Michael Landon Jr. is famous in part because of his name. When you have a well-known father like his — think "Little House on the Prairie" — it's often hard to emerge from the shadows.
But Landon has done just that — first, with his own work in film, most notably the "Love Comes Softly" series, and now with his foray into novels.
Not that Landon ever dreamed of being a writer. As a child he hated to read. But when Landon was handed a book written by E.B. White, it forever changed the way he looked at the written word.
"Reading was arm-twisting, but then I was given 'Stuart Little,' and it changed my whole outlook on reading," Landon, a former Salt Lake resident, said in a phone interview from his home in Austin, Texas.
From that point on, books came to mean something special at different times in Landon's life. That didn't mean he wanted to become a writer, however. Landon says he was more forced into doing it rather than out of a great desire.
"I began writing because I couldn't get a directing break, and writers get a directing break," he said. "I've come to love the process now, but originally it was out of necessity."
The first script Landon sold was an after-school special called "The Secret." From there he's had considerable success, particularly when adapting books such as Janette Oke's "Love Comes Softly" series and "The Velveteen Rabbit," by Margery Williams, into movies.
It's that process that motivated Landon to enter the world of novels. "I was optioning and trying to adapt novels and thought maybe it would be helpful for me to actually control the actual properties themselves," he said. "I love telling stories, so crossing into a different platform or a different genre was something I wanted to attempt."
On that note, Landon's new novel, "The Silent Gift," is now available in bookstores. Co-written by Landon's longtime screenwriting partner Cindy Kelley, "The Silent Gift" is the story of Mary, a young mother, and her deaf-mute son, Jack. It follows their struggles to survive during the harsh and often unforgiving Great Depression.
The idea for "Silent Gift" came to Landon a little more than two years ago, when his family moved to Austin. While the Landons were visiting a church someone explained that the pastor had a son who was 8 years old and had never spoken a single word.
"That's the thing that got me started, my wheels turning," Landon said. " I thought 'Wow, what would that be like to have a son who's never spoken a single word?' "
From there, little pieces of the puzzle started emerging, Landon said. He began to think about value and how society puts a value on us as people. The role of motherhood also sprang to mind, as did issues of prophecy and fortune-telling.
Eventually, "all of these pieces in my head begin to take shape," Landon said. "And I started finding places within the whole to tell the story."
Part of that story is the setting. And Landon wanted to place it in a time when living was extremely difficult, especially for a single mother. "I went to the Depression era and a woman's place in society and the oppressiveness of that position in society," he said. "I also wanted to make the prognosis for this boy, who is both deaf and mute. I wanted it to be set in an environment where the medical profession had its very dark side in dealing with people and children such as Jack."
The Great Depression also worked into Landon's exploration of what he calls the brokenness of humans. "There's something broken about every single one of us," Landon said. "It's a matter of degree. Whether it be noticeable, like in Jack, who when you meet, you know immediately there's a brokenness about him … or the hidden secrets that are part of our brokenness, where eventually they're exposed."
That's not to say "The Silent Gift" is without hope. The characters and themes of the book evolve up until the ending. Even "the gift," which plays a major role in this story, evolved as Landon and Kelley were writing.
"I had a completely different take on the gift when I originally wrote the story," Landon said. "And then I had, in my own mind at least, an epiphany. I had mistaken the reason and the nature behind the gift."
Landon won't tell you what that reason and nature are, however. He wants readers to make up their own minds. "I never like to tell the reader what I hope they get," he said. "To me that's part of the process, part of what the excitement is either as the reader or the writer."
And what of Landon's goal to make movies out of his books? Will "The Silent Gift" become a film? Landon hopes so but says that's up to the readers as well. But if the chance ever arose, he says he "wouldn't want to hand it over to anybody."
e-mail: jharrison@desnews.com