Heather’s Bookshelf: Author Interview with Will Herman
Book Title: The Sum of Seven Thousand Sunsets
Released: 03/28/24
Genre: Historical/Sports Fiction
Interview by Heather L. Barksdale
What inspired you to write “The Sum of Seven Thousand Sunsets”?
I wanted to write a story set in a transitional period of history, where the old ways are fading out and it’s uncertain what the future will look like. Accordingly, my novel is set in 1916: one of the two main characters is a Civil War veteran; the other one grew up in a world with telephones and, eventually, even automobiles. I think that type of juxtaposition is familiar to us today with the technological and social changes in our society, and the discomfort that can arise out of that contrast is familiar to us, too. Those anxieties surround the characters in the book as they go through their own lives.
How did you come up with the names of your main characters?
Herman: I tried to ground my characters’ names in the setting and have them accurately reflect their particular ethnicities and socioeconomic classes. A person’s background doesn’t limit who they are or who they can be, but it certainly informs their own perspective, and I wanted the reader to have that insight into the characters. In addition, the two main characters have specific namesakes that get discussed in the book in more detail.
Is there anything that you want readers to know about you, your writing process or your book?
Herman: I think my book defies easy characterization. It’s historical fiction with a pinch of the supernatural sprinkled in, baseball is central to the plot, and the two main characters are a queer man in his seventies and a queer woman in her twenties. I understand that the Venn diagram of people interested in reading all those types of stories is probably pretty small in the middle. Accordingly, I tried really hard to make the novel a satisfying read no matter which of those perspectives speaks most to a particular person.
If "The Sum of Seven Thousand Sunsets" was adapted into a movie, who would you like to see cast to play your lead characters?
Herman: It’s funny you should ask that; I actually created a full hypothetical movie cast while writing the novel. Sometimes it’s easier for me to write for a character if they have a specific face and voice that I can call upon.
So, for that exercise, I chose Jim Broadbent to play Wellington Doyle and Saoirse Ronan to play Teresa Clark. Both those actors are skilled at portraying thoughtful people whose vulnerable exteriors cover a steely resolve, and I wanted those qualities to come through in my characters. Plus, they had a good on-screen rapport in the movie Brooklyn, which is a favorite of mine, so that pairing made sense to me.
If you could have dinner with any character you’ve written, who would it be—and what would you talk about?
Herman: I’d dine with Wellington Doyle, the manager of the baseball team at the heart of the story. I figure anyone who grew up an immigrant, fought in the Union army as a teenager, then spent the next fifty-plus years in the early days of professional baseball would be full of stories acquired over the course of a meaningful life.
When you encounter writer’s block, what do you do to break yourself out of it?
Herman: I wish I had a new insight to share on this question, but I find the time-honored advice to step away from the piece and come back to it later really does work best. Beyond that, I pick out music that I associate with a particular character or the setting of what I’m writing. If I get impatient, I go back to that music and listen to it a few times until I get an idea for a new scene or even just a new line of dialog - anything I can leverage to get that writer’s block unstuck.
What’s the weirdest or most unexpected place you’ve gotten a story idea from?
Herman: There’s a scene where two characters chat in a bar over cocktails while being charmed by the bartender. It’s brief, but it’s one of my favorite set pieces in the whole book. The inspiration for it came from my visits over the years to Old Ebbitt Grill in Washington, D.C. It’s a comforting, traditional place where the bartenders always have a smile when you need one and a pearl of wisdom when you aren’t expecting one. I wanted to honor and thank them in some small way through that scene.
What is your favorite genre, book, and/or author?
Herman: This may be an orthodox choice for a favorite book, but mine is The Great Gatsby. For such a short novel, it contains so much truth about people, written in breathtakingly beautiful prose. Sometimes the classics are classics for good reason.
What are you working on next?
Herman: I’m writing the sequel to The Sum of Seven Thousand Sunsets. It’s set eleven years after the events of the first book, with flashbacks to various points in the intervening period. We see how the characters have grown during that time, while still facing many of the same underlying challenges from the original story. My personal experience has taught me that life lessons often need to be relearned, and I think my characters would agree.
Learn More About the Author and The Sum of Seven Thousand Sunsets here:
Instagram: @will_herman_author
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