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The Bigfoot and the Writer:
Interview With Frank Giammanco
By Carin Chea
What does a seasoned publisher, a successful business consultant, and a quirky, cultured Bigfoot have in common?
They all describe budding author Frank Giammanco whose debut novel, Lord of the Wood, centers around the mythical Sasquatch.
A maven in the publishing industry, Giammanco has now emerged on the other side of the business – as a first time author. And, rather than pursue the oft traveled road of personal memoir or professional development in his fields of expertise, Giammanco takes an amusing detour and pens a novel that incorporates humor, fantasy, and adventure.
The new author teaches his readers that the journey of embracing life’s uncertainties is certainly more adventurous than the destination.
You’re a business consultant by trade and you also worked in the literary world, but not as a writer. Lord of the Wood is your first novel. How did that come about?
My entire career was built around writing. I came up through the ranks in publishing as an editor. When I started my business in 2000, I still kept my hand in writing. I wrote for my own publications, and also wrote on the side.
I’d written some business books, but this book was something that was stuck in my head for twenty years. Five years ago, it just came to me. Once I started, it started to flow naturally. After all, the book was residing in the back of my head for two decades.
What inspired you to write your first novel?
I was always interested in paranormal subjects. I was a big Twilight Zone fan as a kid.
Me too! The original, yes?
Of course.
What was your favorite episode?
“To Serve Man.” I was a kid when I saw that and I was scared for a week after watching that. I’ve seen virtually all of them.
Anyway, back to you. Was there an “a-ha” moment or incident that finally pushed you to begin this book?
It was always in my head. I finally figured out the way to start it. I had attempted it before, but I was unhappy with those attempts. Finally, I figured it out.
Once you get one page down, the rest of them start to come. I was still running a business and doing other things, which is why it took five years.
A lot of the characters were based on people I know. It became really fun and a wonderful experience.
Tell us about that experience.
It was fairly easy. Writing a book is a challenging experience for anyone. This didn’t just come out in a week and a half, but I knew where I wanted to go.
Apart from the characters I had in my head, I had other characters that would just emerge. Like Emerald Nemi, who is an investigative reporter from Eugene, Oregon. She is ambitious and ruthless. She’s half Native American and half German.
How’d you come up with that?
I don’t know. If you figure it out, please tell me.
What’s Emerald like?
She brings her team into the Cascades to film a documentary and she brings a Cryptozoologist as well as her crew. She just kind of evolved.
I’ve now taken her as a principal character and moved her from Eugene to New York. I’m now working on a book with her as a protagonist.
Who is your book geared toward?
I think it’s geared toward anybody who enjoys tongue-in-cheek fantasy. I try to incorporate a lot of humor into it. It was designed to be a fun book. It wasn’t designed to be the usual “Bigfoot is a beast and is going to rip you apart” story.
My Bigfoot is very erudite. He smokes cigars and reads supermarket tabloids. He lives in the Cascade Mountains, and every now and then he’ll run into the local town and raid the general store and steal cigars and beers.
The last third of the book focuses on him and the way he lives, his perspective in life. He also has a daughter who shows up at the end of the book.
I want people to still be titillated by the idea while also appealing to the Bigfoot enthusiasts. I wanted to write a paranormal fantasy involving a classic American paranormal figure.
I’ve never heard Bigfoot described that way, as “a classic American paranormal figure.” I’m so used to seeing him portrayed either in a terrifying way or as a goof like on Harry and the Hendersons.
I wanted my Bigfoot character to be a little different. In Harry and the Hendersons, he was a docile Bigfoot. Mine is a little more educated.
Who would play your main characters if Lord of the Wood were to be made into a movie?
If I were to try and bring this to the visual screen, I’d want this to be a Netflix or Hulu series, but have it pitched as a comedic fantasy. You look at shows like What We Do in the Shadows and all these paranormal shows are humorous.
Ron Perlman would play Bigfoot and the story would revolve around him and his daughter, and the protagonist whom he actually abducts at the end of the story.
Your Bigfoot can talk?
Yes. He speaks, he reads, he has some profound thoughts. His daughter, on the other hand, does not speak and is feral, but she looks human.
I actually never explain where she comes from, though she is obviously a hybrid between a human and Bigfoot. And, she actually has a relationship with the protagonist, but I shouldn’t say anymore because I don’t want to give away the ending of the book.
The book, by the way, isn’t divided into chapters. It’s divided into three sections. The last section of Lord of the Wood is exclusively about the abduction of the protagonist and the relationship he develops with Bigfoot.
Up to that point, you only see Bigfoot as an antagonist who plays tricks on people.
What’s your advice for those who have their idea stuck in their head, but haven’t had the chance to pen their book yet?
The key is don’t get self-conscious about it. Don’t sit there and feel like you have 100 dead writers sitting on your shoulders. It was part of my maturation process in becoming a novelist, so to speak.
I would sit down and think: “What would Hemmingway do?” Who cares? Or: “Will the book be good?” I don’t know.
To coin a phrase: Just do it. Do it because you want to do it, and get it done and hope it goes well.
It’s a daunting experience. Writing a book is like jumping into a lake, ending up in the middle of the lake, and then realizing you don’t know how to swim, and you have to figure out how to get back to shore.
A lot of people usually ask me what message I hope to get across in my book. That message would be: Don’t take yourself seriously and enjoy your life.
For more information, please visit https://FrankGiammanco.com.
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