New York Writer Still in Touch with North Carolina Roots
©2000-2002 by Carole Moore Success hasn't spoiled Robert Morgan. Morgan, an author, poet and Cornell University professor, made the transition to the
best-seller list when his critically-acclaimed novel, "Gap Creek," was chosen by talk show host Oprah Winfrey as a book club selection. But although commercial success is new to Morgan, writing has been a major addiction
since he was in college. Morgan was pursuing coursework in math and science when he drifted into a writing course. That experience and the teacher's encouragement would steer Morgan's life in a different direction. He
remembers the teacher's reaction to a short story he wrote. "He said when he read it, 'I wept' and no math teacher had ever said that," Morgan said. So Morgan switched his focus and by the time
he was 20, his work was being published nationally. When the young University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill graduate was 26, Cornell came calling, offering him a position which he still holds. Morgan taught, but he also wrote,
releasing nine books of poetry, numerous short stories and three novels, including "The Hinterlands" and "The Truest Pleasure." His work has met with critical success, and Morgan considers himself fortunate to
have a job that allows him time to pursue writing. The author makes a habit of rising early in the mornings to write before taking up his teaching duties. Morgan's works are heavily influenced by his humble childhood,
spent on a mountain farm with few modern conveniences. His parents, more literate than their education and background would indicate, encouraged their son to read and expand his mind. He said the greatest pleasure of his childhood
was when the bookmobile would show up. "I saw 'War and Peace' by Tolstoy advertised as the greatest novel ever written and read it at 15," Morgan said. Born and raised in Green River, a small
North Carolina mountain town just a whisper away from the South Carolina border, Morgan is currently on a book tour. The Onslow County Friends of the Library were able to snag the author for a luncheon and book-signing held
recently in Swansboro. Morgan, who is an English professor at the upstate New York university, arrived in Swansboro during one leg of the tour, which will soon take him to the Northeast and finally wind down in
December. Gracious and apparently unaffected by his recent success, Morgan patiently answers the same questions over and over, without a hint of hubris. He said he wasn't expecting to speak to Winfrey the day he answered her phone
call. "She didn't identify herself at first," he said. The unknown woman on the other end of the line complimented Morgan on his book and asked if he would speak to her book club and he told
her he would be happy to do so - if he was ever in her area. She asked him where he was and he told her, then she related she was calling from Chicago, where the Winfrey show is taped. When he hung up the phone, a
stunned Morgan told his wife of the conversation, which led her to wonder how many more books might have to be printed as a result of Winfrey's interest. "Oh, probably about 20,000," Morgan guessed. Wrong answer. The next day his publisher said they were printing over a half a million extra copies, a pretty gratifying order for a writer who writes for the love of it. Of course, Morgan knows he has a gift for
language and an eye for discerning the drama in everyday life. "But I never expected commercial success, not on this scale," Morgan said. Published by smaller presses, his works have drawn
critical praise and a hard-core following devoted to his spare prose and simple tales, mostly set in the mountains. Morgan said his interest in his origins came mostly after he left the state. He immersed himself in studying the
area, then found himself writing about it. But what is most exceptional about Morgan's works is his uncanny ability to write from a woman's point of view with such authority. In "Gap Creek" Morgan tells the
story of a young woman, Julie, who marries Hank, at the turn of the century. The two forge a marriage and scratch out a life despite hard times, including a flood. Morgan said the scene he's most often asked about is the one in
which Julie, young, inexperienced and alone, gives birth. "People want to know how I was able to describe it," Morgan said, with a wry smile, adding he sat through LaMaze classes with his wife and attended
the births of his two daughters. Describe it, he does, and well enough to put the reader in the room with Julie, experiencing second-hand her panic and pain. It's that ability to articulate Julie's thoughts that makes
Morgan such a reader's favorite. They grow close to Morgan's characters, while critics appreciate his artful, but not artificial, turn of a phrase. All the attention has moved Morgan to easy street. The writer can sit
back and take it easy, do what he wants. But he likes meeting the people who buy his books and never fails to respond to his fans. In fact, their enthusiasm has fueled his desire to continue the story of Julie and Hank, welcome
news to readers and critics alike. "Gap Creek" is a saga worth finishing.
(This article first appeared in Maximum Magazine)
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