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A Cave Full of Ghosts
William Morrow
May 2012
On Sale: May 15, 2012
288 pages ISBN: 0062101773 EAN: 9780062101778 Kindle: B0068M2LRY Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Memoir
Raised in small-town Arkansas, Billy Bob Thornton grew up
amid a rich storytelling tradition. See, the South is just
different than other places. . . . You can feel the ghosts
there. As a kid, he would sit on the porch listening to his
family or some old man down the road spinning yarns about
colorful neighbors. These stories didn't have to be made up.
The characters were already there, so the stories just came
out of the characters we knew. Thus was borne his
Oscar®-winning masterpiece Sling Blade and now The Billy Bob
Tapes—a narrative based on late-night conversations with
Kinky Friedman and other friends who gathered 'round to hear
Billy mine a cave full of ghosts. Billy grew up shooting squirrels, playing drums in VFW
clubs, and dreaming of rock 'n' roll stardom or pitching for
the St. Louis Cardinals. Then at sixteen he took a drama
class to meet chicks—and met Mrs. Treadway, who noticed the
young man's talent and encouraged him as an actor and
writer. "You don't know what it's like to be a drama teacher
in a small town in Arkansas where nobody really cares," she
said, "but let me tell you something. You can do this."
Everything I've accomplished since, I can trace back to this
woman, Maudie Treadway. The colorful characters, stories, and experiences of his
youth would find their way into Billy's work, in his films
and music, and in his perspective and attitude. It's like
the old saying goes: you can take the boy out of the hills,
but you can't take the hills out of the boy. That boy did
leave the hills—for Hollywood Hills. A true fish out of
water, he recalls stories of miserable jobs, the cheapest
accommodations, and physical hunger—but also a devoted
writing partner Tom Epperson, a life-changing acting teacher
in L.A., and a compassionate nurse who snuck him milk shakes
when he was near starvation. But there was always the dream
of being an actor, and his fortunes turned when he served
hors d'oeuvres as a catering waiter to legendary director
Billy Wilder, who advised him, "Write about your interesting
life." Billy's long career in Hollywood yields stories of inspired
collaborations and failed ones, true friendships with other
actors and musicians, and good friends gone too soon. In The
Billy Bob Tapes, he reflects on the critics, the culture
around fame, and the challenges of conveying an artistic
vision in film. Most striking is Billy's clear-eyed
perspective about the magic of entertainment, and how we
perceive it in a rapidly changing world. With passion,
unvarnished honesty, wry humor, and a little help from
friends Angelina Jolie, Robert Duvall, Dwight Yoakam, Tom
Epperson, and Daniel Lanois, Billy Bob finally talks.
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