Books: Pay It Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde
A word-changing novel set in an unlikely California town.
I'd like to share one of my favorite books that’s set in California with you. It's by a Central Coast author, Catherine Ryan Hyde, who lives just up Highway 1 from me and whom I've had the pleasure to meet and to interview once. She's a lovely human being and her book is a treasure.
After it was published in 1999, Pay it Forward sparked an award winning movie and a movement. Just recently, 25 years after the book was published, a friend promised me he'd "pay it forward" after I refused repayment for a favor. The phrase and the concept has become a part of our culture. I think it's only fitting that it was Ms. Ryan Hyde's book that birthed the movement, because she is the real deal. This wasn't just a story idea for her. Just one look at her website at catherineryanhyde.com and you can see that she walks the walk, including remaining actively involved in mentoring up-and-coming writers.
Although the film version is set in Las Vegas, the book is actually set in Atascadero, California, a small town I used to live in, in the northern part of San Luis Obispo County.
About the Book
In a small town in California, a junior high school social studies class receives an extra credit assignment: Do something to change the world.
Young Trevor takes the assignment to heart. He comes up plan to do a favor for three people in his life. The favor must be something big, something difficult, something important. Then, each of the three people who benefit from Trevor's generosity must "pay it forward" by doing an important, life-altering favor for three other people. And so on and so on and so on.
I saw this weird thing on the news a couple of days ago. This little kid over in England who has this, like ... condition. Nothing hurts him ....
When I was little I asked my mom why we have pain. Like, what's it for? She said it's so we don't stand around with our hands on a hot stove. She said it's to teach us.
But she said by the time the pain kicks in, it's pretty much too late, and that's what parents are here for. And that's what she's here for. To teach me. So I don't touch the hot stove in the first place.
Sometimes I think my mom has that condition, too. Only on the inside where nobody sees it but me .... Except, I know she hurts. But she still has her hand on that hot stove. On the inside, I mean ....
I wish I could teach her.
—Catherine Ryan Hyde, Pay It Forward
Trevor starts out by doing a favor for a homeless junkie in his neighborhood, then focuses his efforts on his mother, a recovering alcoholic, and his social studies teacher, whose outward scars are a reflection of the emotional scars he carries inside.
Trevor's idea gradually takes on a life of its own, and what started out as an extra credit school assignment soon becomes a movement, changing not only the lives of Trevor and those he loves, but people Trevor may never even meet.
Catherine Ryan Hyde's modern fable, Pay It Forward, is told in a pure and deceptively simple way befitting its message: The seemingly small and insignificant actions of each one of us do make a difference. We can change the world for the better. We—you and I—can overcome the emotional scars of our past and, from the fire of our pain, forge something lasting and beautiful.
About the Movie
The film version of Pay It Forward is set in Las Vegas, Nevada, and stars Haley Joel Osmont as Trevor, Kevin Spacey as the social studies teacher, Helen Hunt as Trevor's mother, and Jay Mohr as the reporter who investigates the movement and pieces its puzzle together. The movie also features amazing performances by Angie Dickinson, who plays Trevor's alcoholic grandmother, and Jon Bon Jovi, who plays Trevor's abusive and mostly absent father.
About the Author
Catherine Ryan Hyde has published approximately 45 short stories, winning recognition and much acclaim for her work, which first caught the attention of a small publishing house in San Francisco. Her first novel, Funerals for Horses, was published in 1997, followed by Earthquake Weather, a collection of short stories, the following year. Pay It Forward was optioned for film by Warner Bros. in the summer of 1998, before it had even found a publishing house, and was snapped up by Simon & Schuster immediately thereafter. The prolific writer has published steadily since. Catherine Ryan Hyde makes her home in Cambria, a small town on California’s Central Coast, and gives generously and often of her time and talent to her readers and to the movement.
As of this writing, her newest books are Life, Loss, and Puffins; A Different Kind of Gone; and Just a Regular Boy. Her next novel Rolling Toward Clear Skies will come out November 12, 2024. She also authored The Long, Steep Path: Everyday Inspiration from the Author of Pay It Forward, a collection of creative non-fiction stories and Ryan Hyde's first full-length non-fiction book.
