Roger Newman, M.D. has been voted by his peers as one of the "Best Doctors in America." A nationally known OB-GYN specializing in the care of women with multiple gestations, he has authored two hundred scientific papers.
Today, Dr. Newman debuts his newest novel Boys.
The narrative introduces Pete and Alex as brothers, raised together on a dairy farm in the Great Smokey Mountains during the Great Depression. Their hometown is beset by the ignorance and racial intolerance of the post- Reconstruction South. For the two boys, those challenges are magnified because Pete is white and Alex is black.
Hear the inside story on Boys and the sheer enjoyment that Dr. Newman garners from writing.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/success-made-to-last-legends--4302039/support.
Today, Dr. Newman debuts his newest novel Boys.
The narrative introduces Pete and Alex as brothers, raised together on a dairy farm in the Great Smokey Mountains during the Great Depression. Their hometown is beset by the ignorance and racial intolerance of the post- Reconstruction South. For the two boys, those challenges are magnified because Pete is white and Alex is black.
Hear the inside story on Boys and the sheer enjoyment that Dr. Newman garners from writing.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/success-made-to-last-legends--4302039/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hey, welcome back to Success to Significance. I'm Rick Tokeenney.
Our special guest today is doctor Roger Newman. I hope
that you enjoyed the first half with him. We're talking
about his latest novel called Boys. Doctor. I would love
for you to comment a little bit about how you
(00:28):
balance your life in medicine with this which has life
or death stakes and the pure subjective art of beautiful
writing of novels.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well, you know, growing up in high school and college,
I think I was like everybody. I was just a knucklehead,
like everybody else. I didn't know anything about anything. But
in medical school I really there were some things, some
novels I read that really inspired me, and I wanted
(01:03):
to be a writer, and I started putting stories together
in my head. But in medicine you can really particularly OBGYN,
you just get really sucked into it. And I loved
my career and in my career continues as OBGYN. But
(01:24):
I did not It didn't allow me the opportunity the
time to write until about ten years ago. And at
that point our youngest child went off to college. I
started cutting back on some of my clinical responsibilities and
I finally got the opportunity to to pursue what I
(01:46):
guess was a dream of trying to write a novel.
And I had a story in my head that was
based on some experiences in medicine, and so I started
started working on it.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
You know that is great. How are the two mutually
support of each of each other?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Well, the uh, my first three novels are all medical thrillers.
Uh So I wrote that from from my experience. You
know that those were easy. They weren't easy to write,
but they didn't require research. I just had to find
the right story and then try to find a good
way to tell it. I thought I could write from
(02:32):
my medical career. I I write book chapters and I
and scientific articles things like that. I thought I could write.
I just didn't know if the stories were any good.
And in my with my first book, you know, trying
to find a literary agent and I want you don't
hear back from a lot of them, but one I
heard back from said, you know, your story's pretty good,
(02:55):
but you're the worst writer I've ever seen. So And
I think whoever that was as they were probably right.
So I think my writing skills have have evolved over time.
But my first three books were medical thrillers. The character
who carries through those first three books is a doctor
Declan Murphy. So it's this, it's a series really of books.
(03:19):
And until somebody corrects me or proves me wrong, I
tell people that doctor Declan Murphy is literature's only ob
g y N action hero. So so those are the
first three books series. And after doing that, I wanted
to try something different. I've always enjoyed historical fiction, So
(03:45):
I wrote a book about a Civil War Civil War
blockade runner based here and I live in Charleston, South Carolina. UH,
based here in Charleston, which was a major shipping center
during the Civil Civil War. And and I and I
just really enjoyed that experience of writing historical fiction. And UH.
(04:10):
The first three were all written in first person from
the perspective of the principal character, Murphy. The third, the
fourth book, I was able to expand and write it
in a more of a third person, with multiple more
characters expressing themselves. And and I like that freedom. So
I then decided I will I'm gonna try another historical
(04:33):
fiction novel, which which led me to deciding to write
boys in all of my novels. There are always uh
medical linkages. You know, the Blockade Runners, they have a
you know, at one point they're based in they're in
Barbados and yellow fever comes through and decimates the crew.
(04:56):
And in Boys, the peak character is a medic and
confronts a lot of medical injuries. So there's always there's
always some medicine in all my books.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
That's a common thread and it makes total sense. I
want you to comment on this balance of success to significance,
understanding that you've been quite successful as a doctor, but
perhaps you found your significance as a novelist. Would you
(05:31):
comment on that.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, I've had a lot of success in my career
as a as a physician. I've been the president of
some national organizations, very successful academically and scientifically, and it's
(05:59):
extremely hard hard. Maybe not extremely but I found it
hard to just come to say, well that's enough of that.
I'm going to try something else, because I could have
easily just continued, you know, to coast you know, around
(06:22):
third and slide into home in my medical career. I mean,
I'm it would have been easy to do, and it's
what almost everyone, all my colleagues do. I mean, it's
just what everybody does. But somehow I just I felt
like what I had done had been great, but I
(06:43):
wanted to do something more, and to be honest, maybe
something that would be lasting. So that was that, and
my desire to and and the enjoyment I got out
of writing, led me to shift course. I've cut back
substantially on my medical commitment, my only work about thirty
(07:07):
percent of the time now, and I've invested my time
and energy into writing. And it gives me great satisfaction
to just do the writing. And then it also gives
me great satisfaction to see the writing published and for
(07:28):
other people to enjoy it and get something positive from
reading my books.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
So I admire that. I think the story here for
our listeners today is maybe it's okay to have that profession,
and then it's okay to have one that you are
so passionate about because perhaps you become better at both
(07:56):
of them.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Hope that my writing has made me better in medicine.
You know you in writing, you have to put yourself
into other people. In this particular book, Boys, my approach
to writing the book was the two brothers have a
shared life. They're they're going through life together. But they're
(08:23):
experienced experiencing that life very differently because of the color
of their skin and the places where they are. So
I write the book not precisely in alternating chapters, but
I write one chapter from the perspective of Pete, and
then the next chapter might be the same events, but
from the perspective of Alex. So I have to be
(08:46):
able to put myself into the personality of Alex and
and see for myself how would Alex experience this event,
what would his take home be from this event, and
how would he process the information? And in medicine, if
you're going to be successful, you have to be able
(09:06):
to do that with your patients. You have to be
able to see things sometimes from their perspective, which you're
surprisingly how often it is that their perspective on things is,
you know, far different from what yours might be. That's
as a medical person.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
That's right, hey, doctor. Just as a wrap up, after
reviewing all this and your other works, I kind of
walked away with there's some be attitudes in them, and
maybe one of them is be emotionally intelligent and be
kind and be a good listener and empathetic. What are
(09:47):
some of the other be attitudes that come out of boys.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I think the importance of family the Even though the
Alex and Peter are not blood brothers, their experiences growing
up together through childhood adolescents made them as much family
(10:16):
is as they could be, and both sacrifice for each
other because of the fact that they are our family.
Throughout the book there's a lot I don't know exactly
what the attitude this will would be, but throughout the book,
(10:37):
both of the brothers struggle with their relationship with God. There.
Pete's father is a primitive Baptist preacher, very much a
fundamentalist preacher, and as they go off to as they
grow up and then go off to war together, they
(10:59):
both have to kind of reconcile themselves, uh, to the
to the situation of fighting in a war against people
there that are praying to the to the same God
that they're they're praying to asking for help from the
same God that they're asking for help from. Uh. Pete's
(11:20):
experience as a medic is that when he finds wounded Germans,
they're all asking for this for the same help from
God that he's asking for.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
UH.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
So they're struggling a little bit with understanding, Uh, how
does how does God allow the carnage of war to happen?
And and they both have a little they have different
perspectives on the on the answer to that question. But
I think that's one of the underlying Uh I don't
(11:49):
I don't know if it's a beatitude or not, but
that's one of the underlying themes of the of the
book as well.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Mm hmm. Yeah. I so much appreciate that your perspective
is so different and your words are so different and
well written, so I know that you've evolved as a writer.
I sort a snicker at this literary agent that said
you're not a good writer, but you're a good storyteller
or whatever he said. But that was then and this
(12:16):
is now. Boys is a fabulous novel. We recommend it
to all you listeners out there. Doctor Roger Newman, thank
you so much for being on today.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Oh, thank you very much for having me. I appreciate
the opportunity to to talk about Boys and my other
books and to visit with your with your audience.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Yes, sir, that was doctor Roger Newman, and his latest
book is Boys. Make sure and read that. And he's
got three other novels. At in a Civil War historical fiction,
novel will owe the wisp, so we appreciate that. And folks,
as we always say here, we wish you success on
(12:59):
your way to significance. Keep reading, a great week, m h.
Hey, welcome back to Success to Significance. I'm Rick Tokeenney.
Our special guest today is doctor Roger Newman. I hope
that you enjoyed the first half with him. We're talking
about his latest novel called Boys. Doctor. I would love
for you to comment a little bit about how you
(00:28):
balance your life in medicine with this which has life
or death stakes and the pure subjective art of beautiful
writing of novels.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well, you know, growing up in high school and college,
I think I was like everybody. I was just a knucklehead,
like everybody else. I didn't know anything about anything. But
in medical school I really there were some things, some
novels I read that really inspired me, and I wanted
(01:03):
to be a writer, and I started putting stories together
in my head. But in medicine you can really particularly OBGYN,
you just get really sucked into it. And I loved
my career and in my career continues as OBGYN. But
(01:24):
I did not It didn't allow me the opportunity the
time to write until about ten years ago. And at
that point our youngest child went off to college. I
started cutting back on some of my clinical responsibilities and
I finally got the opportunity to to pursue what I
(01:46):
guess was a dream of trying to write a novel.
And I had a story in my head that was
based on some experiences in medicine, and so I started
started working on it.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
You know that is great. How are the two mutually
support of each of each other?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Well, the uh, my first three novels are all medical thrillers.
Uh So I wrote that from from my experience. You
know that those were easy. They weren't easy to write,
but they didn't require research. I just had to find
the right story and then try to find a good
way to tell it. I thought I could write from
(02:32):
my medical career. I I write book chapters and I
and scientific articles things like that. I thought I could write.
I just didn't know if the stories were any good.
And in my with my first book, you know, trying
to find a literary agent and I want you don't
hear back from a lot of them, but one I
heard back from said, you know, your story's pretty good,
(02:55):
but you're the worst writer I've ever seen. So And
I think whoever that was as they were probably right.
So I think my writing skills have have evolved over time.
But my first three books were medical thrillers. The character
who carries through those first three books is a doctor
Declan Murphy. So it's this, it's a series really of books.
(03:19):
And until somebody corrects me or proves me wrong, I
tell people that doctor Declan Murphy is literature's only ob
g y N action hero. So so those are the
first three books series. And after doing that, I wanted
to try something different. I've always enjoyed historical fiction, So
(03:45):
I wrote a book about a Civil War Civil War
blockade runner based here and I live in Charleston, South Carolina. UH,
based here in Charleston, which was a major shipping center
during the Civil Civil War. And and I and I
just really enjoyed that experience of writing historical fiction. And UH.
(04:10):
The first three were all written in first person from
the perspective of the principal character, Murphy. The third, the
fourth book, I was able to expand and write it
in a more of a third person, with multiple more
characters expressing themselves. And and I like that freedom. So
I then decided I will I'm gonna try another historical
(04:33):
fiction novel, which which led me to deciding to write
boys in all of my novels. There are always uh
medical linkages. You know, the Blockade Runners, they have a
you know, at one point they're based in they're in
Barbados and yellow fever comes through and decimates the crew.
(04:56):
And in Boys, the peak character is a medic and
confronts a lot of medical injuries. So there's always there's
always some medicine in all my books.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
That's a common thread and it makes total sense. I
want you to comment on this balance of success to significance,
understanding that you've been quite successful as a doctor, but
perhaps you found your significance as a novelist. Would you
(05:31):
comment on that.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, I've had a lot of success in my career
as a as a physician. I've been the president of
some national organizations, very successful academically and scientifically, and it's
(05:59):
extremely hard hard. Maybe not extremely but I found it
hard to just come to say, well that's enough of that.
I'm going to try something else, because I could have
easily just continued, you know, to coast you know, around
(06:22):
third and slide into home in my medical career. I mean,
I'm it would have been easy to do, and it's
what almost everyone, all my colleagues do. I mean, it's
just what everybody does. But somehow I just I felt
like what I had done had been great, but I
(06:43):
wanted to do something more, and to be honest, maybe
something that would be lasting. So that was that, and
my desire to and and the enjoyment I got out
of writing, led me to shift course. I've cut back
substantially on my medical commitment, my only work about thirty
(07:07):
percent of the time now, and I've invested my time
and energy into writing. And it gives me great satisfaction
to just do the writing. And then it also gives
me great satisfaction to see the writing published and for
(07:28):
other people to enjoy it and get something positive from
reading my books.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
So I admire that. I think the story here for
our listeners today is maybe it's okay to have that profession,
and then it's okay to have one that you are
so passionate about because perhaps you become better at both
(07:56):
of them.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Hope that my writing has made me better in medicine.
You know you in writing, you have to put yourself
into other people. In this particular book, Boys, my approach
to writing the book was the two brothers have a
shared life. They're they're going through life together. But they're
(08:23):
experienced experiencing that life very differently because of the color
of their skin and the places where they are. So
I write the book not precisely in alternating chapters, but
I write one chapter from the perspective of Pete, and
then the next chapter might be the same events, but
from the perspective of Alex. So I have to be
(08:46):
able to put myself into the personality of Alex and
and see for myself how would Alex experience this event,
what would his take home be from this event, and
how would he process the information? And in medicine, if
you're going to be successful, you have to be able
(09:06):
to do that with your patients. You have to be
able to see things sometimes from their perspective, which you're
surprisingly how often it is that their perspective on things is,
you know, far different from what yours might be. That's
as a medical person.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
That's right, hey, doctor. Just as a wrap up, after
reviewing all this and your other works, I kind of
walked away with there's some be attitudes in them, and
maybe one of them is be emotionally intelligent and be
kind and be a good listener and empathetic. What are
(09:47):
some of the other be attitudes that come out of boys.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I think the importance of family the Even though the
Alex and Peter are not blood brothers, their experiences growing
up together through childhood adolescents made them as much family
(10:16):
is as they could be, and both sacrifice for each
other because of the fact that they are our family.
Throughout the book there's a lot I don't know exactly
what the attitude this will would be, but throughout the book,
(10:37):
both of the brothers struggle with their relationship with God. There.
Pete's father is a primitive Baptist preacher, very much a
fundamentalist preacher, and as they go off to as they
grow up and then go off to war together, they
(10:59):
both have to kind of reconcile themselves, uh, to the
to the situation of fighting in a war against people
there that are praying to the to the same God
that they're they're praying to asking for help from the
same God that they're asking for help from. Uh. Pete's
(11:20):
experience as a medic is that when he finds wounded Germans,
they're all asking for this for the same help from
God that he's asking for.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
UH.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
So they're struggling a little bit with understanding, Uh, how
does how does God allow the carnage of war to happen?
And and they both have a little they have different
perspectives on the on the answer to that question. But
I think that's one of the underlying Uh I don't
(11:49):
I don't know if it's a beatitude or not, but
that's one of the underlying themes of the of the
book as well.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Mm hmm. Yeah. I so much appreciate that your perspective
is so different and your words are so different and
well written, so I know that you've evolved as a writer.
I sort a snicker at this literary agent that said
you're not a good writer, but you're a good storyteller
or whatever he said. But that was then and this
(12:16):
is now. Boys is a fabulous novel. We recommend it
to all you listeners out there. Doctor Roger Newman, thank
you so much for being on today.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Oh, thank you very much for having me. I appreciate
the opportunity to to talk about Boys and my other
books and to visit with your with your audience.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Yes, sir, that was doctor Roger Newman, and his latest
book is Boys. Make sure and read that. And he's
got three other novels. At in a Civil War historical fiction,
novel will owe the wisp, so we appreciate that. And folks,
as we always say here, we wish you success on
(12:59):
your way to significance. Keep reading, a great week, m h.
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