{"id":20143,"date":"2017-06-19T14:55:42","date_gmt":"2017-06-19T18:55:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=20143"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:36:20","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:36:20","slug":"extraordinary-adventures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=20143","title":{"rendered":"The writer\u2019s life is Daniel Wallace\u2019s own \u2018extraordinary adventure\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Daniel Wallace<\/a> calls his new book, Extraordinary Adventures<\/em> (St. Martin\u2019s Press), his most autobiographical work yet. Set in Wallace\u2019s hometown of Birmingham, Ala., the book features the journey of Edsel Bronfman \u2014 yes, that\u2019s Edsel as in the late 1950s Ford car that became a commercial failure \u2014 and his quest to open himself up to life and to love.<\/p>\n

Edsel works as a shipping clerk for a Korean flatware importer. He lives in a sketchy neighborhood and spends his free time with his free-spirited mother. Then one day he gets a call from an operator with a company called Extraordinary Adventures telling him he\u2019s won a free weekend at a beachfront condo in Destin, Fla. The catch? The offer is for couples only, and Edsel has never had a girlfriend. So Edsel has to take a companion with him \u2014 and he\u2019 s only got 79 days to find one.<\/p>\n

Wallace is the J. Ross MacDonald Distinguished Professor of English and director of the creative writing program<\/a> in UNC\u2019s College of Arts & Science and the bestselling author of previous novels including Big Fish<\/em>, Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician<\/em> and The Kings and Queens of Roam<\/em>. He said he had been writing short stories about Edsel for years and just couldn\u2019t let him go.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinally I had all of these stories, and I realized, \u2018There\u2019s probably a book in here somewhere,\u2019\u201d Wallace said in a phone interview from Santa Monica, Calif., where he was traveling to promote the book. \u201cSo I went back to the drawing board in a way. I converted all these short stories into a novel. \u2026 More so than any other character that I\u2019ve ever written about, I could imagine what his life would be like outside the confines of the book.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some might call Edsel na\u00efve, but Wallace points out he\u2019s very self-aware of what he knows and what he doesn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal in this book for him is to find out all of these things he doesn\u2019t know,\u201d he said. \u201cHe is just a different version of everybody in that regard. I\u2019m still trying to figure out everything that I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThings turn out in the way you wouldn\u2019t expect in terms of the women he gets to meet, having never really met any before. As soon as he opens himself up to possibility, things start to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for setting the book in his hometown, Wallace said it\u2019s actually an amalgam of Birmingham and Chapel Hill. For instance, Edsel\u2019s love interest, Sheila McNabb, lives in Cedar Court \u2014 an actual apartment complex not far from Weaver Street in Carrboro. Hometowns leave an imprint; they hold that special power of place over you, he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Daniel Wallace (photo by Iman Woods)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cEven though I\u2019ve spent most of my life in Chapel Hill, I still find myself going back to Birmingham because that\u2019s where I was born,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cI know it so well. As you\u2019re coming of age, all of your most vivid emotions happen as you\u2019re growing up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Edsel, Wallace once worked for his dad\u2019s import\/export flatware business. Wallace also once got cajoled into one of those visits to a beach condo where the company tried to sell him a timeshare. (Not a great experience, he admitted).<\/p>\n

And like Edsel, he\u2019s never won anything \u2014 not even a free T-shirt!<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up calling into radio shows and sending off for things, and I was always the sixth caller when they were looking for the fifth,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cSo the longer you try to succeed at something, the more valuable it becomes in your mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just screwed, totally screwed,\u201d he added. \u201cI\u2019m never going to win anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

(At this point, it should be noted that Wallace\u2019s son won an Eminem CD when he was 9 years old by calling into a radio show. Wallace said things have turned out so well for his son since.)<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/em><\/a> raved about Extraordinary Adventures,<\/em> calling it \u201cas refreshing and original as his earlier books. \u2026 Daniel Wallace is one of those rare, wonderful writers who make it look easy. You find yourself chortling and sometimes laughing aloud as you breeze through his novels, which makes it impossible to overlook the artistry and expertise that render his characters so vivid and his plots so engaging.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Wallace said he tries not to pay too much attention to reviews, not like he did in the beginning of his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that I\u2019m worried about getting a bad review, it\u2019s just that I\u2019ve realized that enough is never enough in that world. Once you start to dig in, you always want more,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I like this book a lot, and I don\u2019t want to have to judge it in terms of the way other people look at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since late May he\u2019s been on the road, visiting bookstores and libraries in Orlando, Jacksonville, Atlanta, Birmingham, Nashville, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles \u2014 then it\u2019s off to New York and back home to Chapel Hill. In this technology-centric age, Wallace said he still enjoys the opportunity to connect with fans face-to-face.<\/p>\n

So in the spirit of Edsel Bronfman, what would constitute an extraordinary adventure for Daniel Wallace?<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually feel like I\u2019m on one, I really do,\u201d he said. \u201cJust the opportunity to be able to write and to publish and to fly around the country talking to people about my book is extraordinary to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Kim Spurr, College of Arts & Sciences<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Read more books by College faculty and alumni<\/strong>.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daniel Wallace calls his new book, Extraordinary Adventures (St. Martin\u2019s Press), his most autobiographical work yet. Set in Wallace\u2019s hometown of Birmingham, Ala., the book features the journey of Edsel Bronfman \u2014 yes, that\u2019s Edsel as in the late 1950s Ford car that became a commercial failure \u2014 and his quest to open himself up to life and to love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":20145,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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