The re-release of Forrest Gump in 1994 sold more than 1.7 million copies. When Paramount bought the right to his fourth novel in 1994, Groom's life changed forever. Groom wrote Forrest Gump in 1986, and the novel about an amiable slow-witted Southern man who achieved success and adventure sold a respectable 40, 000 copies. The name of Winston Groom will forever be associated with the award-winning movie Forrest Gump. This interweaving of past and present is an essential ingredient of Southern novels. Sometimes the writer embellishes the story, but the strength of the narrative is found in the absorption of the story into his/her own conscious memory. Groom believes that Southerners make good storytellers because they are surrounded by families and friends who like to relate life's experiences. His strong sense of place thrived on the day-to-day replenishment of Southern life and Southern people. The return to his native South was beneficial to Groom. Returning to Alabama, Groom settled down to writing and enjoying life with his second wife and his dogs. It was an essential learning experience for Groom, but to him New York was alien territory. Most of the time, he hung out with literary cronies like James Jones, George Plimpton, Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph In the Big Apple, the newly single Groom spent little time writing. Willie Morris, the newspaper's writer-in-residence believed that young Groom had the potential to become a writer and encouraged him to go to New York. After a stint in the Army, Groom returned to Washington, D.C., where he worked as a reporter on the now defunct Washington Star, covering the political and court beat. Groom was born in Washington, D.C., but grew up in Mobile, Alabama, on the Gulf Coast. While the South is more evident in his novels, Groom's non-fiction also echoes his Southern roots. Following the tradition of other Southern writers like William Faulkner, Carson McCullers, and Pat Conroy, Groom lovingly peoples his books with quirky characters who pay homage to Southern history and the modern-day South in a single breath. His characters speak with Southern voices, and life in his novels moves according to a distinctly Southern timeline. His Southernness permeates both his novels and his non-fiction. Winston Groom is a Southern novelist in the truest sense of the word.
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