120514980

How did you come to write "R IDING THE R AILS : T EENAGERS ON THE M OVE D URING THE G REAT D EPRESSION "?

The book is a companion volume to the documentary, Riding the Rails, made by my son, Michael, and his wife, Lexy. When Michael and Lexy began work on the film seven years ago, their first step was to get a notice published in Modern Maturity, official magazine of AARP, the Association of American Retired Persons. They asked for stories from former boxcar boys and girls. They hoped for 100 or so replies. They received 3,000 letters. I had access to the letters plus 500 follow-up questionnaires and the transcripts of the filmed interviews.

What touched you most about the letters?

The total sincerity and honesty in the recollections of the boxcar boys and girls. Whether they rode the rails once or twice or hopped freights endlessly searching for jobs, the experience profoundly affected their lives. Not only when they were kids, but in shaping their character as adults. What struck me especially was the simple pride of letter writers in looking back on those hard times and how they handled them as mere children.

Describe some of the ways in which they coped with life on the road?

"Street smarts," we call it today. Many took off with little but the clothes on their backs. "I left home with 2 loaves of bread and 2 pounds of Romano cheese," says one letter-writer. Hunger quickly drove a boy or girl to beg for food at stores and at the back doors of houses. Sometimes they went away empty-handed. Many tell of going two or three days without a bite to eat.

Coping with fear and loneliness was as tough as trying to get something in their bellies. "More than once I cried. I felt so sad, so utterly alone," said one former rider. "What kept me going was the freedom of it — the desire to see what lay on the other side of the mountain."

What perspective do these stories bring on the Great Depression?

We see the decade of the Great Depression entirely through the eyes of young men and women growing up on a landscape of ruin. We ride the rails with them, setting out from homes shattered by unemployment and poverty and hitting the road. We learn of their struggle to survive on the streets of America and know their bitter disappointments, their sense of loss of childhood, their frustrations at the lack of opportunity. "When I think of all this traveling across the land, searching for the things we had lost, there is a place inside my chest that still hurts," recalls one rider.

What does the book tell about America?

The story of the boxcar boys and girls reveals nothing less than the spirit of America — youthful optimism, the will to make the best of things, the love of freedom. The Great Depression was a heinous time that left deep scars. Letter writers express life-long fears of going broke again. When they left the rails and got a hold on their lives, they never let go. Many tell of keeping the jobs they found for 30 or 40 years. And the girls they met, too: many write joyously of their enduring devotion to the sweethearts they married when they settled down. None speak of the pluck and courage they showed in going to seek a better life. —They are the forgotten heroes of our century.

Could you share some details about your writing? How did you begin your career?

I wrote my first book at 10. It was 40 pages written on the back of worthless stock certificates thrown out by my parents. At 16, I finished a full-length novel. I still have a slew of rejection slips for my effort. But that manuscript landed me my first newspaper job when I sent it along with my application for work as a cub reporter in Johannesburg, South Africa. Of course, it also meant that I would spend the next 15 years as a reporter, features writer and editor.

You worked with James A. Michener on his South African book, T HE C OVENANT? .

Yes. I had started work on a South African novel before meeting Michener and it was clear that we were thinking along similar lines. I spent two years working with him, including four months during which I lived at his Maryland home. We put our heads together on every aspect of the book, from the plotting to the final manuscript. -- What I gained above all was the faith that I could go out and write a vast historical novel like Michener.

Why did you choose B RAZIL as your subject?

I came from South Africa where racism was entrenched. Brazil was a land where the races mixed from the beginning. I was personally drawn to find out why the Brazilian "thing" was so different. I was also appalled to discover how little people in the United States knew about their biggest neighbor to the south. It was — and sadly remains — a lack of understanding similar to what proved disastrous for the different communities of South Africa.

How did you write B RAZIL ?

I gave up my job as an editor at Reader's Digest. I spent the next five years working on Brazil. I traveled 15,000 miles by bus to do my research in Brazil and then returned to the U.S. to begin writing. After a year's leg-work and with 200 pages in hand, I got an advance from Simon and Schuster. The original manuscript was 2,700 pages or three-quarters of a million words written in long-hand on kid's scribbling tablets. When it was published in the U.S. in 1986, Brazil was 1,000 pages.

What matters most to you about writing?

Whether I am writing fiction or non-fiction, I strive to understand, to feel and touch the lives of people I write about. It is a rare privilege that writers have. It is also a deep responsibility.

REVIEWS
"A masterpiece… Brazil has the look and feel of an enchanted virgin forest, a totally new and original world for the reader-explorer to discover."

-- L’Express, Paris

Pulsing with vigor, this is a vast novel to tell the story of a vast country. Uys depicts Brazil’s evolution from colony to empire to republic. Lacing the tale together are two families: the Cavalcantis, planters and slave owners; and representing another fundamental social stream, the da Silvas, prospectors, adventurers, seekers of El Dorado.

The principal characters, both real and imaginary are hard to forget. Among them: the great Indian warrior, Aruaña; Secundus Proot, a Dutch artist who wanders into the interior to paint Indians; Black Peter, a freed African slave who takes murderous revenge on his persecutors; Francisco Solano López, doomed and gallant president of Paraguay; Anthony the Counselor, visionary rebel.

Uys re-creates history almost entirely “at ground level,” even more densely than Michener, through the eyes and actions of an awesome cast of characters. -- Publishers Weekly

Uys has accomplished what no Brazilian author from José de Alencar to Jorge Amado was able to do. He is the first to write our national epic in all its decisive episodes, from the indigenous civilization and the El Dorado myth, everything converging like the segments of a rose window to that reborn and metamorphosed myth that is Brasilia. He is the first outsider to see us with total honesty and sympathy and full empathy with the decisive moments in our history and their spiritual meaning. Descriptions like those of the war with Paraguay are unsurpassed in our literature and evoke the great passages of War and Peace. -- Wilson Martins, Jornal do Brasil

Uys has interwoven five centuries of Brazilian history and generations of two fictional families into a massive, richly detailed novel, Michenerian in sweep and scope, informative and intriguing. Whether recounting grisly rituals in which captives of the Tupiniquin are prepared for slaughter (and subsequent consumption), the ill-fated albeit heroic effort of Padre Inácio Cavalcanti to convert the Tupiniquin to Christianity, or the fanciful expeditions of Amador Flores da Silva as he searches for emeralds, Uys has a sense of pace and an eye for detail that rarely fail him. -- Washington Post

No one before knew how to bring to life Brazil and her history. Uys’s characters are brilliant and colorful, combining elements of the best swashbuckler with those worthy of deepest reflection. Most stunning is that it took a South African, now a naturalized American, to evoke so perfectly the grand but interrupted dream that is Brazil. -- Le Figaro, Paris

Uys smoothly interweaves a series of self-contained episodes into a sprawling saga that spans five centuries. The richness and authenticity of the setting and the historical detail make the investment in this lavish drama eminently worthwhile. -- Booklist

This is not a caricature of Brazil, a country of endless carnival and happy samba dancers. Brazil offers a painless introduction to a country and people whose development has a sweep and drama similar to our own. One of Mr. Uys’s characters stands out above all the others: Amador Flores da Silva, a fictional creation intended to embody the virtues and many vices of the bandeirantes, the semi-savage “flag bearing” pioneers who opened up the Brazilian interior to “civilization.” Flores da Silva is a complicated figure, ashamed of his mixed Indian and Portuguese background, driven by an insatiable curiosity and possessing a tenacity that enables him to survive one adversity after another. He is a man capable of hunting down a close companion with whom he spent years fighting Indians in the Amazon and also ordering the execution of his own son for disobedience on an expedition, but his overwhelming vitality makes him compelling and even sympathetic on occasion. -- New York Times Book Review

Brazil is a family epic written in a lucid, flowing style….A saga both simple and direct, yet deeply evocative and dramatic throughout…A reader is left with the wish that there were a thousand pages more. -- Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Dynamic, excellently researched, free from the eternal stereotypes about Brazil. -- Estado do São Paulo

Uys’s unsentimentalized chronicle combines great adventure with an impressive level of research. His intermingling of real historical figures with the fictional Cavalcantis and da Silvas create an aura of verisimilitude that makes history come alive. The epic history of Brazil has been accorded its due in this panoramic novel. -- Magill Book Reviews

The reader is entranced from the moment he is introduced to the young cannibal Aruanã until the story ends with Amilcar da Silva gazing from a Brasília skyscraper at the vast sertão, the heart of the country that was unconquerable for nearly five centuries. The writing skill of Uys is evident in the way he has taken graphic stories from periods of Brazil’s history and developed them into a balanced novel that equals any of the epics of James A Michener. -- Nashville Banner

"Riding the Rails sets out to tell about the 250,000 teenagers who hopped freights and lived the hobo life in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash...Uys paints a brisk, colorful, fast-paced portrait of lean times and high hopes." -- Tulsa World

"With more than 500 interviews and stunning archival photographs, Uys thoroughly recreates the wretched conditions the boxcar boys and girls endured."

-- Chicago Tribune

"One of the most poignant memories of the wandering youth of the Great Depression." -- Sacramento Bee

"A riveting document of hope and hardship during one of this nation's bleakest eras."

-- Seattle Post Intelligencer

"As gripping as it is well-researched." -- Denver Post

"A remarkable story" -- Kansas City Star

"An elegantly presented and quietly moving collection of firsthand reminiscences, capturing a unique moment in American history. Enthusiastically recommended for all public libraries." -- Library Journal

" Whether you're a "gaycat" (novice rider) or a "dingbat" (seasoned hobo), Riding the Rails is entertaining and inspiring, recapturing a time when the country was "dying by inches." -- Sunny Delaney, History Editor, Amazon.com

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

I'm writing my story of America from beginning to end on the Internet. Visit my America pages and see the novel take shape.