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Dreams Are Important
The Other Disney follows a former baseball player and his family as unexpected setbacks test their resilience, priorities, and ability to find joy in what they already have. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I was inspired by the realization that rich families can visit Walt Disney World often and even take it for granted, while poor families can only dream about seeing what has been called “the happiest place on earth,” even for only a day. Having visited Walt Disney World and taken advantage of the free transportation, such as the Sky Rides, monorails, boats, buses, and trams, as well as the free attractions, such as the exotic animals at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, live music and movies at various resorts, and nightly fireworks, I realized a family could visit Walt Disney World and have a wonderful experience, even if they couldn’t afford the expensive hotels, restaurants, or theme parks. I wanted to share my discovery with families that had more dreams than means, and cast a literary vote for the best things in life being free.
How did the story change from your initial concept to the finished novel?
I write all my novels backwards. I write the ending first, and then record how the characters make it from the start to the finish line. So, the only changes from my initial concept to the finished novel are the addition of ideas I get along the way that enhanced the narrative without changing the plot. These additions may come in the form of supporting characters, minor subplots, or just little-known facts.
Why was it important that Andy’s identity not be defined entirely by baseball?
Andy idolizes his father, and as is true in many strong father-son relationships, Andy realizes that his father’s dream in life to play major league baseball was cut short by a career-ending injury. So, Andy falls in love with baseball just as his father did, but he does so cautiously, realizing that what we do professionally is not as important as who we are. His caution is supported by the humble means of his family, and his realization that dreams are important – even the ones that don’t come true.
What do you hope families might take away from the D’Isignys’ approach to a budget-conscious vacation?
The greatest memories of a vacation rarely take into account how much money was spent as much as they do how the time together brought family members closer.
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After he apprehends a fleeing shoplifter, Val D’Isigny is unexpectedly fired from his job as a security officer at a large North Carolina home improvement center. Unemployed and short on cash, it appears the devoted father will be forced to break an earlier promise and cancel his son Andy’s birthday trip to Walt Disney World.
When all hope for the family’s trip appears to be lost, wife Eleanor searches the internet and comes up with a plan that will allow her family to spend Andy’s 10th birthday at Walt Disney World for nothing more than the price of groceries and gasoline. Her plan includes sleeping in their truck at interstate rest areas, eating food brought from home, and riding the free transportation at Walt Disney World, like the monorail, cable cars, and boats that link the various parks and resorts, and enjoying its free attractions, like the African zoo, resort movies, and fireworks.
Will Eleanor’s plan bring her son the birthday party he dreams of at Walt Disney World?
How will a day in the land of magic change the lives of the D’Isigny family?
The Other Disney
The Other Disney, by Bernard Leo Remakus, is a warm, family-centered novel that blends sports fiction, inspirational fiction, and family drama into a story about character, resilience, and finding value in what you already have. At the center is the D’Isigny family, whose surname is pronounced “Disney,” a coincidence that gives the novel both its title and its running joke. Val D’Isigny is a former professional baseball player and Army MP trying to build a stable civilian life with his wife, Eleanor, and their son, Andy. When Val unexpectedly loses his security job just as ten-year-old Andy faces a disappointment of his own in Little League, the family’s plans, including a promised birthday trip to Walt Disney World, suddenly become much more complicated.
Some of the book’s strongest material comes from its baseball storyline. Remakus clearly enjoys the details of the game, and The Other Disney works surprisingly well as baseball fiction because practices, strategy, coaching, sportsmanship, and youth-league politics all have a real role in the plot. Andy is especially appealing. He’s talented without being defined solely by talent, and his decision to give up a coveted spot on the Dodgers so an older boy can have one says more about him than any home run could. Later, Val takes over a struggling team of overlooked kids, and the novel turns their season into a lively underdog story. The climactic game against the powerful Browns has plenty of baseball maneuvering, from bunts and base running to a memorable triple play, but the larger point is about what kids learn from the adults around them.
The novel shifts gears when the D’Isignys finally head to Florida, and this section gives the family adventure fiction side of the book its most distinctive hook. Because they can’t afford theme-park tickets, hotels, or restaurant meals, Eleanor devises a Walt Disney World birthday built around free transportation, resorts, sightseeing, animals, boardwalks, movies, fireworks, and food brought from home. That premise gives the title a second meaning: this is literally “the other Disney,” an experience built around everything surrounding the expensive attractions. These chapters have the relaxed feel of a family travel story, but they’re also where the novel’s ideas about gratitude and resourcefulness become most concrete. Andy’s delight in monorails, boats, the Skyliner, and a homemade birthday celebration works because the book has already established that he measures a good day by who he shares it with, not by its price tag.
As wholesome family fiction and inspirational contemporary fiction, The Other Disney is earnest about the values it wants to celebrate. Kindness tends to travel from one person to another, generosity creates unexpected opportunities, and the D’Isignys repeatedly influence people simply by treating them well. The final stretch brings those themes together when a chance encounter with another family changes the D’Isignys’ future in a dramatic way, while still keeping the story rooted in the relationships among Val, Eleanor, and Andy. Remakus writes in a straightforward, highly accessible style, with plenty of dialogue, baseball humor, and domestic detail. Readers looking for a hopeful family novel, an underdog sports story, and a feel-good tale about making the most of limited circumstances will find The Other Disney easy to settle into and clear about what matters most to its characters.
Pages: 88 | ASIN : B0FTFDK9NK
Life-Changing Injury
The Legend of Harry Gardner follows a Harvard student journalist, his connection with a football star, and the consequences of a life-changing injury. Where did the idea for this novel come from?
Although I’ve spent most of my writing life in the world of history and biography, I’ve always dreamed of writing a novel, especially one about college football in the 1920’s. The Legend of Harry Gardner is the result of that dream. The inspiration for the major character in the book is the celebrated sports figure, Hobey Baker, who is still considered one of the greatest American college athletes of all time – a star in football and hockey at Princeton. But it wasn’t just his sports heroics on the field that intrigued me, but his sense of character, humility, and sportsmanship, a trait I tried to instill in Harry. The “life-changing injury” incident came from a real Harvard football game in 1909, when Harvard Captain Hamilton Fish hit an opposing player so hard (not maliciously) that the player died the next day. Fish missed several games as a result, but then rejoined the team. As to “Peabo” Elliott, I guess I loosely based him on George Plimpton, the famous “participatory journalist” of modern times, who was from a well-to-do family, dabbled in sports, and was a keen observer of sports heroes.
Is there anything pulled from your own experiences included in Peabo or Harry’s storylines?
Playing high school football helped me get a sense of the sights and sounds and chaos of an actual game from ground level. Attending graduate school at Harvard (and attending several Harvard-Yale games) gave me a sense of place and the color and excitement of a college football game and the look and feel of the stadium.
What research did you do for this novel to get it right?
I read newspaper accounts – both in the Harvard Crimson and New York Times – of old college football games; read several books about Hobey Baker; re-read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise (a fictional character named Allenby is based on Hobey Baker); and read everything George Plimpton ever wrote.
Can we look forward to more work from you soon? What are you currently working on?
Yes, I am currently at work on a non-fiction book titled, Harvard Boys, about the intersecting lives of several extraordinary characters as they navigate – both personally and professionally – many of the most important events of the twentieth century: Revolutionary John Reed; columnist Walter Lippmann; World War I poet Alan Seeger; “Putzi” Hanfstaengl, Adolph Hitler’s favorite piano player; and artist Waldo Peirce. I’m also at work on a humorous collection of fictional short stories called Cat Bubbles, Roadsters, and Other Peculiar College Tales, about the adventures and misadventures of a colorful cast of college sports jocks, social gadflies, scoundrels, eccentrics, and one or two kind-hearted souls.
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