The Trip to Bountiful by Horton Foote

I just raced through all six episodes of the new Netflix series “The Chair.” To see the brilliant chameleon Sandra Oh, the force-of-nature named Holland Taylor, and the messy-hair-sex appeal of Jay Duplass is to witness something extra special. All three play English professors at the fictional Pembroke University in New England. To watch a series about academics talking about writers and words made me feel so happy, and also nostalgic. The series reminded me of the summer in the early 1990s, when I went to study with the playwright Horton Foote at Sewanee: The University of the South. I chose to study with Mr. Foote because he was a playwright, and that is what I thought I wanted to be. He also wrote for television and film, in addition to the stage, and that excited me, too. Mr. Foote, however, was far from warm and fuzzy professor I imagined him to be. His cantankerous demeanor surprised me and made me pause. I wasn't sure if he was mad at me, or the entire class. But I soon realized that you do not have to be nice to teach well.  One of the things I remember from that summer is that he taught us to write what we know, and what we had experienced. I could never have written his book "A Trip to Bountiful," nor could he have penned the play I was working on at the time called "The Stork Club" about my infertility issues. Mr. Foote grew up in Wharton, Texas, and was deftly able to write about his main character, Carrie Watts, and her quest to travel from Houston, back to her childhood home in the fictional city of Bountiful, Texas. The work first appeared on television in 1953, and later on Broadway that same year. The same play was turned into a movie in 1985 starring Geraldine Page who won an Oscar for her performance as Carrie Watts. Mr. Foote wrote about people in small Texas towns sharing secrets and memories, and for that he should always be celebrated and remembered for being authentic and true. To buy this book on Amazon click here.