Write what you know, that’s good advice for a would-be novelist. Patricia Wood took it, ran with it, and is reaping rewards with “Lottery,” a book created from many pieces of her life.
Published last month by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, Wood’s first novel has racked up good reviews everywhere, including The Washington Post, Library Journal and Good Housekeeping magazine.
A Seattle native, 54-year-old Wood lives with her husband on a sailboat in Ko Olina on Hawaii’s island of Oahu. Her book, though, is set in Everett.
She’ll be at the Everett Public Library for a free program at 2 p.m. today. Wood will read from “Lottery,” a book described by best-selling author Paul Theroux as “an uplifting warm hug of a story.”
After serving in the Army and attending Northern Illinois University, Wood lived in Snohomish and Everett from 1982 until 1990. This area loomed large in her mind, and seemed a natural for the story of Perry Crandall, a young man of low intelligence and good heart who wins a $12 million lottery jackpot.
Central to the plot is the way Crandall — who tells readers on the opening page that “I am thirty-two years old and not retarded” — is treated by others before and after his big windfall.
Just as Wood knows Everett from experience, she’s also seen firsthand what happens when someone wins millions. Her father, Ragnar Dahl, was retired from the Boeing Co. when he struck it rich in 1993 by winning $6 million in the Washington State Lottery.
That’s one reason the story takes place in Everett. “In Hawaii, you can’t buy a lottery ticket,” she said.
Wood said her parents, Shoreline-area residents, started buying lottery tickets in 1993, always picking their own numbers. “This one time, he bought a computer-pick ticket,” said Wood, whose father chose to take his winnings over 20 years rather than get a lump sum.
“The book stays true to how the experience is,” Wood said. “I would be at my dad’s house and I’d answer calls from people wanting to buy his annuity. People are amazed, they’re kind of drawn to it. But I lost friendships over it. People would say, ‘Now I know I have no chance, what are the chances of me winning?’ “
Wood believes her father is a rare winner: The money didn’t change him. “I was 40 when he won, and there was no thought, and still isn’t, of my dad supporting me. He has four daughters. We won’t be bag ladies. The only thing I will say, if any of the grandkids or his kids want to go back to college, the tuition is paid. His legacy is education,” Wood said.
She’s had several careers, working as a medical technologist, as a horseback riding instructor and as a teacher of marine science at a Honolulu high school. Wood is now in a University of Hawaii doctorate program in education, focusing on diversity and disability.
Her choice of writing about a man with an IQ of 76 goes back to writing what you know. With a former brother-in-law who has Down syndrome, she’s keenly interested in how people who are mentally challenged are portrayed in popular culture. With Perry Crandall, she worked to avoid a one-dimensional, almost saintly character.
“Our society values intelligence, money and beauty,” Wood said. “The question I posed in the book is how much money would it take to counterbalance a lower intelligence. At what point would someone be considered acceptable?
“I started out at $4 million. It was raised to $12 million by my editor. He became acceptable, and it took $12 million,” she said. “We see that kind of thing every day, with the older man in Hollywood who has a trophy wife on his arm.”
The choice of locating the book in Everett was easy, Wood said.
“I have such an affection for Everett; it’s an amazing place. I wanted a place I knew intimately, and for me it’s imbued with nostalgia,” she said. “When I was growing up, we had a cabin in the San Juan Islands. We’d drive through Everett on the way to the ferry in Anacortes. I had to find a place that has a marina. It just had all the elements.”
Crandall works at the fictional Holsted’s Marine Supply and lives with his grandmother “Not in the middle of Everett, on the edge.”
“On nice days, I ride my bike down the hill to Holsted’s,” Perry says in the story.
“It’s just a wonderful place,” said Wood, whose childhood memories include Everett’s mills and bait shops. “It had to be a real place.”
Wood knows the chance of a first-time novelist landing a deal with a respected New York publisher might be considered as slim as winning a lottery jackpot. A lucky meeting gave her a boost.
In Hawaii, she got the chance to teach horseback riding to Paul Theroux, whose popular books include “The Mosquito Coast” and “The Great Railway Bazaar.”
Although she’d been going to writing conferences on Maui for years, it was Theroux who pushed her to complete and polish the book that became “Lottery.”
They made a deal — riding lessons for writing lessons.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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