“I wrote Friday Night Lights when I was 33. I am now 55. Haunts me every day. Best thing that ever happened. Worse thing that ever happened…I want to be known for something more than that.”
H.G. Bissinger via Twitter & Houston Chronicle interview
As much as H.G. Bissinger would like to be known for something other than the Friday Night Lights phenomenon he created when his book was first published more than 20 years ago—don’t bet on that happening. It’s like if Don McLean wanted to write a song that topped American Pie.
It ain’t going to happen.
Early success, like the very high school athletes that Bissinger wrote about, can mess with your head. Yet he also knows that he captured the magic in a way that is iconic, in a way that most writers will never experience:
“I wanted it to be an ethnographic look at life in a small town, where everything is touched by high school football, but not a book about high school football. A story of how academics, self-esteem, gender and race interactions are all affected by the love of high school football….Like any writer, you hope the book you write will last and endure, become timeless and part of Americana. Without bragging, I think it has achieved that. It has become part of the vernacular.”
H.G. Bissinger
Houston Chronicle article by Jerome Solomon
Bissinger has had three books published since Friday Night Lights including The New York Times Bestseller, Shooting Star that he wrote along with basketball great Lebron James. He also has a website www.buzzbissinger.com.
* Bissinger may someday write a book about, say Tiger Woods, that could actually surpass his 2 million book sales of Friday Night Light, I just don’t think it’s likely that he can write something that will have as lasting an impact as Friday Night Lights.
[…] “I wrote Friday Night Lights when I was 33. I am now 55. Haunts me every day. Best thing that ever happened. Worse thing that ever happened…I want to be known for something more than that.” H.G. Bissinger via Twitter & Houston Chronicle interview As much as H.G. Bissinger would like to be known for something […] Original Source… […]