Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
malcolm brooks author
Malcolm Brooks jokes with the audience during his Colfax library appearance. The Montana author sold his acclaimed first novel after 20 years and three failed attempts.
Set in a part of America you can drive through in daylight and feel fear – too long of spells on a straight road without seeing another car – Malcolm Brooks’ “Painted Horses” was the “Everybody Reads” book for 2016.
Brooks appeared Tuesday at the Colfax library to read passages and answer questions about his eastern Montana story named one of Amazon’s 100 Best Books of the Year.
“Painted Horses” was published in August 2014, after which Brooks continued his work as a carpenter and remodeling contractor in Missoula, Mont. His previous writing appeared in Outside, Big Sky Journal and Montana Quarterly.
He started the book in 2003, after three failed attempts to sell a novel over more than 20 years.
“Painted Horses” would draw praise from critics across the country. Soon after, Brooks sold another novel – based on a proposal about Yakima McKee, a minor character in “Painted Horses.”
“That bought me a year-and-a-half of writing time,” he said.
Tuesday in Colfax, Brooks was asked about the book’s path to find a publisher.
First writing a query letter, he sent it out to agents, failing to get a response. Adjusting the letter, he increased requests for the manuscript to 10 in one day.
It was part of a six-month process during which he contacted more than 100 agents. During this time, Brooks went to a writer’s conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., to see if it would help.
“That was like pushing a domino over,” he said.
In six weeks, he had an offer to be represented, and later sold the book to Grove Atlantic in March 2012, two-and-a-half years before publishing.
“That was the longest two-and-a-half years of my life,” Brooks said.
More questions followed.
“Do you have a woman in your life, because your insights about women in the book are (very smart),” asked one woman.
“Thank you very much, I’ve been divorced twice,” he said.
To another question, he talked about the book’s ending.
“The trouble with much of literary fiction is that pessimism is a stand-in for seriousness,” Brooks said. “... I like a fairy tale ending myself.”
He spent the first 10 years of his life in New Jersey, part of an evangelical family “with no TV, preoccupied with the end times, the second coming.”
The family moved to California, first southern then a rural part in the north, where, as a present from his eighth-grade English teacher, Brooks was given “Lonesome Dove,” Larry McMurtry’s 1984 book, before it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
“It utterly changed my life,” Brooks said. “I started to try to be a writer right then and there.”
Brooks was asked how he was paid.
“As unromantic as e-books are, the royalty rate is astronomically higher,” he said, noting less costs involved for the publisher. “I used to be very hostile to the e-books.”
Brooks will conclude his visit to the Palouse Thursday with appearances in Lewiston and Asotin, where the “Everybody Reads” program began. Since then, it has expanded to Lapwai, Pullman, Moscow, Colfax, Palouse, St. John, Nez Perce, Asotin, Pomeroy and Dayton.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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