“It’s something that was very impressed on me. Groom told C-SPAN “you write what you know…I’d never done anything worth a hoot in my life except that,” Groom said in describing his service in Vietnam and what propelled him to write his novel. The novel sold respectably, garnering decent reviews, but it wasn’t until the 1994 movie, directed by Robert Zemeckis, that Groom’s character Forrest became a beloved American figure-with his “Gumpisms” becoming entrenched in the American lexicon. “I didn’t have any notes, I didn’t have any research…what’s he going to do today?”
“It was like it was writing itself,” Groom said in the interview with C-SPAN. It took Groom a mere six weeks to complete Forrest Gump. The story piqued Groom’s interest and once the budding novelist began to write, the words seemingly poured out of him. Frequently picked on, the young boy began to make friends due to his musical abilities. While out with his father for lunch, Groom told C-SPAN in 2014, his dad began to describe how there was once a young, intellectually disabled boy with a savant-like ability to play the piano in his neighborhood. It was in 1986, however, that Groom’s most beloved character took form.
The book was a nonfiction finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. In 1983 Groom, alongside journalist Duncan Spencer, published Conversations with the Enemy: The Story of PFC Robert Garwood, the harrowing account of the longest-held U.S. Prior to finding fame with Forrest Gump, Groom had already published three novels: Better Times Than These, As Summers Die, and Only. His death, reports the Washington Post, was unexpected, with his wife Susan Groom adding that they “believe it was a heart issue.” Winston Groom, Vietnam veteran and famed author of the novel Forrest Gump, which was later the basis for the beloved film starring Tom Hanks, died at his home in Fairhope, Alabama on September 17. Winston Groom, Famed Author of Forrest Gump, Dies at 77 Close
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