“In Country,” the first novel from renowned western Kentucky novelist Bobbie Ann Mason, turned 40 this fall.
Mason – a Mayfield native – is one of Kentucky’s most celebrated writers. Her works have received widespread acclaim both nationally and in the state, where she’s a member of the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame. She previously was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and worked as an artist-in-residence at the University of Kentucky for many years.
Her first book, like many of her works, takes place not far from her roots in western Kentucky.
The novel follows a 17-year old girl, Sam, as she looks for answers about her father, who died during the Vietnam War. In her search, she turns to her Uncle Emmett, who also served in the war but is reluctant to share any details.
“In Country” was published in 1985 and quickly became a best-selling novel. Four years later, the story was adapted into a movie, featuring a Golden Globe-nominated performance from Bruce Willis. The film was mostly shot in Mayfield and other parts of western Kentucky – which inspired her fictional Kentucky town of Hopewell.
Mason, now 85 and living in central Kentucky, spoke with WKMS student reporter Zacharie Lamb, reflecting on the book’s creation and film adaptation.
The following interview has been edited for time and clarity.
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Zacharie Lamb: To start out, [when] I messaged you the other day, you had mentioned that the idea of this being the 40th anniversary for ‘In Country’ kind of surprised you a bit. Something you weren't maybe thinking about at this particular moment. So, can you maybe take me back 40 years ago to when you're writing ‘In Country’ and your thoughts around the book, and then help me understand how those might have changed over the last 40 years?
Bobbie Ann Mason: I started around 1981 and it came out in ‘85. And, I did not begin with a notion of writing about Vietnam or anything to do with that story. Like I usually do, I back into a story by fooling around with some words or details or characters. So, I had these characters, Emmett and Sam, but I didn't know what their story was. So, I just kept writing, and it finally dawned on me that Emmett was a Vietnam veteran, and that opened up a huge story, a huge wealth of material, really. And, Vietnam had not been written about yet so much. The veterans had begun writing their memoirs at about that time, and the memorial wall had been put up in Washington around that time, and so the subject was in the air. And, people were feeling more free to write about it. The war itself ending the way it did was such a pall over the nation that people weren't comfortable with it. Because people felt that we lost the war, and it was humiliating, and the veterans certainly weren't welcomed in a good way back home. So, there was a tentativeness and attention about the subject and it gradually opened up, especially as the veterans began writing about what went on from their personal experience. So, that all grabbed me, and I dove into it.”
ZL: You were discussing when you were writing the book “In Country” you really didn't know where the story was going. You were exploring these characters, and you said it wasn't until you thought of Emmett as a war veteran that everything began to click with you, and you sort of found what you were looking for. A lot of artists have similar philosophies about art, sort of coming out of the ether, in a sense. Do you see that in a similar way that when you were writing you found ideas would come to you almost out of nothing? Or, do you think that's rooted in something?
BAM: Oh, it's probably rooted in the subconscious. More specifically, what sparked that notion in ‘In Country’ was when I realized that Sam's father was dead. Well, I knew he was dead, but I didn't know why. And, the moment that it just came to me that he would have been killed in Vietnam, and I realized that she was now 17. She was coming of age. And so, she was of the first generation of young people who were children of the Vietnam soldiers who were coming of age. And, that was very profound to me, and that made it apparent then that her uncle was a Vietnam veteran. So, it all clicked just in thinking: what happened to her father?
ZL: And as you were writing this – you mentioned in your Washington Spectator piece “Silences” — Sam's questions were almost your questions about these same topics. And so, I'm curious, as Sam was going throughout her journey in the book, were you also learning things along the way with her?
BAM: Yes, I was. Because when living through the 60s when the war was going on, it was a massive confusion, and we were being lied to…and we didn't have the sources of information in the same way we do now. You couldn't just look up things. You had to depend on good news sources like the network news and the major newspapers or your local paper, and so it wasn't overwhelming. We weren't being saturated then with information or ideas or theories or conspiracies. And so for a lot of the nation, we felt cut off … It was hard. It was hard to connect to what was going on. We were inundated with images on the TV news of the soldiers in Vietnam dying, and why were they dying? What was going on? And gradually, the momentum built up, and the resistance movement eventually helped bring an end to the war.
ZL: To move forward in the timeline, you published the book in 1985. And then, in 1989, it gets adapted into a film featuring Bruce Willis. Was there anything new that you felt was discovered about the story or about the characters in the film? Is there any way you saw ‘In Country’ differently when it was adapted for screen?
BAM: The movie is always different from the book, and the author is usually the first to be dissatisfied. Because, a movie is not a book, and this movie could crystallize and simplify a lot of the book and reduce it to a certain simple plot. Movies always have a harder time getting into the textures of people's feelings, and so it changed a bit. And also, the movie focused on Emmett, the Vietnam veteran. The story was really Sam's story. She's the 17 year old who's trying to understand what happened to her father, who was killed in Vietnam, and she never got to know him. So it was her story, but as she tries to open it up, then their story comes forward. And so, that's the direction of the movie.
ZL: What does it feel like to have your novel adapted for screen? Not many writers get to see that become a reality. And so what's your thoughts and experiences? You know, having a book that's so well received by the public that it does make its way over to the silver screen?
BAM: Well, writers are usually skeptical, but this had a special meaning for me really. Because, it was filmed in Mayfield and Paducah, and the movie crew who came there were so respectful of the subject. I think most of them didn't always get a chance to work on a movie that had a serious story like that, and a very quiet story that's probing. And so, I think the movie and the movie crew was very, very impressive, and their dedication. And, the actors were terrific and committed to the subject. And so, I really like the actors. I like their performances, and I felt very warm towards all of it.
ZL: In the Washington Spectator, you recall a moment from the book when Emmett tells Sam: “You can't learn from history. That's what history is.” Could you maybe explain what he's trying to share there?
BAM: The idea that history repeats itself, but it does this when people don't learn from it. And, we usually don't learn from it, because a generation isn't long enough to learn enough… I was trying to have Emmett almost make a little joke of it. “That's what history is.” You don't learn from history, meaning that history is full of human mistakes. And, we make these mistakes because we didn't learn to avoid them, and so that's what history is– not learning from mistakes of the past. Does that make sense?
ZL: Certainly. Do you still think those words ring true today as they did in 1985?
BAM: I don't know that I was trying to make a pronouncement about what history is… It’s like, the generations – young people have to make mistakes in order to grow up and become mature, because they're not fully developed yet. And, that's the way it works, so that's human nature. Not something that's going to change radically.
ZL: “In Country” is thought of as one of the hallmarks of Kentucky literature, and certainly you have gained a reputation as one of those guiding lights as well…many look up to you and some of your contemporaries as some of the finest writers that the state has seen. I'm curious what you think about that position. Has that ever been a reality for you that thought of being monumentalized in [historical Kentucky literature]?
BAM: Well, that's not something I go around living with or thinking about. You know, I don't see that. You may see that in the textbook or in the commentaries, but, you know, day to day living, I'm not reminded of that. Does that make sense?...I just don't think about that. If it's true. I'm the oldest generation of living Kentucky writers, and there's a group of us – of that generation – that a friend in Lexington, called the “Fab Five” that's a Kentucky basketball reference, and the Fab Five Kentucky writers are supposed to be Wendell Berry, James Baker Hall, Ed McClanahan, myself and our friend Gurney Norman was the fifth one. He just died, so we are bereft of his magical presence … before that was Robert Penn Warren, lots of Kentucky writers of note, and they go way back. Kentucky's always had good writers, and there's a crop of new writers from the next generations that are amazing, and there are so many of them. I don't feel like I belong anymore. So, I kind of feel lost in the crowd, not that that's a good or a bad thing.
