set to race across the skies in the astronomical sensation of the century – although it ultimately failed to deliver the blazing light show many people expected.

In “The Night of the Comet”, a novel by George Bishop, the comet is personal for Alan, whose geeky science-teacher father becomes so obsessed that it takes over his life as he works to whip their rural Louisiana town into a comet-watching frenzy.
Kohoutek slowly weaves through Alan’s growing sense of his father’s faults and his parents’ crumbling marriage, as well as his own obsession with their beautiful neighbour Gabriella, until one final, shocking event.

Bishop, a Louisiana native who has spent most of his adult life overseas, spoke with Reuters about writing and comets.

What got this book going?

The idea of comet Kohoutek got stuck in my mind years ago and I thought it would be a good backdrop for a story. Then the image of a telescope and a man in an overcoat leaping off a roof. I’ve had that in my mind for a story for decades. So I put the two together and came up with this.

What was it about the comet that attracted you?

I barely remembered the comet from my own childhood but I remembered all the excitement that built up to it. It was like the “Wannabe Comet” – the big dud of the decade. I thought it had dramatic potential, it elicited my sympathy. There was such a big buildup.

Then when I began researching it, it was even more than I remembered. People were crazy about this comet at the time, more than any comet in the era – since Halley’s. NASA was all over it. There were all kinds of experiments launched around the comet. There were songs written about it. It was huge.

Where did you go from the images?

I began with researching Kohoutek and looking through old newspaper articles, kind of building the story around that. My idea was to use the trajectory of the comet as the arc of the story, which seemed really simple when I started out to do it. But then when I began writing it and researching comets more and more, I found out that I had to know a lot more about comets to make it scientifically accurate. I had a very vague idea of the comet comes, it gets bigger, it fades away. That was all I’d thought about it. But to write it, you have to get all the science right. I was researching moon phases, consulting with astronomers.

The family story began a lot bigger, with the boy narrator grown up and going back to the town. He’s kind of a jerk after he’s grown up, he’s just divorced from his wife and he’s not getting along with his son. I originally imagined a multi-generational thing … I worked on that for quite a while – it was really getting out of hand. It was sprawling … I focused on the story in the ’70s. The only frame that’s left is that very narrow frame in the beginning and the end.

What were some of the other things that were tough?

It was hard for me to find the right tone between humour and profundity, and realism. I wanted to also bring in a fantastical element too, with the comet. My default is kind of jokey but I was trying to reign it back with this one. I like the tone that came out, I think it struck the right tone. But it’s tricky writing about kids and the geeky dad. So much of it lays itself open to stereotypes. The other difficult thing was that I had more ideas than I could fit in the novel.

Were there any tricks you learned with this second book that helped you work?

I learned the habit of writing every day, I learned to go about it as a job. I still do that. I set my alarm clock in the morning and I make coffee and I go to it. It took me a while to settle into that routine and see that this is what it takes … I learned the habit of writing full-time, which is exhausting and not very pleasant. But I’ve learned how to do it and I see it as my job now.

Why are you writing about teens in Louisiana in the ’70s?

I don’t know, maybe they’re the coming of age books I should have been writing 30 years ago and am just getting around to them now.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/1108528.aspx
© Copyright © 2013 HT Media Limited. All Rights Reserved.

Reuters Interview for Comet

Thanks to Elaine Lies of Reuters (Tokyo) for her Book Talk feature on The Night of the Comet.

Book Talk: The year that comet Kohoutek tore through lives
Wed, Aug 14 2013
By Elaine Lies

TOKYO, Aug 15 (Reuters) – Alan Broussard is 14 in 1973, the year the comet Kohoutek was set to race across the skies in the astronomical sensation of the century – although it ultimately failed to deliver the blazing light show many people expected.

In “The Night of the Comet”, a novel by George Bishop, the comet is personal for Alan, whose geeky science-teacher father becomes so obsessed that it takes over his life as he works to whip their rural Louisiana town into a comet-watching frenzy.

Kohoutek slowly weaves through Alan’s growing sense of his father’s faults and his parents’ crumbling marriage, as well as his own obsession with their beautiful neighbour Gabriella, until one final, shocking event.

Bishop, a Louisiana native who has spent most of his adult life overseas, spoke with Reuters about writing and comets.

Q: What got this book going?

A: The idea of comet Kohoutek got stuck in my mind years ago and I thought it would be a good backdrop for a story. Then the image of a telescope and a man in an overcoat leaping off a roof. I’ve had that in my mind for a story for decades. So I put the two together and came up with this.

Q: What was it about the comet that attracted you?

A: I barely remembered the comet from my own childhood but I remembered all the excitement that built up to it. It was like the “Wannabe Comet” – the big dud of the decade. I thought it had dramatic potential, it elicited my sympathy. There was such a big buildup.

Then when I began researching it, it was even more than I remembered. People were crazy about this comet at the time, more than any comet in the era – since Halley’s. NASA was all over it. There were all kinds of experiments launched around the comet. There were songs written about it. It was huge.

Q: Where did you go from the images?

A: I began with researching Kohoutek and looking through old newspaper articles, kind of building the story around that. My idea was to use the trajectory of the comet as the arc of the story, which seemed really simple when I started out to do it. But then when I began writing it and researching comets more and more, I found out that I had to know a lot more about comets to make it scientifically accurate. I had a very vague idea of the comet comes, it gets bigger, it fades away. That was all I’d thought about it. But to write it, you have to get all the science right. I was researching moon phases, consulting with astronomers.

The family story began a lot bigger, with the boy narrator grown up and going back to the town. He’s kind of a jerk after he’s grown up, he’s just divorced from his wife and he’s not getting along with his son. I originally imagined a multi-generational thing … I worked on that for quite a while – it was really getting out of hand. It was sprawling … I focused on the story in the ’70s. The only frame that’s left is that very narrow frame in the beginning and the end.

Q: What were some of the other things that were tough?

A: It was hard for me to find the right tone between humour and profundity, and realism. I wanted to also bring in a fantastical element too, with the comet. My default is kind of jokey but I was trying to reign it back with this one. I like the tone that came out, I think it struck the right tone. But it’s tricky writing about kids and the geeky dad. So much of it lays itself open to stereotypes. The other difficult thing was that I had more ideas than I could fit in the novel.

Q: Were there any tricks you learned with this second book that helped you work?

A: I learned the habit of writing every day, I learned to go about it as a job. I still do that. I set my alarm clock in the morning and I make coffee and I go to it. It took me a while to settle into that routine and see that this is what it takes … I learned the habit of writing full-time, which is exhausting and not very pleasant. But I’ve learned how to do it and I see it as my job now.

Q: Why are you writing about teens in Louisiana in the ’70s?

A: I don’t know, maybe they’re the coming of age books I should have been writing 30 years ago and am just getting around to them now.

(Editing by John O’Callaghan)