Note: There will be a new Chinese edition of Rocket Boys during 2017. At the request of the publisher, I wrote the preface below to celebrate it. Rocket Boys continues to be one of the most popular memoirs in the world. Its 20th anniversary will be in 2018. It is my hope that the American publisher, Random House, will choose to come out with a special edition and a version of this preface can be included.
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| Chinese Rocket Boys Cover |
Rocket Boys Preface - Chinese Edition
by
Homer Hickam
During
the nearly two decades since the first publication of Rocket Boys, many literary honors have come its way which includes its choice by dozens of library and community reading programs across the United
States and the world. This reflects the broad appeal and popularity of the work
and its ability to connect with nearly everyone at some level. As the author, I
have caught some of this reflected glory. I've been offered honorary
doctorates, received countless awards, been invited to many towns, cities, and
countries to talk about the book, and allowed to continue my writing career
with a variety of well-received novels and memoirs. Rocket Boys, however, is the work for which I'm best known and
probably will be forever. Something about it transcended even its author and
touched the hearts and souls of people everywhere.
My
purpose for writing the book was to create a remembrance that would, at least
in a literary sense, bring back to life the town where I was raised. When the
idea for the book came to me, my hometown of Coalwood, West Virginia had
essentially passed from the scene. Although some of the old houses were still
standing, most of its people were gone and its purpose for existing, the coal
mine, had closed down. Like many of the young people who had been raised there,
this tore my heart to pieces. Coalwood had been a special place filled with a
strong and unique people, something we didn't really understand until we had
left and then looked back, only to see our hometown mostly destroyed.
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| Coalwood in the 1950's |
To
tell the story of Coalwood and my life there wasn't easy. I like to say, only
somewhat facetiously, that I received a million dollars of psychotherapy when I
wrote Rocket Boys that I didn't even
know I needed. It required me to delve deeply into family problems especially those caused by the long battle between my parents on how they would live
their lives. After several false starts, I finally hit upon the best way to
tell the story not only of Coalwood but also of the tensions within my family.
This was accomplished by recounting my high school years when five of my
friends and I got it in our heads to build rockets, an idea extremely unusual
in the West Virginia coalfields. As soon as I started to tell the story of our
grandiosely titled Big Creek Missile Agency, the words just tumbled out of my
head, one atop the other, with an urgency that was astonishing. Coalwood seemed
to ignite in the sentences and paragraphs that flowed from my mind. My old town
stirred and became alive again and the pain of its passing eased in my heart as
I relived an era when boys built rockets and a people ultimately rallied to
help them achieve their dreams. It is a great honor that thousands of readers
have written to say that after reading my memoir, they feel as if they also
grew up in Coalwood. They tell me how much they loved the boys who built the
rockets and loved their girlfriends and almost-girlfriends, and loved the
teachers and parents and coal miners and preachers who came to life as they
read along. In some cases, they've told me that the book actually changed their
lives for the better. High praise for a book! These letters are worth much more
to me than any royalties received.
One
unexpected result of the memoir was that many of its readers wanted to become
part of the aerospace community. Although the memoir contains nothing of my
future career with NASA, these readers felt the stirring within our teen-aged
hearts to go into space. Of course, unlike the era of the Big Creek Missile Agency,
the present movement into space has broadened beyond just the efforts of the
United States and Russia. Dozens of countries have ventured into orbit and
beyond with both unmanned and manned vehicles. Even private companies have gotten involved with such entities as SpaceX and Blue Origin fielding advanced
rockets.
When I recently visited the SpaceX factory in California, I was
astonished and pleased by the number of young engineers who came up to me to
tell me that my memoir was the primary reason they had picked their careers.
Who would have ever thought a story of some boys in a coal mining town would
lead people around the world to head for the stars? Teachers everywhere like
the book, too. Science and mathematics teachers use it to teach the importance
of their subjects and literature teachers use it because it tells a story with
many layers of meaning during a time of change.
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| The Coalwood Trilogy |
Another
happy result of Rocket Boys and the
movie based on it titled October Sky
was that amateur rocketry, essentially stagnant for years, suddenly became an
international obsession. In nearly every country in the world, inspired
rocketeers influenced by the book and the film joined rocket clubs and learned
the secrets of propulsion just like the boys of Coalwood. When I hear from
them, I always remind them of my mother's admonition: Don't blow yourself up!
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| Four of the six Rocket Boys L-R Sonny (Homer, Jr.), Quentin, Roy Lee, O'Dell |
A
group of readers who've also embraced the book are the many folks who have
sadly had trouble with their parents, especially their fathers. In his position
of superintendent of the coal mine, my father in the book is a man obsessed
with the success and prosperity of the mine, the miners, and the little town.
As Coalwood begins to crumble around him, the efforts of his second son and
some other boys to seize a different and brighter future is a constant affront.
That my father and I would clash is inevitable but how the conflict ultimately
resolves is not. That is the surprise of the book, held off until the ending
when the true character of both the father and his son are revealed during a
special moment. After reading about what happened at the end, one reader wrote
and said, "I'm going to tell my father I love him whether he likes it or
not!" I have received many such sentiments, all amazing, emotionally powerful,
and much appreciated.
Rocket Boys has so far spawned three
sequels, The Coalwood Way, Sky of Stone, and We Are Not Afraid, one prequel, Carrying
Albert Home, the movie October Sky,
and a Broadway play, Rocket Boys the
Musical. It has been quite a ride for this author. Mostly, I feel
privileged to tell not only that boy's story but also that of his friends, his
family, and his teachers during a time when rockets soared, not just to reach
space, but to reach altitudes of hope and joy.
- Homer Hickam, author Rocket Boys, Carrying Albert Home, & many more
