Virtual Memories Show 446:
Heywood Gould
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With his compulsively entertaining new book, Drafted: A Memoir of the ’60s (Tolmitch Press), author, screenwriter, and director Heywood Gould takes his reader on a rollicking tour of New York City in America’s most turbulent decade as he explores his draft-dodging days in the buildup of the Vietnam war. We get into how Drafted evolved from a screenplay into a novel into a memoir, what it was like being a reporter for the New York Post at 22 (when it was a pinko rag, rather than a right-wing rag) and working alongside Nora Ephron and Pete Hamill, his family’s tension between communist leanings & patriotism, and how his race to get out of the draft led him to Paris, civil rights protests, almost to the wedding altar, and Fort Dix. We also talk about Heywood’s career writing and directing movies and TV (like Cocktail, Fort Apache, The Bronx, One Good Cop, The Boys From Brazil and The Equalizer), his one Gabriel Byrne story, why he’ll take NYC over LA, and all the ways Hollywood has changed over the decades, especially in the streaming era. Plus we discuss why he reads the Torah daily (for the storytelling!), his stab at adapting Isaac Babel for the movies, how the Great American Novel has eluded him so far, how he learned Hemingway’s trick of writing fiction like a news story, why being a mortician’s assistant was his favorite non-writing job, and why his next book will be How Not To Be A Cancer Patient, a memoir of his 20 years (and counting) of experience with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Give it a listen! And go read Drafted!
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About our Guest
Born in the Bronx and raised in Brooklyn, Heywood Gould got his start as reporter for the NY Post. Later he financed years of rejection with the usual colorful jobs — cabdriver, mortician’s assistant, tending bar and writing screenplays. Heywood is the author of nine novels, among them Cocktail, Fort Apache, The Bronx, Double Bang, Serial Killer’s Daughter, Leading Lady and Green Light for Murder. The latter two were both Hammett Award finalists. He has written nine screenplays — including Cocktail, Fort Apache, The Bronx, The Boys From Brazil, Rolling Thunder and Streets of Gold — and has directed four feature films: One Good Cop, starring Michael Keaton, Trial By Jury with William Hurt, Mistrial starring Bill Pullman, and Double Bang with William Baldwin. His latest book is Drafted: A Memoir of the ’60s.
Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at Heywood’s home on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones
