The Wishing Trees (46 page)

Acknowledgments

The Wishing Trees
would not have been possible without the support of my wife, Allison, and our children, Sophie and Jack. Thank you for letting me live my dream. I love you all.

I’d like to express my gratitude toward Ellen Edwards, my wonderful editor, as well as Laura Dail, my agent extraordinaire. Thanks also to my parents, John and Patsy Shors; my brothers, Tom, Matt, and Luke; as well as Mary and Doug Barakat, Bruce McPherson, Dustin O’Regan, Amy Tan, Wally Lamb, Mahbod Seraji, Kara Cesare, Michael Brosowski, Pennie Ianniciello, Clover Apelian, Shawna Sharp, Sarah Streett, Bliss Darragh, Diane Saarinen, Amy Cherry, Kara Welsh, Craig Burke, Kaitlyn Kennedy, and Davina Witts at
BookBrowse.com
.

John Shors
is the bestselling author of
Beneath a Marble Sky
,
Beside a Burning Sea
,
Dragon House
, and
The Wishing Trees
. He has won numerous awards for his writing, and his novels have been translated into twenty-five languages.

John lives in Boulder, Colorado, with his wife and two children. For more information, please visit
www.johnshors.com
.

READERS GUIDE

A CONVERSATION WITH JOHN SHORS

Q. At the heart of
The Wishing Trees
is a touching father-daughter relationship. How much did you draw upon your relationship with your own daughter in creating the interactions between Ian and Mattie?

A. I try in all my novels not to base characters on the people in my life. I prefer to create characters from scratch, to watch them grow, draft by draft. Having said that, certainly my experience as the father of a young girl and boy was crucial for this novel. I could put myself in Ian’s shoes, and make him believable, because of this experience. Also, having young children made it easier for me to write from Mattie’s perspective.

Q. What particular challenges did you encounter in writing about two people grieving for the wife and mother whom they loved?

A. Obviously, two such people are going to have a great deal of sadness in their lives, and I needed to honor that sadness. But I didn’t want to dwell on it too deeply. I wanted to also give my characters hope and humor, compassion and joy. Finding a balance between sorrow and celebration was a difficult process.

Q. Describe your experience with “wish trees.”

A. After graduating from college, I moved to Kyoto, Japan, where I taught English for several years. I have vivid memories of wish trees, which were often located in popular parks. The trees tended to be old—propped up with bamboo poles and rope. During holidays and busy weekends, the trees were covered with thousands of small white pieces of paper that contained people’s wishes. I loved the sight of these trees, and the thought of wishes being fulfilled.

Q. Did many of the scenes in
The Wishing Trees
come from your own personal experience?

A. While teaching in Japan I managed to save enough money to backpack throughout Asia. I was fortunate to spend a significant amount of time in all of the countries depicted in
The Wishing Trees
, and many of the scenes in the novel are based on my own experiences. For instance, I swam with the sharks at Ko Phi Phi, I helped a Nepalese girl carry her firewood up an endless series of stone steps, and I went on a self-propelled roller coaster in India. I am the type of writer who needs to live in a place to bring that place to life on the page. There’s no way I could have written this novel without having first visited the cities, mountains, and coastlines portrayed within it.

Q. What fuels your passion for travel? And what are your favorite countries to visit?

A. I love being in a new place and exploring. To me there are few experiences as exhilarating as making discoveries. Sometimes I’m amazed at what can be found near my home in Colorado. Sometimes a journey takes me overseas. Whatever the case, I’m always looking for new experiences, which make me a better writer. In terms of my favorite destinations, I have a strong attachment to Asia. Perhaps this kinship is bred from familiarity. I feel as if I understand the region well. I admire its cultures and its people and its natural wonders. Of course, I hope to travel more extensively to other continents, and to get to know those places as well. Every country, I believe, has something to offer.

Q. As an armchair traveler, I would enjoy hearing about a particularly good travel experience and a particularly bad one, if you’d care to share.

A. I’ve been blessed with a lot of wonderful experiences, but one stands out. While living in Japan, two friends and I rode our mountain bikes across a mountainous part of the country. We didn’t have much money, and one evening we opted to sleep in a city’s park—not eager for a cold, damp, and uncomfortable night, but without much choice. As we were setting up our sleeping bags, an old woman walked past us. She was probably in her late eighties, and couldn’t speak a word of English. But through a series of friendly gestures, she invited us into her nearby home, where we bathed as she cooked us an enormous meal. We later drank sake and danced with her, and slept in the beds that once comforted her children. By the end of that night, I realized just how deep a capacity the human heart has for goodwill, and that realization continues to resonate within me today.

Now, in terms of bad experiences, I’ve some of those too. Once, in the slums of a large Asian city, some men tried to rob me, and instead of giving them what they wanted, I ran away, which wasn’t a wise move. I was caught a few minutes later, and found myself fighting off a bunch of angry thieves. I would have been in big trouble had not a local television reporter happened on the scene and come to my rescue.

Q. Why does
The Wishing Trees
span so much of the globe?

A. I wanted Ian and Mattie to take an emotional and spiritual journey as well as a physical one. These two ideas went hand in hand. One of my goals was to have my characters learn from the people they met, and that needed to happen in a variety of countries and cultures, where attitudes toward life and death vary enormously. I believe we can all learn from one another, no matter how different, even incompatible, we at first appear, and I hoped to show that in
The Wishing Trees
.

Q. Which character was the hardest to write and why?

A. I’d say that Ian was the toughest, because of his vernacular. I thought that an Australian character would add a dimension to the novel and was intrigued with the idea of bringing Ian to life. But Australians use as much slang as any group of people in the world, and I was a bit nervous about making his voice believable. I didn’t want to go too far in one direction or not far enough in the other. So, I studied Australian slang and had an Australian friend read an early draft of
The Wishing Trees
. I was also fortunate to have traveled to Australia, and have always had some of their colorful expressions stuck in my head. Sometimes, for instance, I find myself saying, “I reckon,” when other people would just say, “Yes.”

Q. Your previous novels have had many characters and various subplots. Why did you decide to switch things up in
The Wishing Trees
?

A. I’m not particularly interested in writing the same kind of novel over and over. What I’m interested in is challenging myself and providing readers with fresh stories. For instance, in
Beneath a Marble Sky
, I wrote in the first person, bringing to life the voice of a seventeenth-century Indian princess—not an easy task for a guy sitting in his office in Colorado. In
Beside a Burning Sea
, I began each chapter with an original haiku.
Dragon House
is a tale about some remarkable homeless children. In many ways,
The Wishing Trees
is a departure from my earlier work. There are only a few characters. There’s no villain. And there’s no dominant love story. In my future novels, I’ll continue to pursue different themes and experiment with structure, point of view, and other writing techniques.

Q. What’s the hardest aspect about being a writer?

A. Well, of course there are deadlines and pressures, which can rule my day-to-day existence. But what I think is toughest is the lack of camaraderie that’s so often found in other professions. Rarely do writers have brainstorming sessions, go out to lunch together, or enjoy an after-work cocktail. Writing is a very solitary affair. Sometimes that’s wonderful. But it can also be a bit too quiet. And when that silence starts to settle in, I find it necessary to go out for a walk, to somehow interact with the world.

Q. Why do children play such big roles in your novels?

A. I want to bring diverse points of view to my books. That diversity can be defined by age, race, personal attributes, and so forth. For me, children are a means to add different voices, and very compelling voices at that. I think children often interpret the world in ways that adults don’t, and it’s rewarding to open myself to their way of seeing. My own children, for example, often take pleasure in experiences that I might rush past—the sensation of stepping into mud, the texture of a feather, the sight of something small and wondrous.

Q. It’s absolutely amazing that you’ve spoken to almost twenty-five hundred book clubs around the world, both in person and via speakerphone. Why have you made such efforts, and why do you think so many people are involved in book clubs?

A. Once my first novel,
Beneath a Marble Sky
, took off internationally, selling well in many countries, I decided that I wanted to give something back to readers. If people were going to support me—reading my novels and telling their friends about them—then I needed to support them in return. Communicating with tens of thousands of readers via e-mail and through book club talks requires a lot of work on my part, but it’s worth it. Readers deserve such interaction, and I’m honored to reach out to them.

I believe that books are not an endangered species. There’s so much talk these days about the demise of books, about the end of reading as a leisure activity. But I think there is some false drama built into these conversations. Books are vehicles that take us to magnificent destinations; they’re irreplaceable. The fact that I’m still speaking with several book clubs every night further convinces me that the love affair with the book has not ended. Book clubs symbolize this communal, continual love.

Q. Tell us about your next novel.

A. My next novel is set in Ko Phi Phi, Thailand—an island paradise that was hit hard by the tsunami in 2004. In the book I bring together three Americans—two brothers and the woman who loves them both—and a local Thai family that depends on Western tourism while also disliking many of the changes it produces. As this mingling of cultures and personal relationships creates growing conflicts, a disastrous event threatens my characters’ lives, challenges their loyalties, and turns their expectations upside down. I’m already deep into the story and am excited about the way it’s unfolding.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Had you heard of “wish trees” before? If not, did you enjoy being introduced to them? Is there anything similar in your country?

2. If you were Ian, would you take Mattie on the trip? Where do you draw the line between offering your child new experiences and providing for her/his safety?

3. Would you like to travel like Ian and Mattie do? Which country did you enjoy the most, and what about it appeals to you?

4. What did you think of Kate’s character, and her letters? Did you find Ian’s and Mattie’s reactions to her death believable and moving? Are they similar to your own experiences of loss?

5. Did everything ring true within the relationship of Ian and Mattie?

6. Who was your favorite character and why?

7. What do you think of Rupee, and how did he contribute to the story?

8. What do you think will happen to the young sex worker, Jaidee, when she returns home? Was Ian right to try to help her?

9. What was the most memorable moment of the book for you?

10. Ian and Mattie feel compelled to help the needy people they meet during their travels. Do you think people in wealthy countries have a moral obligation to assist the poor and suffering elsewhere in the world? To what extent? What sacrifices are you willing and not willing to make?

11. At the end of the novel, Ian and Mattie choose to settle in Hong Kong. How do you feel about their decision?

12. John Shors is supporting street children in Vietnam through his previous novel,
Dragon House
, and in conjunction with
The Wishing Trees
he is donating some of the funds generated by the book to the Arbor Day Foundation to plant trees. Do you think it’s important for writers to take on such causes?

13. What do you think are the key messages of
The Wishing Trees
?

14. Which of John Shors’s novels have you enjoyed most?