Author Winston Groom is an Alabama Maker using words as his tools
UA alumnus Winston Groom, best known for "Forrest Gump." (Karim Shamsi-Basha/Alabama NewsCenter)
He opened the door holding a shotgun.
“Come in,” he said, walking inside. I stood at the doorway debating.
That was eight years ago, the first time I interviewed Winston Groom, best known as the author of a book that became a worldwide phenomenon: “Forrest Gump.”
A few weeks ago, I knocked on the same door and braced myself. Winston Groom opened. No shotgun. I exhaled.
He has aged a bit, but still has the same wild white hair and the same sharp blue eyes. He had come from the gym. His clothes were ruffled. He wore a T-shirt and shorts, white tennis shoes with white socks pulled up.
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Groom is the quintessential eccentric writer if ever there was one. After the success of “Forrest Gump,” he could have lived anywhere, but he loves Alabama and continues to write from his beautiful home in Fairhope. A matter-of-fact kind of guy; not much chit-chatting is going to take place.
Example: I innocently asked, “So, do you hunt?” as I looked at the shotguns stored in a cabinet this time.
“Does a bear (do his thing) in the woods?” he replied. Of course, “do his thing” is a translation.
While we were chatting in a sunroom overlooking a manicured backyard and pool, a little Shih Tzu came in and begged for attention. Groom bent down and petted him.
Ultimately, Groom is a nice man. Direct, but nice. And he loves Alabama.
“If I liked life better in other states, that’s where I’d be, but I like it better here,” Groom said. “One reason is friends, but I grew up here. I’ve investigated other places. I found the quality of life here, especially if you have children, is better than anywhere around. I’m proud to be here; it’s home.”
Groom spoke of the inspiration behind “Forrest Gump.”
His father told him about a friend he grew up with who was known as “the town’s idiot.” They teased him at first, but one day something happened. The neighborhood boys took the “future Forrest” under their wing.
“I had been coming down from New York to see my father, who was getting older. He was an attorney here in Mobile. I had lunch with him one day and he described his childhood.
“He was born in 1906 and talked about this young man who, back then, they called retarded. They would tease him and throw sticks at him and such. One day his mother bought a piano. Over the next few days they heard this beautiful piano music coming from the house. The young man had learned how to play in just three or four days. They thought that was great and took him under their wing and began to protect him instead of tease him,” Groom said.
Groom was intrigued and thought the boy might make a good protagonist. He wrote the first chapter of “Forrest Gump” that night, and never had an outline or planned what was going to happen. He would sit to write and think, “What’s he gonna do today?”
The resulting novel was adapted into a movie in 1994, winning an Academy Award and grossing more than $677 million during its worldwide theatrical run.
These days, Groom mines a different part of his Alabama upbringing. His books on war history are fitting, given his education at military preparatory school, his participation in ROTC at the University of Alabama and his military service in Vietnam. He writes of war with an understanding of his subject but also with a Southern voice.
I left his home that day with two unmistakable truths. Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get. And Winston Groom hunts.
