“Although
not a biography, The King of Cups is based on the early life
of my father. Like Marty, the protagonist in my novel, my father
ran away from his orphanage in New Orleans to find his brother and
sister. He rode boxcars and survived on the streets until he became
a professional boxer and won the title, Lightweight Champion of
the Southeast. My father trained me in boxing from the time I was
a boy through adolescence. There are many fight scenes in the novel
that my personal training helped me to write with authority and
specificity.
My
mother was a Baptist, my father a Catholic. I attended services
in both denominations, an upbringing that helped me describe a variety
of religious rituals in the novel. Moreover, I have lived in New
Orleans; Beaumont, Texas; and Hattiesburg and Perkinston, Mississippi—all
settings for my novel.
Throughout
much of my novel, I describe the symptoms of various 19th century
diseases. I studied communicable diseases in pharmacy school and
the history of diseases prevalent in New Orleans with Dr. Christina
Vella, History Department, Tulane, University. This background was
particularly useful to me when I described Yellow Fever symptoms.
I used both public and private archives to capture the facts, mood,
and imagery of New Orleans in 1905. I worked with top New Orleans
history specialists: Christina Vella, Judy Carollo, and Sally and
Bill Reeves.”
