FEATURED AUTHOR: HEYWOOD GOULD

ABOUT THE BOOK

 
It's 1966, and young Heywood Gould, a Brooklyn boy with literary ambitions, has his dream job. He is a reporter at the ultra liberal (that's right liberal) New York Post, alongside young writers like Nora Ephron, Pete Hamill, and Anthony Scaduto. New York is a newspaper town, six dailies trying to beat each other to the big story. He revels in the action and competition.  In this comic memoir of his early life, screenwriter, director and novelist Gould cuts back and forth between vivid scenes of childhood as early as age 2, and coming of age in New York City in the '60's. Fighting anti-Semitic bullies in the neighborhood. Collecting corpses for a Brooklyn funeral home. Dropping acid in Greenwich Village and dropping out of college for a year of sleazy encounters and one bittersweeet love affair in the down and out world of left bank Paris. Possessed of uncanny recall for details, an unparalleled ear for dialogue, and disarming candor about his foibles, young Heywood is great company. Reader will be treated to a ride to another era, not so terribly long ago.

Book Details

Title: Drafted: A Memoir of the '60s

Author: Heywood Gould

Genre: memoir

Publisher: Tolmitch Press ( June 21, 2021)

Print length: 376 pages


LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT INTERVIEW WITH HEYWOOD GOULD

 
A few of your favorite things: George Simenon novels. Spaghetti with anything. Any Michael Curtiz movie. Blueberries. My new favorite writer, Yenta Mash.
Things you need to throw out: nothing. I keep everything.
 
Things you need in order to write: a good idea that I feel I can execute
Things that hamper your writing: social obligations. Family obligations. Medical appointments. Anything that keeps me away from the desk.

Things you love about writing: nothing. It's torture.
Things you hate about writing: seeing something you should gave changed when the book is already published.
 
Easiest thing about being a writer: not having to punch a clock.

Hardest thing about being a writer: rejection. It's not the tragedy it once was, but it still stings.

Things you love about where you live: the insanity of the city.
Things that make you want to move: nothing. I've tried other places, but always come back to New York.


Things you never want to run out of: peanut butter. Ideas. USB sticks.
Things you wish you’d never bought: I try not to buy anything.
 
Favorite foods: I eat everything.
Things that make you want to throw up: nothing. I worked in a funeral parlor for three years so I have a pretty strong stomach.
 
Favorite music: Jazz.
Music that make your ears bleed: Rap.
 
Favorite beverage: coffee.

Something that gives you a pickle face: wheatgrass.
 
Favorite smell: my grandson and granddaughter.

Something that makes you hold your nose: male cologne.
 
Something you’re really good at: bartending.

Something you’re really bad at: flipping omelets.
 
Something you wish you could do: dunk a basketball.
Something you wish you’d never learned to do: write a Hollywood ending.
 
Something you like to do: hike.

Something you wish you’d never done: that's classified.



Last best thing you ate: sausage and peppers last night.

Last thing you regret eating: bad mushrooms. I was sick for days.
 
Things you’d walk a mile for: exercise.
Things that make you want to run screaming from the room: cable anchor people.

Things you always put in your books: new twists I hope
.
Things you never put in your books: anything I wrote before.
 
Things to say to an author: a page turner. Couldn't put it down. You're a genius.

Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: I just felt he/she wouldn't have done that.
 
Favorite places you’ve been: Paris. Anyplace on Hawaii.

Places you never want to go to again: Boca Raton.
 
Favorite things to do: hang with my grandchildren.

Things you’d run through a fire wearing gasoline pants to get out of doing: have a notes meeting with a producer.
 
Things that make you happy: too many to list.

Things that drive you crazy: politicians.
 
Proudest moment: watching my kids excel.
Most embarrassing moment: being caught in a bad mistake.


Biggest lie you’ve ever told: I never took drugs. (Said to my kids.)

A lie you wish you’d told: none. Lies have never worked out well for me.
 
Best thing you’ve ever done: I'll leave that for others to decide.

Biggest mistake: not kissing up to producers.
 
Most daring thing you’ve ever done: hitching buses on Coney Island Avenue.

Something you chickened out from doing: ice climbing.
 
The last thing you did for the first time: had my ninth and tenth ribs removed for a biopsy.

Something you’ll never do again: have my ninth and tenth ribs removed for a biopsy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in the Bronx and raised in Brooklyn, Heywood Gould got his start as a reporter for the New York Post when it was still known as a "pinko rag." Later he financed years of rejection with the usual colorful jobs-cabdriver, mortician's assistant, industrial floor waxer, bartender, and screenwriter. He has written fourteen books and nine screenplays, among them Boys From Brazil, Fort Apache, the Bronx, Cocktail and Rolling Thunder.  In addition, he directed four features, One Good Cop starring Michael Keaton, Trial by Jury with William Hurt, Mistrial with Bill Pullman and Double Bang with William Baldwin.

His novel, Leading Lady, was a finalist for the 2008 Dashiell Hammett Award and Foreword Magazine Award for literary excellence in crime writing and was a Bronze Medal winner for the Independent Book Publisher's Award.  His novel Greenlight for Murder was praised as the “blackest of screwball comedies," and it was also nominated for a Hammett Prize. Heywood Gould lives in New York City.


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