By Fred Topel | Image property of Warner Bros Pictures
Nicholas Sparks is a best selling author of love stories, with several successful movies adapted from them. The Notebook eclipsed even Message in a Bottle and A Walk to Remember's popularity. The latest film adaptation, Nights in Rodanthe, is about a 40-something divorcee with kids finding her true love on a weekend by the sea.
Nicolas Sparks Writes Nights in Rodanthe
"As to love, my first novel dealt with someone reading a notebook to his wife of 60 years and his whole goal with that is to fall in love over and over and over," said Sparks. "So if I believe that's possible at 80 and that was my very first book, of course I believe it's possible when you're 40 or when you're a teenager in A Walk to Remember or 30 years old and coming off a hard divorce in Message in a Bottle, all of these types of things."
The ladies love these often tragic love stories, but Sparks is really a dude. He just pays attention to the women in his life. "I'm as typical a guy as they come. I genuinely adore women. The most important people in my life have always been women. Perhaps that has something to do with it. A great mom, I married well, my agent's a female, my editor's a female, my main movie producer is a female. Everybody who I deal with, they're female. So I spend a lot more time talking to females than males for the most part. Always have. I just like girls. I just love women. I just do. I just relate to them. Maybe that has something to do with it."
Nights in Rodanthe
Women in particular may relate to his female characters, but he hopes anyone can, regardless of gender. "I think the female characters that I write, above and beyond all, are very good people. They're what people would like to imagine themselves being when push comes to shove, and that is loyal, they'll do the right thing even if it hurts. They'll end a relationship if a guy crosses the line even if it hurts. But they'll forgive if he also deserves forgiveness. They won't hold that grudge. It's a fine line. That tends to be what I write and that tends to be pretty much who I married."
Such optimism may seem uncharacteristic of a man who's written so many downer endings. However, even Nights in Rodanthe ends with hope. "It's very positive. She starts the movie and she doesn't know whether she's going to be able to go on because she feels like life's shafted her. She goes through this really beautiful journey and then boom, she's put right back in the same position she was at the beginning. But now, she knows that it's possible. Before she didn't know. Now she sees it's okay. I'll be okay. Let's go to the pier. Here's the horses. That's all that symbolizes, a beautiful place to end."
Nights in Rodanthe opens to theaters on September 26th.
Nights in Rodanthe
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