Release date: Sept. 5, 2007
"A story for the heart, where sometimes you have to lose everything before you can discover your true self."
Coast Highway is my first novel and takes place in 70s California. It tells the story of three friends who are very idealistic in their beliefs and humanitarian vision but each of them gets slowly seduced by the world in its many alluring forms such as success, wealth or trying to discover the outer limits of personal experience. There's a little bit of a Romeo and Juliet romance and conflict element in the early days of Silicon Valley as well as the fast times in the film and music world of Southern California when these two areas were breaking new territory.
One character is inspired by the young Steve Jobs from Apple Computer fame who went to India in the early seventies to find a teacher but returned disillusioned after not finding one and decided to further pursue his technology interests to benefit humanity.
Also, important to the story is another characters attempt to bring the wisdom of the East to the Wild West through a retelling of a Hindu epic as his personal attempt to stay connected to his vision. But he too, ends up like his friends, the computer entrepreneur and the jive-talking yogi auto mechanic in a situation that could be a ticket to the next life.
Using this backdrop for the story, I tell a tale of loss and redemption, getting lost and making discoveries as well conveying a sense of hope and possibility that my more than 35 years as a student of yoga and meditation have taught me.
An Enlightened Interview with BLC's first male author, Chris Corbett on his first novel, "Coast Highway"
How would you describe yourself in 5 words?
Creative, original, solid, friendly, fun.
What was the last book you read?
Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity
If I were to walk into your home right now, what book would I see on your nightstand?
There is never just one! On the Road by Jack
Kerouac; Selected Poems - Rumi (Selected Poems); Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing
How long did it take to write your book?
Seven long and enjoyable years.
What are the top 3 things the reader can take away from it to apply to their life?
There is more to life than fame and fortune. The quest for inner fulfillment is a noble pursuit. True friendship survives all challenges.
What are your top three authors? And name an author not living you'd like to chat over dinner with?
T.C. Boyle, John Irving, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Dinner with Ernest Hemingway (preferably in Havana).
Is there a certain spot - cafe, room in house, in your car, etc. - that ignites your creative juices?
I wrote most of my first novel in a roadhouse/lounge on Lake Zurich (Switzerland) that dated from the early 1700’s. The regional dialect, traditional folk music soundtrack and ancient locals at the bar were a timeless environment that could have existed unchanged from when the place first opened. This living movie set let me suspend reality and enter a world of my own creation.
Hardback of Paperback?
Paperback – means mobility and a read anywhere experience.
We're big on giving time and resources to those who can use the
boost up. What organizations, if any are close to your heart and
support?
The humanitarian relief efforts of The Prem Rawat Foundation (www.tprf.org)
What is your favorite quote?
You’re either now here, or you’re nowhere.
What's the easiest way to get into the 'flow'?
To wake up my brain and clear my thoughts I have a coffee, put on some music, reply to some emails and check some internet news sites. Then I am ready to dive into the writing not worrying that any important communications are waiting and have satisfied my internet wanderlust.
Whose life do you think will change because of your book?
Any reader who is open to wanting to learn from the many wise words I have built into my story from teachers through the ages, that all point to the possibility of peace inside.
What inspired this book?
I was inspired by a desire to share some of what I have picked up as useful life knowledge along the way, as my contribution to a better world. Plus the life and times of friends I knew from this unique moment in history. Yes, there really was a Greasy Greg…
For more about Chris Corbett visit him on the web at Coast Highway.
----thank you, Chris----
About Chris
Chris Corbett has many years of media experience having worked for Playboy Magazine, Walt Disney, MTV and on an Academy Award winning film (Genocide - Best Documentary 1981) plus various documentary film projects in Europe and America as well as The Osmonds television program. He also owned and operated a publishing business in Los Angeles for eight years with a brother-in-law of one of the Beatles.
Since moving to Switzerland he has written articles and taken photographs for various publications and has had his fiction work published in a short story collection plus working on a documentary film in India. While currently doing corporate communications work in the financial services industry in Zurich, he is completing a second novel set in the world of private banking and the underground art scene, which will be published in fall 2008.
Comments