“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though” said J.D. Salinger, author of “The Catcher in the Rye.” Obviously J.D. did not live in Seal Beach because if he had, he most certainly would have known this week’s Neighbor to Know. Meet Hill resident and Pulitzer Prize winning author Edward Humes.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Edward did not begin his college pursuits with writing in mind at all; in fact he was pursuing Marine Biology but when he started working on the school newspaper he found instead his love of writing. While working on his degree at Hampshire College (MA) he also had the opportunity to write for the local newspaper. The Watergate scandal was just breaking at that time and we were all learning the names Woodward and Bernstein while being introduced to a style of investigative writing not seen before that he related to and that would become the signature of his career.
For anyone who imagines the life of a writer to be glamorous, think again. Humes spent the beginnings of his reporting days working hard for a magazine in Austin, Texas where he lived in a single room in a boarding house. Several years later he moved a bit further north to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, working at the daily newspaper at the time when then Gov. Bill Clinton was in office. It was during this job he tells me he had his “one and only claim to fame” interview with Ralph Nadar, at the time a very momentous occasion for him.
Eighteen months later a job recommended by a friend in Tucson presented itself and he went. It was in Tucson, assigned as the court beat journalist, that he honed his skills and knowledge of the criminal justice system that has been the foundation for many of his books. He loved Tucson and thrived there for four years before another recommendation would bring him in 1985 to Southern California as a journalist for the Orange County Register.
At the Register, Humes was assigned to general assignments covering Orange County as well as the responsibility of the Military beat. His coverage included Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station, Los Alamitos Joint Forces Base and El Toro, which was still active at the time. It was this coverage and lots of work building relationships with military personnel that provided him the information on a story that changed everything for him. Using previously classified documents, Edward linked the military’s use of defective night- vision goggles with at least 69 helicopter crashes and the deaths of 150 servicemen. The story prompted a congressional subcommittee investigation and subsequent changes in policy.
It was for this story, published in the Register, that Edward would be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for specialized reporting in 1989. It would also give him the opportunity to change the course of his career when publishers began approaching him to write a book. He jumped at the chance but as he began working on his first, he found that it was a different process and there was much to learn about encompassing a bigger picture to make a book work, which is exactly what he did.
His first published work, “Buried Secrets: A True Story of Drug Running, Black Magic, and Human Sacrifice” took him to the dark corners of the U.S.-Mexico borders, uncovering dark and frightening truths of a drug cartel engaged in mass murders. Humes’s interest came when a young American student disappeared and was found to be one of their victims. It was published in 1991 and he never looked back with his 14th and most recent book, “Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation” was just published.
He met his wife, Donna Wares, also a journalist, while working at the Register. They lived in Long Beach but in 1999 as their daughter was getting ready to start school, they knew that they wanted to move to Seal Beach to have access to the school district. They lived temporarily on 14th Street before they outgrew the location with the arrival of their second child, a son. They moved to their first home on the Hill with both children starting school at McGaugh where he and Donna were active members of Project Seek. Five years later they would make one last move to their new home on Catalina.
The breadth of subjects and works that Edward has investigated is amazing. I asked him how he chooses his topics and he shared with me that he has to feel a connection to the story as he did with “Mississippi Mud,” where after reading a story in the New York Times he immediately picked up the phone and called the subject and asked to come meet her and write the story. And this was certainly the case with a most recent special series, “Inside the Snitch Tank” that he wrote for the Register that chronicles the use of jailhouse informants in the Orange County jail system. This story is personal to all those in Seal Beach who are awaiting final sentencing for Scott Dekraai for the Salon Meritage murders in 2001. You can read it at: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/dekraai-697917-salon-beach.html.
When you read his work, you will ask yourself as I did of him, how he can keep from becoming emotionally involved with his subjects. He was honest with me in saying that it is very difficult at times, and many of his subjects’ stories still haunt him today. He also said he continues to learn something about himself with each story he writes.
I think Humes describes his style best on his website. “Between the newspaper on your doorstep and the novel on your nightstand lies narrative nonfiction. Some call it literary journalism or the nonfiction novel. But whatever the label, here lies the boundary where story-telling and truth-telling intersect. This is what I love, how I write, and why I tell people mine is the best job ever. What is that job? I find my way inside a hidden world – a juvenile court, a hospital for preemies, the biggest landfill in the world, the passenger seat of a driverless car – and then bring my readers along for the ride, to meet unforgettable characters and experience something surprising. Call it “the art of being there.”
We as a community are extraordinarily fortunate to have such an “artist” living here, who sees, listens and writes in such a way as to help us better understand the world around us. I hope you will not only read his works, but he and Donna and their rescued greyhounds are frequently found on Main Street. When you see him, make sure to do what J.D. Salinger wished he could to and say hello to this most amazing Neighbor to Know. You can learn more about Humes at: Edward Humes.com.
