LIMBONG: So he wrote histories of wars, generals and Alabama football. GROOM: After the commercial success of "Forrest Gump," I didn't really have any ideas that really grabbed me. Groom tried fiction a few more times, but his heart really wasn't in it. LIMBONG: Groom then worked as a reporter for a while but always wanted to be a novelist, so he mined his time in Vietnam for inspiration for his first novel, "Better Times Than These." "Forrest Gump" was published in 1986 and sold well enough until, of course, the movie came out and made the book a bestseller. WINSTON GROOM: It was like being in a year-long car wreck. After college, he joined the Army and did a year in Vietnam, as he told NPR in 2016. LIMBONG: Author Winston Groom was born in Washington, D.C., but he was raised in Mobile, Ala. UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: (Reading) So whatever ails old General Forrest done, starting up that Klan thing was not a good idea. LIMBONG: What's played for a brief joke in the movie is, in the book, an almost William Faulkner-like metaphor for Southern history and familial baggage. And even my grandmama say they's a bunch of no-goods. And he was a great man, she'd say, except when he started up the Ku Klux Klan after the war was over. UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: (Reading) Mama always said we was kin to General Forrest's family some way. In the audio book, listen to the way the character reckons with his namesake, the notorious Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. NPR's Andrew Limbong has this appreciation.ĪNDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE: The Forrest Gump from the book is bigger, burlier, a little rougher around the edges than Tom Hanks in the movie. TOM HANKS: (As Forrest Gump) My mama always said life was like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're going to get.ĬORNISH: Winston Groom died Wednesday in Fairhope, Ala., where he was remembered by the city's mayor as well as the state's governor.
He wrote the novel "Forrest Gump," which of course eventually became the Oscar-winning hit movie starring Tom Hanks.
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