Forrest Gump
Winston Groom
Winston Groom bloomed this past summer as Tom Hanks and Robert Zemeckis spun cotton-candy bogus Horatio Algerisms from the germ of Groom's unsuccessful 1986 novel, Forrest Gump. Suddenly, with Hanks on the repackaged cover, Groom's book sold by the McMillions.
After listening to his audiocassette reading of Gump and breakfasting with Mr. Groom—along with a couple hundred unsuspecting though genuinely fine people attending last week's American Library Association convention in Philadelphia—I have a new nickname for him to try on: Winnie the Poo. The novel Forrest Gump gives Groom one heck of an excuse for his writing aptitude: it is told first-person, in the voice of a moron.
I've seen through Groom's ruse, though. No moron I know is this gratuitously crude. Secretly, it's Groom himself who thinks he'll reap laughs aplenty by depositing a "shit" or a "turd" in virtually every paragraph. Tee-hee!
I got a moment alone with the man and asked him which was more difficult, seeing his story altered for the screen or having to abridge the actual text for his audiobook. "Doesn't bother me. They're all different products," he replied.
During his formal talk Groom actually tried to pass off this trusty bit of cliché: "People ask me how I got the idea for Forrest Gump. And I have to say, I didn't really have to think it. The book just took hold of my brain...It was like it channeled itself through my fingers...it just came to me."
Right. Like a cramp in the lower intestine, perhaps? Hey Groom! Hey Gump! Scat!
