… We actually had a gang of Hell’s Angels park in the lot next to us, about 60 of them. But Evans’ memories of the house “are all horrid. He has a painting of the house by his mother that’s titled “Going Home.” For his mom, it was a “magical” place. The teacher in the book is based on an actual teacher at the school, and Evans was “freaking terrified of her.” “And I would like to go back almost victorious.” “I would like to walk to that place because it was a time of abject failure and humiliation and pain,” he said. There’s a newer Lincoln Elementary a few blocks from the site of the old one, but Evans sort of wishes the earlier building was still standing. The house, the milk depot and the school have all been torn down. And he did attend Lincoln Elementary, at the intersection of 500 East and 3900 South. He did collect bottles and take them to a local milk depot for the deposits. Like his fictionalized counterpart, Evans and his mother did indeed move into a home on east 3900 South. “It’s kind of seared in my mind,” Evans said. For locals, it’s both familiar and a look back into the past. “A Christmas Memory” is very Salt Lake-centric. (Tribune File Photo) Richard Paul Evans at the Christmas Box Angel Monument candle-light ceremony in SLC Cemetery. “Like ‘Christmas Box,’ people would tell me about their life. “When people start sharing personal stories, that’s when you know you hit it,” Evans said. I didn’t write it for any reason other than to write the book.”Īnd among those who have read it, the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. I felt like I had had a ‘Christmas Box’ experience. He realized he actually had a book and “couldn’t believe it. He didn’t look at it again until February. “I thought, ‘It’s probably crummy because I’m so foggy headed, but I have to write it.’” “I felt like I was writing my memoirs - writing my last thing before I die,” Evans said. ![]() He lay in bed, he said, “scribbling down” what would become “A Christmas Memory” on a notepad. ![]() “I thought, “I don’t know if I’m going to make it through this.’ It was terrifying. I’ve never been that sick in my life,” he said. Writing in his sickbedĮvans came down with a severe case of pneumonia in December, “and then I caught COVID on top of it. (Simon & Schuster) Richard Paul Evans' new book, "A Christmas Memory," is his most personal ever.
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