Paperboy: A Novel that is Impacting Young Lives

If you're in the mood for a good book to curl up with on these cool evenings, I have a great suggestion for you. Paperboy, by Vince Vawter, is a novel that will run you through a gamut of emotions and wanting to follow the protagonist into another book.

Vince and I visited over lunch a couple of weeks ago to discuss Paperboy. We actually ended up spending a lot of time talking about our childhoods in Memphis, the Vols, and his second career as a novelist.  As you might expect from a storyteller, Vince is a great person to meet for lunch; he is quite skilled at telling a story and is a Southern Gentleman through and through.

Paperboy is a semi-autobiographical novel, set against the backdrop of Memphis in the summer of 1959. Vince tells the story of a boy who takes over a friend's newspaper delivery route for the summer. The main theme of the story is that our hero, Victor, stutters, and in many ways finds himself isolated from the other children his age. Vince grew up as a stutterer and felt this was an important trait to give to his main character. In the end, Victor is forced to grow and learn more about life over that summer than he ever expected.

Not only is Paperboy a great story, but so is the story of the book itself. I had a great time learning about Vince's adventures in publishing. After a successful career in the newspaper business, Vince wanted to work on this novel that reflected some aspects of his childhood. Through a chance sighting of a literary agent in an alumni magazine, Vince contacted her to take a look at his freshly competed novel, which took six years to finish. Her response was hardly encouraging--"Send me the first five pages." When Vince asked if he could go on and send the first chapter, she repeated her earlier request. A couple of weeks later he did in fact receive that request for the first chapter, which was then followed by a request for the full manuscript! After presenting the novel to several publishing houses, Vince landed a contract with Random House--a prestigious accomplishment to say the least.

The accomplishments weren't over, however. Shortly after the book was published, it was entered for and was selected as a Newbery Honor Book for 2014. This was a huge honor; thousands upon thousands of books are entered, and only four novels were chosen as Newbery Honor Books in 2014. This was a springboard that helped Paperboy take on a life of its own.  Very often Newbery award winners are picked up by school systems to be part of required reading, and Paperboy has become such a book. Vince told me that if sharing his very personal experiences with stuttering helps just one kid who is going through a tough time because they're "different", then writing the novel was entirely worth it.

Hearing Vince tell the stories of going to schools to meet 7th, 8th, and 9th graders is a neat experience. He has traveled around the country to speak to classes, as well as Skyped with students around the world...Paperboy is now published in eight languages, most recently Japanese. Here is a man who has retired from his career of many years, and is now spending time inspiring young people--we really didn't talk about this but I choose to think that wasn't an accident!

Thank you to Vince for taking the time to go to lunch--I'd suggest you do the same if you have the opportunity...you'll be glad you did.

To purchase a copy or download Paperboy, click here.

Vince offers the following resources for those who wish to learn more about stuttering:

The Stuttering Foundation of America

The National Stuttering Association

The Stuttering Home Page