Chicago Catholic Story on The Brown and White by Lawrence Norris

 Chicagoland

Mount Carmel alum writes a ‘fictionalized memoir’ of his days at the school

byline Chicago Catholic

July 17, 2017

Larry Norris was a freshman at Mount Carmel High School in 1967-1968, a year that was pivotal in Chicago’s history. He recalls that history 50 years later in “The Brown and White” (2016, Sporting Chance Press), a “fictionalized memoir,” seen through the eyes of Collin Callaghan, a freshman at what Norris calls St. Mary’s College Prep. But the school, and, indeed, the South Side neighborhoods that the eponymous “Brown and White” school bus traverses, are clearly rooted in Norris’ experiences as an adolescent in an unsettled time.

Norris answered questions about his book by email for Chicago Catholic.

Chicago Catholic: You call “The Brown and White” a “fictionalized memoir” and you changed the names of not only people, but also the high school and other Chicago landmarks. Why did you want to make some of it fictional instead of writing a straight memoir, and how much did you change?

Larry Norris: I wanted to write a book like John Powers’ “Last Catholic in America” and “Do Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up” in that the people who are characters can recognize themselves, but it would be up to them. I also wanted the book to be of interest to a wide audience.

From my publishing experience, books are more powerful when they are organic -- when each reader brings into the mix his or her own experiences as the book is being read. When I read Powers myself, I thought about our Catholic culture and some of the things were so funny, yet so true. It was post Vatican II and things were a bit wobbly.

It also seemed easier to think about Power’s fictitious Seven Holy Hills and not to get hung up on the fact that his experience was at St. Christina and Brother Rice. Sometimes when you write about a particular school, that is where your market begins and ends. I love my school, Mount Carmel, but I am hoping the book works for everyone.

Fiction also allows you to round out the edges. It might also make it easier if I get a call from Hollywood and they want to make a movie from it.

Chicago Catholic: You said you’ve been writing this book for 40 years. Why did it take so long for the story to mature? What perspective do you have now that you didn’t have when you started to think about it?

Norris: I was talking to a priest that I knew 40 years ago and he said anyone can make fun of things in writing. I took that to heart and I wanted my book to be a positive book -- although I wanted to keep it real and be funny.

I wrote the various episodes of the book over many years. I was in no hurry; the world had four books by John Powers and several more on Catholic culture. Then, about 20 years ago, I had to take another pass at the entire book because I lost the file.

I went back and spent more time examining the times to describe the setting. I wanted to make sure that the book was about my experience and I wasn't trying to extend too far beyond that. In high school and college, I read a half-dozen books about the black experience. I didn't want to pretend I was the second coming of James Baldwin. So I tried to tell my story, a white boy’s story.

Chicago Catholic: The year you write about – 1967-1968 – was a tumultuous time for Chicago, and much has happened since. How do you think that time changed the city? How did it change Mount Carmel High School, in the near and long terms?

Norris: That's a big question. I had some idea of how the city was changed, but I was very young when that happened. So I guess you could say that much of what I describe was symptoms, not cause and effect.

I wrote about a few experiences that we had and focused on family and teachers. The year's events served as the backdrop, but I kept the book focused a personal level -- not a treatise on the times.

I hope readers will especially enjoy the family stories -- I think that's the strongest part of the book. I have both male and female fans of the book and that makes me feel good.

Mount Carmel survived and not only that, it was able to continue its mission to graduate one class after another of "Men of Carmel." Huge improvements have been made with gifts by generous alumni and the school now has a beautiful campus.

It’s blocks away from the site of the future Obama library. The student body is an ethnic alchemy -- students now will get an even better education. The future looks bright. People see Carmel as an athlete’s school, but it is certainly much more than that.

Chicago Catholic: The book covers not only a time of great social change, but also the freshman year of high school – nearly always a stormy time – for your protagonist. How did the turbulence of the time affect you as you were growing up? How did your growing up change your understanding of the times you lived through?

Norris: I kept the book light and wanted to focus on the fact that we almost all survive tough times and we do so with our family, faith, friends and help from others like teachers. In high school, there is also a tendency of not taking things too seriously. Personally, I think the 1960s left many of us shaking our heads and trying to come to some kind of closure, but I am not sure we will see it.

Chicago Catholic: The metaphor of the bus – “the Brown and White” – runs through the pages until, at the end, it stops, replaced without a word. What came to an end for you that year?

Norris: The story of the first year ended with my friends stopping by my house and sitting on the front steps with my parents. The Brown and White is a pervasive metaphor: the bus, the students, school colors, etc. At the end of the last chapter, we are taking a rest after the brown and white boot camp. We saw everything in brown and white.

The epilogue is a critical part of the book's message in that it talks about teachers that gave us everything they had.

"The Brown and White" is available on amazon.com.

The Top of the Book Pyrimid: The Brown and White?

I remember years ago when a Chicago Catholic radio station was getting started it just broadcast non-stop Bishop Sheen programs all day long. I remember seeing actual programs when they first appeared on TV.  My parents loved Bishop Sheen and I don't know how to describe it, but when you watched Bishop Sheen, you were at ease and inspired at the same time.  You felt like it was really cool to be Catholic. 

When I hopped in the car in the early morning about 20 years ago and heard Bishop Sheen once again, it was little different. The signal was not very strong, but it was almost like you were hearing Bishop Sheen come from the grave--he was speaking to me one-on-one. At the time, it was during our short Chicago days of winter and I was always listening in the dark. The lights on the radio glowed on the dashboard as the Bishop talked through all kind of Chicago weather. 

As I get older, I hate to say it, but I do wonder if we will ever have a speaker quite like Bishop Sheen.  I like to think we will. 

If you were a Father Corapi fan, you remember he was excellent as well. Father Corapi could talk about Catholic doctrine and somehow make it clear, painless and interesting.

I suppose everyone has his or her favorite speakers and writers. I am always amazed to see the C.S. Lewis classic Mere Christianity on top seller lists as it approaches 70 years old. As a publisher, I have to say that kind of success is just unbelievable. 

I am an author myself and I certainly don't put myself in the same company as these great authors and speakers. But I will say that when I was writing The Brown and White I was trying to convey the emotions of Catholics at the time in the late 1960s. The world was a very scary place for many of us, but we did find comfort and faith in our homes and with our friends. 

I also tried to capture some of the Irish sense of faith and humor. I hope I did.  On Amazon, I do have some good reviews from people I respect very much. I just need a few thousand people to pay the $12.50 price for the book on Amazon and life will be very good!  

The Brown and White is a fictionalized memoir and when people express a positive view of it, I feel like they would like my family in those days. And I do find that very exciting. Of course, if it turns out I just sell a few hundred copies of the book, I will start feeling a lot smaller. 

Catholic America Today

This post sets out to make a point, which may be so self evident to many, folks may wonder why I bother, but here goes.

In the United States, many Catholics have expressed some concern about the church being too political. "Let the church stick to the sacred and stay out of politics they say."

Well, I am sure it can be annoying for people of faith to hear from their fellow church members espousing political ideas, especially when those ideas may not agree with their own politics, but let's take a look at things very briefly, very clearly.

Frankly, I am pretty well grounded in my own beliefs and convictions at my age. What goes on around me in the media and in society doesn't sway me so much--at least not without me checking sources. My views are based on my life, my faith and a good amount of solid Irish Catholic upbringing -- great parents and excellent teachers--mostly nuns. But my kids, well that's a different story.

In my opinion, many Catholics (including myself) are not very good at passing the faith onto their children. I hate to say it, but frankly, my generation of boomers were spoiled because we had so many wonderful nuns who spent several hours a day indoctrinating us in the faith. As we became parents ourselves, we had our parents example, and that may have been a great example of living, but perhaps not so great at teaching. While my father was devout, he spent little time at home because he worked several jobs. He believed we were in good hands with the Sisters. I don't think it's a stretch to say that the generations of Catholics who were educated by the Sisters were the best educated Catholics of all time--what we did with it is another matter. But when the Sisters numbers were decimated and Catholic schools declined--people moved to the suburbs etc., the burden of educating the faith quietly passed on to parents who just were not prepared for it if in fact they even recognize the responsibility. In reality, the burden of educating faithful Christians is always a parental responsibility, but let's just say when someone gives you a hand, you get used to not having to lift so much weight.

At the same time, often the hours that parents must put into their jobs is just as long as their parents did if not longer--and both parents are working. So just like latchkey kids have had the TV to keep them company in their parents absence, kids learn about morality, philosophy and God from the TV, movies, and other media. Our Public Schools often do a good job of teaching about diversity, prejudice and the like, but they certainly aren't going to touch on God much.

Everyday, TV and movies have a strong impact on our kids development. I don't think it takes a genius to understand that a moral or amoral message sent, in say a vampire movie, that might be watched by a kid a dozen times, may have a stronger influence on a kid than say an hour and half religious ed session twice a month. I think it's all about "touches' as they say in marketing circles. If our kids get more messages that sell them on selfish non-Christian behavior than they get Christian messages, they will be influenced accordingly.

In this way, I don't think we can have much confidence that somehow kids are not going to be swayed by negative false messages when they get so many of them compared to positive ones. As adults, many of us like to think that something like the Da Vinci Code should not be taken seriously because it is after all, a fictional movie. But unfortunately, for the uninitiated, it might have been the one most powerful message they have ever seen on Catholicism. How many more messages do kids get today about being sexy than say being chaste, about being rich than being kind, being fulfilled than being of service. In this way, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that we really do need to change society because society has a strong influence on our children if not ourselves. It's unrealistic to think that somehow we can teach our children one way all the while they are immersed in a society that is saying something completely different. Certainly, some have been very successful at it, but I don't think most of us are doing that well.

So I take the view that our general ethical principles based on our faith need to be promoted in society. We do not need to legislate the Christian religion, but there is a whole litany of things that need addressing. We need to vote our conscience and try to clean up the world in which we and our children live. We've let things go to far.