Three Weeks With My Brother
Description
The day the brochure came was a typical one. With a wife and five small children, a hectic schedule, and a new book due to his publishers, Nicholas Sparks was busy with his usual routine. The colorful mailer, however, described something very different: a tour to some of the most exotic places on Earth. Slowly, an idea took hold in Nicholas's mind and heart. In January 2003, Nicholas Sparks and his brother, Micah, set off on a three-week trip around the globe. It was to mark a milestone in their lives, for at thirty-seven and thirty-eight respectively, they were now the only surviving members of their family. And as they voyaged to the lost city of Machu Picchu high in the Andes. . . to mysterious Easter Island. . . to Ayers Rock in the Australian outback. . . and across the vast Indian subcontinent, the ultimate story of their lives would unfold. Against the backdrop of the wonders of the world and often overtaken by their feelings, daredevil Micah and the more serious, introspective Nicholas recalled their rambunctious childhood adventures and the tragedies that tested their faith. And in the process, they discovered startling truths about loss, love and hope. Narrated with irrepressible humor and rare candor, and including personal photographs, Three Weeks with my Brother reminds us to embrace life with all its uncertainties. . . and most of all, to cherish the joyful times, both small and momentous, and the wonderful people who make them possible.
Did You Know
Three Weeks With My Brother is Nicholas's second work of non-fiction? (The first was Wokini, written with Olympic Gold Medalist Billy Mills.)
Nicholas and Micah Sparks wrote the book together from separate coasts by talking on the phone and faxing drafts back and forth?
The trip around the world was part of a Notre Dame alumni package?
Description
The day the brochure came was a typical one. With a wife and five small children, a hectic schedule, and a new book due to his publishers, Nicholas Sparks was busy with his usual routine. The colorful mailer, however, described something very different: a tour to some of the most exotic places on Earth. Slowly, an idea took hold in Nicholas's mind and heart. In January 2003, Nicholas Sparks and his brother, Micah, set off on a three-week trip around the globe. It was to mark a milestone in their lives, for at thirty-seven and thirty-eight respectively, they were now the only surviving members of their family. And as they voyaged to the lost city of Machu Picchu high in the Andes. . . to mysterious Easter Island. . . to Ayers Rock in the Australian outback. . . and across the vast Indian subcontinent, the ultimate story of their lives would unfold. Against the backdrop of the wonders of the world and often overtaken by their feelings, daredevil Micah and the more serious, introspective Nicholas recalled their rambunctious childhood adventures and the tragedies that tested their faith. And in the process, they discovered startling truths about loss, love and hope. Narrated with irrepressible humor and rare candor, and including personal photographs, Three Weeks with my Brother reminds us to embrace life with all its uncertainties. . . and most of all, to cherish the joyful times, both small and momentous, and the wonderful people who make them possible.
Film/TV Sales
Rights to this book have not been sold.
Background Info
I’ve been dabbling with the idea of writing a memoir for years, but frankly, I’ve been holding off for the simple reason that I couldn’t shake the thought that doing so would be presumptuous. After all, I’m still relatively young (in my thirties as I write this), and I’m not vain enough to believe that I’ve earned the right to record my life for posterity. With a little luck, life expectancy statistics would show that I haven’t even reached the half-way point in life yet, and there’s a chance that the really exciting stuff hasn’t even happened to me yet. Then, of course, there’s the whole vanity aspect. No matter how much people have wanted to read my story – and I’ve been asked to write a memoir for years – I couldn’t shake the thought that by agreeing, I’d essentially be admitting that my story is more interesting than most peoples’.Frankly, I doubt that’s the case, and those who know me would probably agree. Aside from sitting at a keyboard and making up stories, my daily life is rather ordinary. And who on earth would want to read about that?
For both of these reasons, I rejected the idea of a memoir. Biographies should be written with the accumulated wisdom of a lifetime. Yet in a world that’s produced truly wise people – Christ, St. Paul, Plato, Socrates, etc., -- I can’t help but feel like the audience trying to follow along with what they’re saying. I’m not wise and I haven’t lived a lifetime; hence, a memoir is out. One day, maybe I’ll be ready. But I’m certainly not ready yet.
Yet, fate is a funny thing. It turns out that my brother and I took a trip around the world, and the more we traveled and talked, the more we began to think that we could write a story about brotherhood, all set around the trip we were taking. While it would obviously be a personal story, it wasn’t necessarily about me or him, but rather a story about our relationship. And that, contrary to striking me as a presumptuous undertaking, seemed like something I wanted to do.
Brotherhood is a nice topic. A good topic. A meaningful topic. Especially when you’re as close as my brother and I are.
Notes on Writing the Book
Three Weeks with my Brother presented a unique challenge in that it was the first time I’ve worked with a co-writer, let alone with a co-writer of limited experience. Micah, though highly intelligent, is not an author, and the challenge was made even greater by the fact that this book was my first attempt at non-fiction as well. There was also the difficulty in making our individual perceptions uniform. We were both well aware of the fact that memory is not always accurate and that our feelings now (and then) can greatly influence the accuracy of our recollections.
With that in mind, both my brother and I took detailed notes throughout the trip, trying to recreate our dialogues word for word. After returning from our trip, I spent the next few months finishing up The Wedding, during which time, neither one of us looked at these notes. Once The Wedding was completed, I received Micah’s notes and compared them to my own; the end result (the book) was that our conversations were as accurate (if sometimes abbreviated) as I could make them.
As far as the past . . . this was a bit more difficult. We wanted the back story – the memoir – to be as honest as we could make it, but because neither my brother nor I kept a diary growing up, we weren't able to recreate the every detail of our life. Rather, we chose to focus on those specific details we could still remember vividly, details which served to illustrate a particular period or mood in our life. For instance, when we wrote of our time in Los Angeles, the major stories concerned Blackie the raven (illustrating how we were allowed to wander alone and unsupervised, as well as my growing admiration of my brother), Micah fighting the older girls in the junkyard (illustrating the fact that our mother taught us, from a young age, to solve our own problems), the earthquake (illustrating our faith and love of our parents), and the growing arguments between our parents (showing our fear and the fact that, despite our relatively wild upbringing, we were still little kids).
The obvious question for anyone who reads Three Weeks with my Brother is how much is true? Are the stories we did tell accurate? The answer is simply that the stories are as accurate and true as we could make them. There were many times where my brother and I had different recollections; in these instances, we simply chose not to use those events. We were fortunate in that we had plenty of stories to choose from; ours was not an unmemorable childhood or adolescence. (And yes, by the way, our mother really did let us roam the streets of Los Angeles when we were five; don’t ask me why.).
The second question, and probably the most frequently asked question is really two-fold: How much did Micah write? And how did you work, since one of you lives in California and the other lives in North Carolina? Anyone who’s read my work can probably answer the first part easily: I did most of the writing. Or rather, I did most of the writing in its final book form. I would ask Micah to write about a particular event; he would and I would then edit it, sometimes rather substantially. I would then write a section, send it to Micah, and he would send it back to me, usually unchanged. (I did have a bit more experience, after all). We spoke daily on the phone, we discussed every sentence in the novel, and he told me stories orally as well; these were then written by me to the best of my recollection, at which point I would pass them on to him for his review.
As for the writing; in many ways, this was among the easiest of the books in which I’ve written. I knew, after all, the beginning and the end of our trip around the world. With Micah’s help, I was also able to recreate the memoir fairly easily. The only challenge came in the structure; how to balance both the trip and the memoir in a way that would keep the pages turning. I must say that it wasn’t all easy, however; as we worked on those sections regarding the deaths of my mother and father and my sister, the struggles and worries about Ryan, there were many times when I had to pull away from the computer and I’d find myself sitting alone in my office for an hour, trying to compose myself. Writing, after all, is about honesty, and recreating those feelings for the readers made recreating them for me as well. Writing the book forced me to remember – and re-experience -- things I would rather not think about. The end result, however, was a book that both Micah and I are extremely proud to have written.
Reviews
. . . a moving tale of familial solidarity. Sparks’s side story of commitment to ameliorating his son’s autism is downright inspiring.
-- Washington Post Book World
His account of the trip is refreshingly honest and perceptive. At each stop, the brothers, both deeply committed to their families, cover the crucial moments in a life full of familial love and tragedy....
-- Publisher’s Weekly
A must read for Sparks fans as well as a treat for those who want to find out what makes a family strong.
-- Booklist
FAQ
Do you still talk as frequently?
We still speak two or three times a week on the phone and get together five or six times a year. Along with my wife, he's still my best friend.
Considering you live across the country from one another, how did you write the novel?
Micah and I spoke every day on the phone about the structure, the story, which episodes from our lives to include, and how to describe them. I would ask Micah to write certain sections and he would fax them to me for editing; I would do the same for him. We would each then review every chap ...
How much did you write, as opposed to Micah?
In its final -- not draft -- form, I was responsible for most of the writing. This was to ensure uniformity of voice. Micah’s contributions were incorporated in my voice so as not to add unnecessary complexity to the novel.
Will you two write another book, either fiction or non-fiction?
Perhaps. We’ve talked about it, but in the end, we are waiting for something to write about. Three Weeks with my Brother covered our lives up to 2003, so it may be a few more years before another memoir. But, we are discussing other possible projects.
Will Micah write his own novel or non-fiction book?
Maybe. He's thinking about it.
What was your favorite place to visit?
Both Micah and I answer the same way: Machu Picchu, in Peru, was our favorite. The site was overwhelming, and it is definitely a place we’d like to visit again.
What was your least favorite place to visit?
Micah swears he'll never go back to India. For me, because we never got to see the famous northern lights, I thought the trip to Norway was one that could have been omitted. That said, we would recommend the exact same trip to anyone else who wants to travel the world.
Book Club/Discussion Questions
1. The authorship of Three Weeks with My Brother, at least as far as the cover is concerned, is split equally between Nicholas and Micah. Yet the book, for the most part, is written in first-person by Nicholas. Why? In your opinion, would it have been better to have split the authorial voice, and if so, why?
2. Which sections seem most likely to have come from Nicholas’s memories? Which from Micah’s? Why?
3. Jill, their mother, is largely canonized in the novel, and both brothers claim a profound love and respect for her, and further describe her as an ideal mother. Did she strike you as ideal? In what way? Has the memory of Jill been romanticized over the years by both Micah and Nicholas?
4. At the same time, however, Jill seems to be almost neglectful as a parent, allowing the boys too much freedom at too young an age and forcing a maturity upon them that is far beyond their years. Is this inconsistency adequately explained? Would you allow this as a parent? In what ways did this freedom to roam as children -- complete with injuries, brushes with the law, and wrong choices -- seem to affect Micah now? How does it seem to affect Nicholas now?
5. Mike, their father, is perhaps least understood by both Micah and Nicholas of all their family members. Why? What were Mike’s strongest attributes as a father in your opinion? His weakest?
6. As Micah and Nicholas grew older, their thoughts about their mother remained largely unchanged, while their view of their father changed over time, from one of simple awe to one of sympathy and worry. Was this because their mother died first, when the boys were still relatively young, and before Micah and Nicholas faced the realities of adulthood? Or was it a reaction to the struggles that Mike faced in the aftermath of Jill’s death? Is Micah still angry with Mike? Is Nicholas?
7. Dana, like Jill, is described almost reverently by both Micah and Nicholas. Is this view realistic? Describe the ways in which Dana seems similar to Micah. Describe the ways in which she seems similar to Nicholas. How is she different?
8. Dana, both brothers profess, was treated differently than her brothers. Was she? Does this explain the apparent differences?
9. Nicholas claims that in the novel A Walk to Remember, the character of Jamie was inspired by his sister. How is Jamie similar to Dana? How is she different? Did the characters strike you as similar?
10. The book was structured around a trip around the world the brothers took in 2003. Did the travel add anything to the book? Or could the book have been written without it? Why do you think the authors choose to do it this way?
11. A memoir is always based on memories and perception. At the same time, it attempts to describe events as they truly happened. Is it possible to do both, or are these goals contradictory? How does the extended family feel about the story?
12. Nicholas’s writing career is discussed in much abbreviated form, only a few sentences here and there. There is little description of any struggles or how the success has affected him. Why was this area of his life largely omitted? Should it have been? Would the book have had more or less impact had he included this information?
13. Memoirs provide glimpses into character, but only those glimpses that the authors are willing to reveal. It’s as if a window is opened, but only so far. After finishing the novel, do you feel as if you know Micah? Do you feel as if you know Nicholas?
14. The structure of the novel is circular, in that it largely ends in the same place where it begins: with the brochure arriving in the mail. Did you realize this? Can you think of another book that has been written in this way? What is the symbolism of this ending?
Foreign Sales
- Arabic / Arab Scientific Publishers
- Germany / Weltbild (Paper Back)
- Germany / Random House Munich (Book Club)
- Germany / Heyne
- Italy / Sperling & Kupfer/Frassenelli
- Netherlands / ECI / The House of Books
- Norway / Damm
- Poland / Albatros
- Portugal / Presenca
- Slovenia / Mish
- Taiwan / Marco Polo
- UK / Time Warner
Published: 2004