Q&A: Elwood Reid
By Barbara Hoffert -- Library Journal, 06/01/2004
Elwood Reid's D.B. (see review below) takes a real-life hijacking whose perpetrator then parachuted into oblivion and turns it into a masterly study of our need to remake ourselves.
What was the genesis of this book?
It started with a man getting on a plane, asking for money and parachutes, and disappearing forever. I wanted to know what would happen next. I've always been attracted to lost souls, guys who can't quite figure out the system. I knew I didn't want to write a thriller or crime story and, as with all ideas that spring into books, the mystery of what could compel a man to jump out of a jet wouldn't go away until I gave in and started that long, grueling hike that all novelists both dread and love.
When writing about real-life people and events, how do you move from fact to fiction?
The only bit in the book drawn from real events and people is the opening—the jump—and even there I took many liberties. The point wasn't to speculate what might have happened but rather what I wanted to have happened—mainly, that Cooper escaped to Mexico and had some adventures.
Ultimately, Cooper is an empathetic character. How did you pull that off?
The crime has always struck me as a heroically stupid thing to do. But then haven't we all, at one time or another, fantasized about escaping from our lives? I know I have, and so I was able to empathize with D.B. Cooper, who after pulling off a spectacular and, yes, nonviolent crime now has to live in the shadow of that achievement the rest of his life. He's the ultimate hapless dude.
What is it about Americans that compels us to make folk heroes of people like Cooper?
I think the relative lack of motive or agenda was what made Cooper a folk hero. Remember, his crime took place during some heavy political upheaval. And there was this guy with a trench coat, Raybans, and a suitcase in which he claimed to have a bomb. He didn't mug for the camera or rail against social injustices; he was pretty cool about the whole thing. About all the FBI knew was that he drank highballs and smoked unfiltered cigarettes. D.B. Cooper wasn't even his real name but a reporter's glitch that stuck. The name he gave at the ticket counter was Dan Dooper, which was also fake. So in the absence of any facts Cooper became the ideal blank canvas for fed-up folks all over the country to fantasize about.
