Tom Franklin’s in the house!

The "d.a.i. Thübingen" (Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut) streamed on the 10.02.22 a Q&A with the award winning and New York Times bestselling author of "Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter", Tom Franklin. There were approximately 200 viewers, most of them were students who have analyzed Tom Franklin?s novel for their A-Levels.

One of the first questions was about the characters, which led to Tom giving us an insight of his private life. He grew up in a very rural place named Dickinson. There wasn?t a police officer in his town since it was so small, the nearest police officer was in the next town. He had many family members who were mechanics. For instance, one of his uncles was a mechanic who didn?t have any customers, that?s where his idea for his main characters came from: a police officer and a mechanic who doesn?t have any customers. Many experiences the white main character "Larry" had, were real experiences Tom Franklin went through. One of them was of his childhood friend who was black like Larry?s friend Silas. He didn?t sit together with him in school either because of their skin color.

When asked about the racist and offensive language, he admitted that he didn?t feel comfortable during the writing process. Nevertheless, he had a black friend who encouraged him to write the "n-word" at the right places to give his work authenticity.

Tom Franklin was very grateful to be given the honor of using his novel for the German A-levels since that changed his life to a great extent.

In this Q&A we got an interesting insight about the writing process, the characters and essential questions many students might have asked themselves while reading the novel.

I had had some negative prejudices against him, especially because he was white and used a racist language very liberally in his novel. However, my perspective about him changed from a weird old white man to a sweet and genuine author who is passionate about his work and cares about authenticity. I?m glad he talked about his private life so frankly, that made him very likeable.

Havva Burcu Sahin, Kursstufe 2

Am 10. Februar 2022 hat das d.a.i. Tübingen eine Online-Lesung mit Tom Franklin, dem Autor des abiturrelevanten Buches „Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter“ veranstaltet. Ungefähr 200 Schüler und Lehrer haben den YouTube-Livestream verfolgt und Fragen gestellt.

Tom Franklin hat über die Entstehung seines Buches geredet und wie die Geschichte zustande gekommen ist. Dabei hat er erklärt, dass vieles aus dem Buch auf seinem echten Leben basiert und von seinem Heimatort oder auch seiner Familie inspiriert ist. Außerdem werden in seinem Buch die Probleme der Rassentrennung angesprochen, die ebenfalls in seiner Kindheit ein großes Thema waren. Ein guter afrikanisch-amerikanischer Freund stehe ihm hier beim Schreiben zur Seite und helfe ihm, sich richtig und authentisch auszudrücken.

Die Lesung hat uns einen Einblick in die Entstehung, die Charaktere und Tom Franklins grundlegende Ideen verschafft. Es wurden viele Fragen beantwortet, die beim Lesen des Buches aufkamen. Tom Franklin war sehr freundlich und offen und hat seine Dankbarkeit deutlich gemacht, mit seinem Buch für das Abitur in Baden-Württemberg ausgewählt worden zu sein.

Liliane Hassinger, Kursstufe 2