Nicholas Sparks’ ‘The Notebook’ Gets Staged Reading Amid Controversy
In 1994, Nicholas Sparks was 28 and had already done many things.
He had worked in real estate and restaurants, started an orthopedic products manufacturing business, sold an orthopedic products manufacturing business, written two rejected manuscripts, co-authored a self-help book based on the Lakota tribe of the Sioux Nation (Wokini: A Lakota Journey to Happiness and Self-Understanding), and gotten a gig in pharmaceutical sales.
But he had never published a novel. In a last-ditch effort at literary life, Sparks spent six months writing a story. It was a tale of love and loss, of two people being birds, and upholding lightly but not overtly Christian values. It was a story of marriage withstanding the test of time and Alzheimer’s. It was called The Notebook, and it made a lot of money.
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