In his book A Curious Mind, movie producer Brian Grazer writes about trying to sell his movie Splash to the movie studios, and about how he kept getting the answer no. The problem was that he had been pitching it as a story about a mermaid. Nobody wanted to make a movie about a mermaid. Then he changed his approach and pitched it as a love story between a man and a mermaid, and he sold the movie to Disney and the film became a big hit.
When I read this story in Brian’s book, a light bulb went off in my head. I’ve been describing The Martin Luther King Mitzvah (Fitzroy Books, 2018) as a story about two kids and Martin Luther King, and that’s the not the best way to describe this novel. Here’s a better way. It’s a love story between Adam, a twelve year-old Jewish boy (who is the victim of anti-Semitism in his hometown), and a twelve year-old Catholic girl named Sally (whose older brother bullies Adam because the latter is Jewish); and through their social and political awakening through meeting Martin Luther King, Adam and Sally form a bond with each other that blossoms into love, and they eventually bring the fictional town of Beachmont together to overcome anti-Semitism and to protest against the war in Vietnam.
Therefore, as with Grazer’s mermaid experience, Martin Luther King is an important part of the story, but it is not the main story. The primary story is the relationship between Adam and Sally, and how this young boy is drawn out of his shell by his interactions not only with Sally but with the other people in his life, such as the blacklisted author Gladys McKinley; his grandfather named Grappa; Gladys’ housekeeper named Honey; Cousin Louie, the disc jockey who puts Adam and Sally on the radio; editor Jack Williams, who publishes Adam’s photographs of musician Pete Seeger and Martin Luther King in the Beachmont Times; and Adam’s sidekick, the dyslexic Jimmy Robbins. Through Adam’s growth, he is even able to bring his father Eugene (who is a holocaust survivor) out of his own shell; and as Eugene is embraced by the community, Adam can only bask in his father’s glory.
Every story (and movie) should have an “arc,” a narrative during which the characters evolve from one state of being to another. Nobody wants to read (or watch) a story about characters that never change. What’s the fun of that?
So thank you, Brian Grazer, for pointing out the way to pitch a movie (or a novel) by recognizing the timeless emotional elements that will connect your story with an audience. The next time I see Brian (to whom I was introduced recently), I will thank him and describe The Martin Luther King Mitzvah the way I have explained it here, and I will share with him how much I learned from his Splash experience.
In my book The Martin Luther King Mitzvah, Adam Jacobs visits his grandfather (named Grappa) at Grappa’s house during the winter of 1966 and the spring of 1967. In the novel, Grappa gives Adam his Leica camera and he also teaches Adam how to make black-and-white photographs in a darkroom, which he has in his basement. Adam’s grandfather is an inspiration as Grappa puts an anti-war bumper sticker on his car, while the Vietnam War is raging on.
In real life, I had my own Grappa, my mother’s father. His name was Leo Fish, and outside of my father, he was the greatest guy I ever knew. In real life, Grappa was a photographer and he had a darkroom in his basement, as does his character in the novel. When I was young, I remember being in the darkroom and smelling the chemicals, but I don’t recall actually seeing Grappa making a photographic print. (He had moved on to color slides by then.) In the novel, Adam becomes much more involved in the printing process, as he and Grappa develop photographs of Adam’s twelve year-old friend Sally Fletcher; his older friend, the blacklisted author named Gladys McKinley; Gladys’ housekeeper named Honey; as well as legendary musician Pete Seeger and Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have a collection of my real grandfather’s photographs, and here are three of them. Photo 1 and Photo 2 show his house in Larchmont, New York, in the wintertime, where the fictional Adam would have gone to visit his Grappa. Photo 3 shows my real Grappa at the Duck Pond, where I used to skate when I was a kid in the 1960s. (I have an important scene at the Duck Pond in The Martin Luther King Mitzvah.) Grappa’s photographs were taken in the 1930s and 1940s, and they bring back great memories of what it was like to grow up and live in Larchmont, which in the novel is the fictional town of Beachmont.
Oh, and in real life, Grappa did put a bumper sticker on his car to protest against the war in Vietnam. As I said, he was quite a guy.
In my novel The Martin Luther King Mitzvah (to be published by Fitzroy Books in 2018), my main character Adam Jacobs’ father takes Adam to Yankee Stadium on June 9, 1967 to see a New York Yankees game against the Chicago White Sox. The Yankee pitcher is Al Downing, the first Negro pitcher that ever played for the Yankees. I chose to highlight this game with Al Downing pitching as it works along with the Martin Luther King theme of the book. In my research, the historical reference of this game just fell into place and so I used it, as I did many of the other historical incidents in this book. My research led me from Martin Luther King speeches to Pete Seeger concerts to New York Mets and New York Yankees baseball games, and it’s all in the book.
In real life, my father took me to many Yankee games when I was a kid, at the old Yankee Stadium as described in the novel. Here, they had these pillars holding up the grandstands and the ball when hit to the outfield would pass between the pillars and you’d have to catch a glimpse of the ball as it came in and out of view. It was the house that Ruth built, where the right-field home runs did not have to be hit as far as the home runs to center and left field.
I saw many Yankee games with Dad in 1961 when Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle were battling it out in the home run derby, as they called it then, and which Roger Maris eventually won as he beat Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record with 61 home runs. I went to Yankee games with Dad in 1967, when I was thirteen, and we may well have gone to the game when Al Downing pitched against the White Sox. Dad was a huge Al Downing fan, probably because (as I explain about Adam’s father in the book) he did like underdogs. Also, he respected Al Downing as a Negro pioneer in a white man’s league.
On June 16, 2009, I was fortunate enough to see my beloved Yankees play the Washington Nationals at the new Yankee Stadium that was opened that year. I missed the pillars and the smell of the cigars that I remembered from my youth in the old Yankee Stadium, but it was still the Yankees and I was happy to be there. In Photo 1, I am standing outside of Gate 6, and the exterior looks similar to the old stadium; in Photo 2, I am waiting for the game to begin near my seats along the first base line in right field. You can see the Yankees doing their pregame stretches in the background at left. In Photo 3, the great Mariano Rivera pitches the Yankees to victory with a scoreless ninth inning as the Yanks won the game 5-3. You can see Rivera on the pitcher’s mound near the center of the photograph.
I wasn’t planning on including a Yankees game in my novel, but when I came across the reference to Al Downing, I just had to go for it.
Music plays a large role in my novel The Martin Luther King Mitzvah. My main character Adam Jacobs listens to his local AM radio station and he hears all of the Top 40 hits as they are presented during the timeframe of the story, from the autumn of 1966 through the spring of 1967. I myself was a twelve year-old in 1966, and the songs in that year that I heard on the radio were probably the best ever in the Top 40. So when I wrote my book, I decided to include a “soundtrack” to the story, which I’ve never seen before in novels. We all listen to the radio, but writers seem to ignore these musical elements of our childhood when they write stories, as if songs never existed. But what would life be without music? Of course, movies have soundtracks, so why not a book?
Well, Adam carries around his transistor radio, so he hears these songs all the time; he also listens to them late at night, under the covers, so his parents can’t hear the radio. In this blog, I’ll focus on the “love songs” that Adam hears (in chronological order as they appear in the book, and as they did on the radio in real life). These songs (as they did for every young boy in 1966) enhanced Adam’s romantic feelings toward the object of his affection, in this case his classmate Sally.
How about “Walk Away Renee” by The Left Banke, probably the prettiest single ever? Adam thinks about walking away from his sweetheart Sally when he hears this song, but he decides to hang in there and try to get closer to her. “Cherish” by The Association was another love song from my childhood that made you think about whatever girl you had a crush on whenever you heard the song. If only she heard the same song and felt the same way about you!
In the book, Adam hears “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys and thinks about the way the sunlight plays on Sally’s blonde hair; and he listens to “I’m a Believer” by the Monkees when he’s in dancing class, just like I did when I was a kid. If you were in love with a girl in 1966, listening to “I’m a Believer” just confirmed it for you. No more needed to be said, you were a believer. And how can we forget about “Happy Together” by the Turtles. Adam is happy together with Sally, believe me. It’s hard to believe that all of these great songs came out in the same year, and there were so many more on the radio when I was twelve and thirteen years-old.
Near the end of the book, Adam and Sally hear “Groovin’” by the Young Rascals on Adam’s transistor radio, while they are groovin’ together at Manor Park on the Long Island Sound; then Franki Valli releases the classic “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” and Adam ponders over his inability to take his eyes off of Sally; and when he and Sally hear “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” by Scott McKenzie, Sally tells Adam that if she ever goes to San Francisco, she already wears flowers in her hair (that is one of her most charming traits.)
As I was writing The Martin Luther King Mitzvah, I listened to all of these songs, and they brought back great memories of my childhood. The music from AM radio in 1966 and 1967 sounds just as good today as it did back then. I hope by including these tunes in my novel, it adds some flavor to the story and makes the readers feel as if they are going along for the ride with my characters during the great days of the 1960s.
In my novel The Martin Luther King Mitzvah, it is Halloween, and Adam Jacobs wants to go trick-or-treating with his new friend Sally Fletcher. Unfortunately for Adam, Sally Fletcher is Catholic, and in the fictional town of Beachmont, New York in 1966, Jews and Catholics just don’t mix. Sally has an older brother named Peter, and he confronts Adam and his friend Jimmy at a fountain outside of St. Catherine’s Church on Halloween and tells Adam to stay away from Sally, then calls Adam a derogatory name. Adam and Jimmy continue their trick-or-treating, but Halloween has lost its allure for Adam. The damage has been done.
In my hometown of Larchmont, New York, on which the fictional Beachmont is based, there is a bronze sculpture called The Mermaid’s Cradle in the center of Fountain Square, down in the Manor, the historic section of Larchmont that is closest to the Long Island Sound. It was commissioned by Larchmont benefactress Helena Flint and created by sculptress Harriet Hosmer. Flint donated the sculpture to the village of Larchmont and the mermaid was installed in 1894 in Fountain Square, where St. John’s Episcopal Church was being built. The sculpture depicts a mermaid lulling her baby to sleep by playing a double pipe. In my novel, St. Catherine’s Church is a Catholic church, and at one point later in the story, Adam finds himself inside the church with the other Catholics who are praying for Sally’s recovery from an illness.
When I did a tour of Larchmont on June 18, 2009, I visited Fountain Square and took some photographs of the mermaid and of St. John’s Church. This square is only a few blocks from my house on Hazel Lane, where I spent most of my youth. In Photo 1, you can see the mermaid and how beautiful Fountain Square is. Imagine it’s 1966 and kids are trick-or-treating, and Peter Fletcher confronts Adam at this fountain. Photo 2 gives you a closer look at the mermaid playing her double pipes. Photo 3 shows the entrance to St. John’s Church, which looks out at Fountain Square and the mermaid, which would be off to the right, out of frame.
Great memories of my hometown, and bittersweet because of the anti-Semitism that did exist in Larchmont back in the 1960s. I deal with it in the novel, and I hope my story helps people of all faiths to learn to live with each other.
In my novel The Martin Luther King Mitzvah, Adam Jacobs and Sally Fletcher, two twelve year-olds from Beachmont, New York, a suburb of New York City, meet Martin Luther King for the second time after his speech at a union convention that is being held in the Americana Hotel, which used to be on Seventh Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Streets in New York. Their friend Gladys McKinley, a blacklisted author, takes them into the city to see her old friend Martin, and when they meet the great man in the Royal Box Supper Club, which was in the Americana, he tells them that he has “seen the Promised Land.” I think it’s a great scene, and I had fun looking at old photographs of the Royal Box Supper Club as part of my research.
In 2009, I was visiting Crown Publishers in New York City (I have written numerous books for this great publisher), and I took some photographs at Broadway and 55th Street, just outside the Random House building at 1745 Broadway. As it happens, this is only three blocks away from where the old Americana Hotel stood. The Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel is at that location now.
In Photos 1 and 2, go straight across Broadway at 55th Street for one block, then go south on Seventh Avenue for two blocks and you get to 53rd Street; then you will be where Martin Luther King was on May 2, 1967. In Photos 3 and 4, go down Broadway for two blocks, take a left and walk over a block, and you’ll be at the same location where MLK visited the old Americana.
Imagine the world in 1967, with the war in Vietnam raging on, and the civil rights movement in full flower as well. Does this sound similar to today’s world? I think people will enjoy reading The Martin Luther King Mitzvah, and will hopefully be healed by the story contained in the novel. Perhaps it’s not too late to listen to Martin Luther King’s message, which is as relevant today as it was in 1967.
