Читать книгу Dirt Roads and Diner Pie - Shonna Milliken Humphrey - Страница 10
Оглавление“Just don’t make it one of those douche-y, ‘look-at-me’ confessionals,” Trav requested when this book moved from an idea to words on paper.
I nodded.
“And try not to make me sound like a jackass.”
I nodded again.
“And make it funny.”
“Got it,” I said. “A funny memoir about childhood sexual abuse where your character is the opposite of a jackass.” Thinking of the most suave and socially adept figures in film and literature, I suggested modeling Trav’s persona after Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine or Ian Fleming’s James Bond.
“Magnum, P.I., would be okay, too.”
This is how the conversation devolved into a review of which fictional good guy Trav would choose to lead a military-style extraction team: MacGyver, Thomas Magnum, Michael Knight, James Bond, or Cordell Walker.
After some debate, MacGyver won.
“Would your answer change if the A-Team was an option?”
“Obviously.”
As always, these absurd exchanges make me laugh, but Trav’s extensive knowledge of iconic television, literary, and film heroes is no accident. For thirty months from 1988 to 1990, he was unable to sleep because of the sex abuse he saw, heard, feared, and experienced as a student at the American Boychoir School. He sought brave, strong, and honorable male archetypes in fiction because none of those heroes materialized in real life.
Instead of summoning a talking car or a Walther PPK, Trav began drinking coffee at age eleven to remain alert and vigilant during the nighttime hours.
