RUSSELL BANKS

Why write about John Brown? 512k WAV audio file 1.5Mb QuickTime movie On his books being made into movies 448k WAV audio file 1.3Mb QuickTime movie

BIBLIO-FILE

Searching for Survivors Family Life Hamilton Stark The New World The Book of Jamaica Trailer Park The Relation of my Imprisonment Success Stories Rule of the Bone Continental Drift Affliction The Sweet Hereafter Cloudsplitter

Banks' book Cloudsplitter

Revisiting John Brown

Banks' book examines anti-slavery rebel

(CNN) -- Acclaimed novelist Russell Banks reached back in history and into his own backyard for inspiration on his latest work. "Cloudsplitter" is based on the life of abolitionist John Brown, who became famous for his doomed anti-slavery raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. Banks recently spoke with CNN's Bobbie Battista on CNN Sunday Morning.

BOBBIE BATTISTA: As we said, "Cloudsplitter" is about John Brown, referred to as the "Che Guevara" of his time. Why did you choose to write about this particular man?

RUSSELL BANKS: Well, actually, for a number of reasons. The most personal reason, I suppose, is that he was an important, an emblematic figure for me in the '60s when I was politically active myself in the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement. But then he faded and then reappeared recently when I bought a house in 1987 in upstate New York and learned that his body lay moldering down the road from my house in North Elba, New York.

But, more to the point, I think I was interested in tracking the movement of a mind from idealism to activism to guerrilla activity to terrorism, and in his case, finally to martyrdom.

BATTISTA: I was going to say, did any of this lead you to a conclusion as to whether he was an insane fanatic of a martyr?

BANKS: Well, he was certainly a martyr, but I know his sanity has been seriously questioned. One of the things that most intrigued me about John Brown is that he's a figure who sort of stands astride the color line in American society in the 1850s and as well as the 1990s. Most white Americans say precisely what you just said -- that he was obviously mad, and most African Americans regard him as a singular and remarkable hero.

BATTISTA: Speaking of a point of view, you wrote this book through the eyes of his son, Owen. Little is known about Owen, so did that give you some freedom?

BANKS: Yes. He's the perfect narrator in a way, because he was present in his father's life at all the important moments as an adult. He was born in 1824. He lived through the terrible, bloody, cancerous war and at Harper's Ferry, he was the one son who escaped and disappeared into the abolitionist's underground. He never gave interviews with CNN -- or anyone else for that matter -- and then reappeared as a hermit shepherd in California. And so I thought he was the perfect witness.

BATTISTA: Many more people now know you because of the magnificent film, "The Sweet Hereafter." It was one of the best films I've ever seen. It was based on your book about the aftermath of a bus accident in a small town in which most of the children were killed. Where did this book come from?

BANKS: That one came from actually a newspaper story looking into the aftermath of a school bus accident in South Texas in a Mexican-American community back in the late '80s. And I just transferred it and moved it to a small town in upstate New York since I know a lot more about small towns in upstate New York than I do South Texas.

BATTISTA: Director Atom Egoyan wrote the screenplay for this and he included some aspects of his own in the film. Like weaving the poem, "The Pied Piper" through it. Did you have any creative differences with him over additions like these.

BANKS: No, we really didn't, actually. He and I were very close from the beginning. I was sort of hovered over his shoulder and he never told me to go away. And so, he showed me every change that he made. I saw every draft of the script and I was present on the set when they were shooting, and even had a cameo in the film.

BATTISTA: I missed you in that.

BANKS: Well, it was very easy to miss.

(LAUGHTER)

BATTISTA: I saw your daughter, however. She was Ian Holm's daughter, correct?

BANKS: That's right. That's right.

BATTISTA: She was very good, I thought.

BANKS: Yes, she was.

BATTISTA: So you like the film, of course.

BANKS: I love the film.

BATTISTA: And I think it was overlooked for an Oscar. I'll go on-record as saying that.

BANKS: Well, I got two nominations. And I think they're good ones. They're Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.

BATTISTA: I would have liked to have seen Best Picture and Best Actor.

(LAUGHTER)

BANKS: Well, so would have I, but Ian Holm was fabulous.

BATTISTA: Other of your books are being made into films, as well, "Affliction," "Continental Drift," and there is interest, I guess, now in "Cloudsplitter," as well. Does this surprise you at all that you've become this, well, acclaimed voice of two such powerful mediums at this point in your life?

BANKS: Well, yes, of course! It's a surprise.

(LAUGHTER)

It's not something you can plan, you know.

BATTISTA: I mean like, you can say that, "I've been around for awhile, now I'll have ...

(LAUGHTER)

BANKS: No. It's kind of, it's wonderful in many ways and it's unexpected. And as I said, you certainly can't plan for it. But I also think part of it is just coincidental. "Affliction" was seven years before it was shot. It happened that it was shot at about the same time as "The Sweet Hereafter," which only took 18 months to put together.

But with then, the two coming out simultaneously, that attracted a lot more attention from filmmakers and from the film industry. And also, there is a kind of a copy-cat effect, I suppose.

And then I've been around so long that eventually ...

(LAUGHTER)

BATTISTA: We always ask our authors one more question before they go: What are you reading now?

BANKS: Ah, what did I just finish? I just finished "The (Farewell) Symphony" of Edmund White, and I just finished, like everyone else in America, "Paradise," with Toni Morrison and enjoyed both books immensely.

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