Brash celebrates the game changers and so this week we are highlighting novelist Calvin Barry Schwartz, who changed his own game plan to become an author. In his debut novel Vichy Water, Schwartz expertly weaves issues of race, religion, economics, gender, and fatherhood into a story, which is above all a tale of a rich lifelong friendship. The book is sprinkled with pop culture references, esoteric musings and historical events that engage and intrigue. Vichy Water is available in soft cover for $14.99 at Vichywater.net and on Kindle for $8.99 at Amazon.com.

Brash caught up with Schwartz, a Rutgers grad and optical industry veteran, to talk about his influences, insights and just what it is about Newark and Sedona.

Talk about heavy, involved answers. Here I am a flirter with the sixth decade, entrenched in selling sunglasses and eyeglasses for three of them. I’ve got a few science degrees from Rutgers and thinking in kind of a glittering generality, writing has been the furthest thing from my stream of consciousness. Then a funny thing happened five years ago. I was taken into the world of haunting spirituality. At this juncture, I’m always quick to remind those listening to me for the first time, I’m a pretty level headed all around guy. I go to 50 Rutgers sporting events a season, environmental conferences, play beer pong and do keg stands, auditioned for The Apprentice and War of the World but have, a rather active guardian angel hanging around. It happened one night at (sounds like an old Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert movie) at 4:44 am those five years ago and my life has never been the same.
  
A year later one rainy Sunday morning in March, I was supposed to play tennis outside. ‘Something’ told me to watch the movie Casablanca. I’ve seen it 44 times. The last scene in the movie, Humphrey Bogart shoots the German bad guy. Claude Rains picks up a bottle of ‘Vichy Water’ to celebrate but realizes anything with the word ‘Vichy’ in it was connotative of collaboration with Germans so he threw the bottle in a garbage can. The second the bottle hit bottom, I let out a blood-curdling scream, "Oh my G-d!"  The novel was all there. Well, who put it there? How? Why? My wife came to rescue; thought I was having the big one like Fred Sanford.  I knew this was part of a bigger plan.(Funny thing, the pre-planned stuff. Well I’ve since acquired enough ‘proof’ of spirit involvement to write a memoir) Two weeks later an intensive outline was finished. Inspiration sealed.

How long did it take you to write Vichy Water? What aided in your creative process? What hindered it?
It took a year to get a first draft on paper and two more years to ride the roller coaster(and I hate roller coasters, only been on one in my life, when I was an indestructible fifteen year old) of adding a hundred pages, taking them out and putting a fresh hundred back. I was still immersed in selling eyeglasses throughout the hills and valleys of New Jersey, so the writing was a weekend luxury at the outset, then passion took over, and more time was spent weeknights. My wife is a prolific reader; we have used novels on top of night tables, in closets and baskets under benches. I never read. I’d thumb through looking at a few paragraphs for style. Creatively this was helping what I was doing, developing a sense of writing identity. Glancing, I’d say, "I’m in that league."  The process was writing, proof reading on an exercise bike, going back to re-writes and back on the bike; this went on for years; seems like every 50 mile spin on the bike, I was getting closer to finding my comfort style. I do know "less is more" and that it’s an art form to be able to say a lot with the least amount of words. There’s another part of the creative process. It’s a cerebral game I’ve learned to play quite well. You clear your head and tell yourself what you want to let surface; then it fires away, thoughts, memories coming from depths, some of them making you smile with the sheer randomness. A character did it in the novel, calling it ‘drifting.’

The biggest hindrance for me all those writing years was never finding the critical evaluation I desperately needed. Of course my wife and son were around but biased. But I marveled and still do at how so few people in my life were there for me, guiding, telling me where to put a comma, or that I suck or could become the next Hemingway. There was a desert and wasteland of support; no mirages or oasis and I damn well needed it.

How would you describe your first novel?
It’s a heavy fictional story about exceptional friendship, environmental themes, spirituality, racism, religious tolerance and universal awareness. Of course, it’s mainstream fiction that probably should be avoided for beach blanket reading and happy trails to you. (was that Roy or Gene?)

You reference Sedona several times in your novel, what is it about Sedona?
Technically I referenced Sedona 32 times, but who’s counting? The reason I knew exact numbers; I figured the Sedona Chamber of Commerce would like to know. "Let me say this about that."(A JFK quote from a record album, vinyl, I know. Called First Family and yes, to remind you all, I’m that old.) Twenty years ago I had a national sales meeting in Scottsdale. Just prior to flying out, I stumbled on an article talking about Sedona and its magical properties and vortex spirit. Impressionably, I researched Sedona and on the free day, took my family (and friends) in a white rented Cadillac (first time ever, and last, in a Cadillac. Remember economics and Spartan living). As we approached the welcome and altitude elevation signs, there was a pile of red dirt on the road side. I jumped out of the car and rubbed what I thought was magical soil all over my exposed arms. We took a pink jeep tour later. My life had changed. Back in New Jersey, I began to feel a sense of déjà-vu which grew within, interrupting days and nights with strange feelings that I’ve been, seen, or belong somewhere. I’ve since read that a side effect of Sedona exposure is déjà-vu.  Indeed complicated to explain within confines of an interview, but it’s a warm friendly feeling that hangs around me all these years like an aura, something waiting to happen, reassuring me not to worry. I’ve since been back a dozen times, mostly by myself, doing the exploring, meditating and absorbing. There’s something (my favorite word, remember) in Sedona. When I listen to Native-American flute music, something beckons me. Déjà-vu is 24/7 these last years and that energy has found its place in my writing, as in a need to share.

Years spent in Newark informed much of your novel, what sites are worth checking out there now?
Newark is my birth city, always my home. I’ve since found haunting spiritual attachments to Newark (how I want to say, read the memoir, but years away). Whenever I get a chance, I do go home. As far as sites worth exploring, Branch Brook Park’s cherry blossoms in the spring rival Washington. Nearby is Sacred Heart Cathedral where Pope John Paul II visited. The Newark Library and Museum in downtown are both magnificent (content and architecture) The Ironbound Section (where I auditioned for War of the Worlds. Yes, a plug) is home to amazing Portuguese cuisine.

It’s clear you are a film buff, what five movies should every man see?

1. Casablanca- Pure tech noir, Wonderful script. Feeling. Emotion.
2. The Godfather I- Story telling, artistry, craft.
3. Schindler’s List-   Reality. Gut wrenching.
4. To Kill a Mockingbird-  The South. Stark. Gregory Peck
5. Gone With the Wind-  Transport. Mood. History long gone.

Where would you most like to travel?
I’ve become a mostly North American man. Montana on December 24th. Alaska. Maybe Prudhoe Bay in July. Guadalcanal of course. Key Largo again. Hudson’s Bay. Chicago. Sedona and Grand Canyon.  England, France, Italy, Israel, South Africa and yes, Kilimanjaro. China. Japan. India.

Who are your favorite authors?
Hemingway. J.D. Salinger. Ayn Rand

What’s the last book you read?
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (also a Rutgers grad)

What three things are always in your fridge?
Seltzer water (several bottles) Brown mustard. Sweet horseradish (great for flavoring salads with only 10mg of sodium as opposed to 300 to 600mg/2 tablespoons of sodium in most dressings)

Who are your heroes in real life or fiction?
Dr. King. Rabbi Joachim Prinz. Rosa Parks. Colman Komishane(my Grandfather) Rick Blaine. Ghandi. John Kennedy. Gloria Steinem  Goodman, Schwerner and Cheney. Mamie Till. Robert E. Lee Pruitt. Howard Roark. Mollie Schwartz.

What is your drink of choice?
Cold Seltzer Plain.

If you could invite any 10 people in history to dinner who would they be and why? What would you serve?
1. Jesus Christ – So much to ask.             
2. George Washington -  So ahead of his time. A leader of all the people. I’d love to show him around after dinner. Maybe go to Trenton where he crossed the Delaware, There’s a neat bridge now.
3. Dr. King –   Mostly to tell him all that has happened since April 1968, how far we’ve come. Take him over to my computer and start with Google and You Tube.
4. Abe Lincoln -  Love to get his reaction and input on today, yesterday, and tomorrow. What would he do?
5. Golda Meier.  Need to ask what it felt like, being a woman, leading your country on a world stage, every which way you turned, obstacles and confrontation. Any regrets?
6. Albert Einstein. Just to be around that intellect. To look into his eyes, feel, sense, extraordinary cerebral energy.
7. & 8. Althea Gibson and Jackie Robinson. Pioneers. Need to ask emotions and feelings, where such enormous courage came from. Any personal insights.
9. Any Cro-Magnon(with interpreter). Talk about the world today and their world. Learn as much as I can. 
10. Any great, great, great, relative on either side of my family and beyond. Just to see them, break bread and introduce them to what they began.

What would I serve?  A lot of vegetables. No red meat. Turkey cause I think it went back to everyone’s time(except the Cro Magnon) Red wine(no Merlot) Maybe a Shiraz from Australia. The most indulgent cheese cake I could find. Jagermeister as an after dinner drink mostly to check their taste reaction.

What teams do you currently root for?
Easiest answer to date. Only Rutgers anything. Football, Men’s and Women’s Basketball. Wrestling. Women’s Soccer. Lacrosse.

Who would you like to see play the characters of Alex Zari and Elvin Stone in the Hollywood version of your novel?
Make no mistake these thoughts have incessantly crossed my mind being a hopeless movie romantic. Elvin Stone: Colin and Tom Hanks. George Clooney. Liev Schreiber. I don’t know. In four years I haven’t had an overpowering handle. Nothing’s changed.

Alex Zari:  I don’t know. Imagine that. 60 earth years and I have no handle. Shame on me. Appreciate my honesty. I don’t know. I just don’t know.

Fill in the blanks:
Writing a novel is like  a rebirth of my soul, intellect, connecting with my guardian angel like nothing else I’ve ever done on Earth; freedom I’ve never known. It’s the most amazing feeling. For the first time in my life, I’ve finished something. I am free and almost there.

I would most like         President Obama      to read Vichy Water.

Vichy Water is to the literary world as   Citizen Kane   is to the film industry.