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Kurt Vonnegut once wrote that literature, much as all human endeavors, is about the search for family. Book clubs, fraternities, sororities, softball teams, gangs, tribes and clans are all examples of a desire to be a part of a family, a human need to belong to something larger.
In 1994, I found a new part of my family. I was welcomed into the ranks of authors at Delacorte Press when Wendy Lamb, an editor there, called and told me they would like to publish The Watsons Go to Birmingham — 1963.
In the Christopher Paul Curtis version of Every Writer’s Feverish Dream, I was soon in Toronto at a conference to meet my new sisters and brothers: Andrew Smith, in marketing; Melanie Chang, the publicist; Wendy; and Craig Virden, the publisher of Delacorte.
I clearly remember the relief I felt a few years later, when the first thing Craig said to me after he’d read the manuscript for Bud, Not Buddy was: “Please! Please! Please tell me you’ve got five or six other books like this at home.”
Recently, Wendy asked if I wanted to write anything for the twentieth anniversary edition of Bud, Not Buddy.
I paused. Hmmm. This meant I’d have to reread Bud.
I don’t like reading my own books. I think many writers feel the same way. Upon rereading, I see so many missed opportunities in the stories and obvious ways that the book could have been improved that I’m always left with that feeling of “Yuck.”
But I sat down and read Bud, Not Buddy again.
I don’t remember much about the actual process of writing it, even though I wrote the entire book by hand on thirty-some yellow legal pads. Those pads have mysteriously disappeared, so I can’t look at them to try to figure out what I was thinking as I worked.
I do know that much of the way I approached the book was caused by the reaction to the success of The Watsons Go to Birmingham — 1963.
After The Watsons came out, I would go to schools and conferences to speak and would inevitably be asked, “Wow, how are you going to top that book?”
I hadn’t given it much thought. But I instinctively knew the path marked Trying to Top That was one I didn’t want to go down.
So I told myself, “You had a great time writing The Watsons Go to Birmingham — 1963 ; there were really no expectations on you, you just sat down and did it.”
I decided: “Okay, instead of trying to top what happened with the first book, what I need to do is re-create the conditions that led to bringing it to life.”
So once again, I began to get up at five o’clock every morning to write. Then, as soon as the Windsor Public Library opened, I went there and sat at the table where I’d written The Watsons, using the same kind of legal pads and ballpoint pens, writing five to six hours a day, and, voilà, one year later I came up with Bud, Not Buddy !
After going through the torment of reading Bud again twenty-two years after its creation, I tried to understand what it was that made the story work. I tried to see: What has made it so popular with so many people?
I think one reason is that Bud’s story is quintessentially an American one. The book is imbued with so many aspects of the American Dream, such as the idea that no matter how shaky the circumstances of your birth, with patience, hard work and a dollop or two of luck, there is the possibility of bettering your circumstances.
Another American-Dreamish thing that jumped out at me after rereading Bud is that it is full of the concept of community, of having a stake in the well-being of a neighbor, a coworker, an acquaintance and yes, even a stranger. Of being aware that we’re in this together, that the most effective way to endure the pain that is inevitable in life is to have other hands supporting you. Of knowing that while you are in need today, tomorrow it will be me.
Note that I didn’t say it could be me; it will be me.
I think readers are drawn to the many small acts of kindness in this book’s pages: Bud giving hope and solace to a youngster about to be shipped to his first foster home. A family momentarily adopting a scared, lonely boy so he can get a meal. The Dusky Devastators of the Depression welcoming Bud into their midst, and Miss Thomas easing Bud’s wounds with a hug and a song. A vampire named Lefty Lewis giving a lift to a ragged, brown-skinned boy just outside of Owosso, Michigan, at two in the morning, and Bud’s hand instinctively imparting consolation and warmth by lighting on the back of a heartbroken, sobbing old bandleader. All these gestures are representations of one of the best aspects of the American Dream: an innate sense of mercy, of humanity, of kindness.
Once again in the Christopher Paul Curtis version of Every Writer’s Feverish Dream, I imagine that the success of Bud, Not Buddy is due to inspired writing, brilliant editing and the tireless work of many people at Delacorte Press, along with the promotion of a bevy of teachers, librarians and other educators.
Did I mention inspired writing?
Maybe to a small extent that is why Bud and his story are around to celebrate this twentieth anniversary, but in my heart I like to believe it’s because for some reason unknown to me, back in 1998 I was able to tap into a feeling that we as Americans have been justifiably proud of for generations, a feeling that was beautifully expressed in the last lines of a poem written by Emma Lazarus in 1883:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Doesn’t that describe who we used to be?
Doesn’t that describe who we can be once again?
I’m overwhelmed by the reception of Bud, Not Buddy and give my thanks to those who helped create it, and to those who have enjoyed reading the story of a tempest-tossed brown-skinned boy from Flint, Michigan.
