The Books

Book FAQs

Have movie rights been sold for The Lucky One?
Yes, film rights were sold to Warner Brothers, with Denise DiNovi (Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, and Nights in Rodanthe) producing. Movie release date is scheduled for April 20, 2012. Keep checking back for additional details.

Does Shagging for Crabs exist? If so, where is it located?
No, the place is fictitious, though there are numerous restaurants that combine both shag dancing and food of various types throughout the year.

How did you acquire information on life as a soldier?
A few ways. I happen to live in an area of the country surrounded by military bases, and consider many members of the military (and their families) my friends. My family also has a long history of military service, and it includes cousins who’ve spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan. From these people, I was able to obtain first-hand accounts of what life is like and have specific questions answered. I supplemented that with vast amounts of reading (books, self-published books, military blogs, articles, and public information provided by the U.S. Military). It’s also possible to view snippets of various military engagements via YouTube. I tried to do my best to make everything as accurate as possible.

Discussion Questions

 
1. After Thibault finds the photo of a girl wearing a shirt that says lucky lady across the front, his best friend Victor convinces him that the photo is his lucky charm. Do you believe in lucky charms? Do you think the photo is Thibault’s lucky charm, or is his good luck just a coincidence?
 
2. Do you find it odd that Thibault walked across the country to find the girl in the photograph, a woman he knew next to nothing about? Why is Thibault so compelled to find this woman?
 
3. Thinking about how difficult marriage is, Beth remembers her grandmother’s saying: “Stick two different people with two different sets of expectations under one roof and it ain’t always going to be shrimp and grits on Easter.” Do you agree? Do you think marriage is worth the hardship that often accompanies it?
 
4. Compare the main male characters in the novel - Thibault, Clayton and Drake. How are they different and how are they similar?
 
5. Thibault, we learn, was a soldier in the Iraq war, but when we meet him he looks and acts nothing like a soldier. How has the war affected Thibault and in what ways are his actions in this novel determined by his time spent in Iraq?
 
6. Victor seems to think that Thibault is in love with Beth even before he’s met her. Do you think it is true that Thibault fell in love with Beth before he ever met her?
 
7. Beth is somewhat guarded and she doesn’t allow herself to fall in love with Thibault easily. What, besides her past romantic failures, makes her initially wary of Thibault?
 
8. What role does Nana play in bringing Thibault and Beth together?
 
9. Why doesn’t Thibault reveal the truth about himself to Beth earlier? Do you think he acted dishonestly and do you think Beth is right to be upset when he finally tells her the truth? Should she have forgiven him?
 
10. Do you think Thibault and Beth are destined to be together? Do you believe in fate?
 
11. What do you make of Clayton? Do you dislike him? Do you understand why he behaves the way he does? Is he a good father to Ben? Does your own opinion of him change by the end of the book?
 
12. What role does Zeus play in this story?
 
13. Describe Ben and Thibault’s relationship. How does Ben change as he and Thibault become close?

Inspiration

The Lucky One is unique among my novels in that it is the only novel inspired by an image.  

At the time, the news from Iraq was dominating the front pages.  Because my town is virtually surrounded by military bases (including Camp Lejeune, Fort Bragg, Seymour Johnson AFB, Cherry Point Marine Corp Air Station, and the New River Air Station), stories in the newspaper about military personnel are often personal and focus on their families or the struggles they faced upon returning home.  In addition, I have dozens of neighbors who have spent time in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

It was this combination of things that I assume led to the image.  In my mind’s eye, I saw a marine staring at a photograph as if drawing strength from the image.  He was in his fatigues and he looked tired and dusty after a long day on patrol, and though it was simply an image, I couldn’t seem to get it out of my mind.  It was, somehow, calling to me and though it took a couple of years for me to figure out the nuances, I knew I would eventually end up writing about the image. 

From there, I began to ask the type of questions anyone would:  Why is he staring?  Who is in the picture?  What is the status of their relationship?  And little by little, elements of the story began to form. 

No, I thought, he doesn’t know her.  He found the photograph in the sands of Kuwait.  But he considers the photograph his lucky charm.  And then decides that after his tour, he’s going to find her.

Not all those elements were maintained in exactly those ways, but it was enough to get the mind turning.  The rest of the story slowly evolved from there.

There were a couple of other challenges in conceiving the story.  Readers familiar with the military are sticklers for accuracy (blame Tom Clancy and Stephen Ambrose), and thus I knew I had to find a marine unit that had been posted to Iraq three times.  (It’s easier to find one now, but in 2008, only a few units had served three times.)  I also had to find a unit that suffered an inordinately high number of casualties.  I also wanted a “variation” in the type of tours they did, just to keep the story interesting.  And then, in order for him to be “lucky,” I had to find out whether what I was writing could be considered believable.  

To do that, I relied heavily on magazines, newspaper articles, military web-sites and Google, and I eventually settled on the 1st 5th out of Camp Pendleton.  From there, I had to learn the specifics about their tours (where they were, whether they faced combat, what type of fighting there was, the causes of casualties, etc.).  Only then was I able to begin writing the story about Logan Thibault.

Again, I tried my best to make Logan memorable and again, I was drawn to an image of him walking along the side of a highway with a dog at his side.  Zeus, by the way, was modeled after one of my German Shepherds; they’re a fun breed, if only because they seem to love learning new things, and tend to always stay by your side.

Once those images had settled and condensed, and once I was clear on all things military, I began focusing on the other characters:  Beth, Ben, Nana and Keith Clayton.   I wish I could say that I had images of them as well, but I didn’t.  Instead, each was crafted in my more traditional way of doing things:  by asking myself “what if?” type questions.

Finally, I chose to make Logan Thibault a Marine because I’d already written a book about an Army soldier.  It was funny:  I’d gone to a book signing at Camp Lejeune for Dear John, thinking I’d done the military proud in crafting a military story, but that wasn’t quite how the Marines at the base saw it.  I was asked at least fifty times “when was I going to write a story with a Marine?”

In other words, I didn’t think I had much choice.

Writing Notes

Once the research on Logan Thibault’s military experiences, the writing proceeded relatively smoothly.  Aside from Logan’s recollections, it was for the most part a “linear” story and those are always a bit easier to write.

Still, as with all my novels, I wanted to do something different—not only with the story or the structure or the characters (as I always try to vary) but literally with the “voice” in the novel.  I’ve written in first person and third-person omniscient, but with this novel, I wanted to try writing in limited third-person omniscient.

It was something I’d never done before, but something I’d always wanted to try.  It allows the reader to feel an almost “first person” closeness with the character, while still allowing for all the characters to participate.

To do this, each chapter was told through the perspective of a single character.  For example, in chapters labeled “Thibault,” only Thibault’s thoughts are included.  Anything another character does is seen through his perspective, one that Thibault must only assume.  If he’s talking to Beth, he can intuit what she’s thinking, but the reader is never allowed to know for sure.  Until, of course, the next chapter arrives (perhaps labeled “Beth”) where she might reflect on what she’d actually been thinking.
It’s a powerful form of writing when used effectively, but the challenge is to make each character’s voice distinct enough to be immediately recognizable.  In other words, the reader should be able to “know” who’s talking, even if the chapter hadn’t been labeled at all.

There was a learning curve associated with this.  It made the development of the relationship between Thibault and Beth a bit more difficult (since it was only through one person’s eyes at any given time), but on the other hand, it made the characters themselves a bit easier to craft.  And some voices were more difficult than others.  Keith Clayton’s voice, for instance, was ridiculously easy to write.  Logan – because he was reticent – was a bit more difficult.  Beth was somewhere in between.

Then, of course, there’s the challenge of keeping the story “linear.”  That’s a bit tougher to do when writing with this form of literary voice.
Still, it was fun to do.  The writing was slow and difficult at times, easier and quicker at others.  In terms of difficulty, it was probably in the easiest third of the novels I’ve written (The Guardian will ALWAYS remain at the top of the difficulty scale – see notes on The Guardian as to the reason why) but because it was longer than the three previous novels I’d written (At First Sight, Dear John, and The Choice), it seemed to take longer than normal, at least until the end of the novel.  I think it took around five months to write the first 280 pages; the last 70 pages, however, were written in three days.  The action packed ending of the novel literally wrote itself, and by that point in time, I couldn’t have been any happier about it.