Mark Cecil's epic fable 'Bunyan and Henry' leads back to Worcester for event at TidePool

In Mark Cecil's epic adult fairy tale "Bunyan and Henry; Or, The Beautiful Destiny," the two heroes, Paul Bunyan and John Henry, follow "The Twisty Path" that hopefully leads to "The Beautiful Destiny."

Cecil, who grew up in Worcester, had to decide whether to take a journey on his own "Twisty Path." "That was, for me, a metaphor," Cecil recalled during a recent telephone interview. "I had this job — I felt I was treading water and waiting for my real life to begin." He quit the job when he was 40-years-old to write fiction full time. He and his wife have four children; his wife, Dede Orraca-Cecil, encouraged him to make the move.

Now a real-life "Beautiful Destiny" will be realized when Cecil, who currently lives in Sherborn, returns to his hometown of Worcester for an author event at 7 p.m. April 25 at TidePool Bookshop, 372 Chandler St., on behalf of "Bunyan and Henry," which was published March 26 by Pantheon, a division of Penguin Random House, and has already received some fine notices. The book is his first published novel.

Cecil grew up in Worcester and went to Venerini Academy and graduated from St. John's High School in Shrewsbury. "I think it's going to be amazing," Cecil said of appearing at TidePool.

If quitting his job to write was a bold move, Cecil also moves quickly to set up his creatures and characters in "Bunyan and Henry." Set "A Long Time Ago, In An Age of Monsters and Mystery ..." the first paragraph introduces us to a magical creature called a Chilali. "The Chilali loves someone at a crossroads," Sue Bunyan tells her son, Paul Bunyan.

New spin on American legends

Paul Bunyan — the legendary American lumberjack — comes to a crossroads soon enough in Cecil's telling. With a sick wife, a load of family debts and eking out a miserable miner’s life in Lump Town, a bleak hamlet controlled by industrialist El Boffo, he goes on a quest to find a cure for his wife's illness. Bunyan meets John Henry, the fabled man of steel who here is a fugitive on the run from a rigged, racist prison system. As Bunyan and Henry strive to reunite with the families they love, they work together on the Twisty Path to the Beautiful Destiny aided by the Chilali, who speaks in questions, and a guiding light called the Gleam.

These are wonderful but quite audacious propositions to place before a reader, and asked if he was concerned if people would buy the mythology (as well as buy the book), Cecil recalled that he was at a book event recently with thriller novelist and Boston television reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan.

"She's writing in a genre and it's totally clear what her genre is. She said this ('Bunyan and Henry') is 'a risky book. It's unique, it's so different,'" Cecil said.

"My book, for better or worse, is extremely unique," he said. "It's a blessing and a curse. You can say it's a compliment, but for a marketing team (it can be challenging) ... I say you have to write what you wish you could write. This is extremely interesting to me for a lot of reasons. I hope others will (agree). We'll see."

Cecil said he was inspired in part to write his tale because he loves classical mythical stories, especially "The Epic of Gilgamesh," a 4,000-year-old odyssey from ancient Mesopotamia about the adventures of the king, Gilgamesh, and his friend Enkidu.

"Two friends go on a quest. America doesn't really have a myth like that. Why not tell the story of Gilgamesh with Paul Bunyan and John Henry?" Cecil said.

Another genesis for the book was Cecil making up bedtime telling stories to his four children, who are interracial. In general with stories currently out there it is "hard to find a very positive relationship across the racial barrier," he said. Bunyan is white and Henry is Black. "Can we tell a story about a Black person and a white person in a positive relationship? I thought that was something we could explore."

"Bunyan and Henry is "an all ages book," Cecil said. In it he is also expressing concerns about capitalism and the environment among other issues. "It opened the door to serious ideas I wanted to talk about."

Not your typical bedtime fable

There's been some encouraging early word. Mateo Askaripour, author of "Black Buck," writes "This ('Bunyan and Henry') isn’t your typical bedtime fable; it’s packed with searing social commentary delivered in the most delectable way. Cecil’s debut is an undeniably bright light to behold in a world sometimes full of so much dark, inspiring all of us to follow our own beautiful destinies. What a marvel.”

Matthew Quick, author of "The Silver Linings Playbook," states that "Bunyan and Henry is “A hopeful Twainian nod to brotherhood that puts the fun in profundity, even as it remixes American myth to the most sobering beats of our modern times.”

Cecil is friends with Quick and his wife, Holden native and mystery writer Alicia Bessette. Quick wrote "The Silver Linings Playbook" while living in Holden. The couple now live on the Outer Banks. "He (Quick) has really been a good friend of mine. Like a mentor to me," Cecil said.

While "Bunyan and Henry" is Cecil's first published novel, it is not his first novel. He has said that he has written several others and regards them all as part of a learning process.

'I'm putting in both feet'

"I was always writing," he said. At St. John's High School he wrote the school's literary magazine. He majored in English and American Literature at Brown University in Providence, and after graduating worked as a reporter for the Pawtucket Times. Later he was a reporter and editor Reuters News in New York, San Francisco and Boston. He has also been the general manager and vice president of a boutique media firm in Manhattan.

Currently besides writing fiction full-time, he is the host of the podcast, "The Thoughtful Bro" show, where he conducts author interviews with writers (including with Quick), and head of strategy for literary social media start-up A Mighty Blaze, an organization of 35 professional creative volunteers connecting writers with readers online.

"Bunyan and Henry" was about four years in the making, Cecil said. "It's been a long road but we got there in the end." He worked on the novel two years before he brought it to an agent. The book went through a number of revisions including with his agent as well as his editor at Pantheon.

When he quit his regular job, "I said, 'That's it. I'm putting in both feet, as they say." His wife is "a wonderful woman ... She knew his is what I wanted to do. She gave me the push." Orraca-Cecil was working, so the family was able to make ends meet.

Even so, "there were some really dark moments there when I nearly gave up," Cecil said. "If you're an artist there are a thousand reasons to give up every day."

Nothing is settled yet

At the time of the interview, Cecil was waiting for the reviews of his first published novel to start arriving in earnest.

"All my friends say don't look at the reviews. Whether they're good or bad, you can't control it," he said. However, "Some I've seen have been terrific, and it's been satisfying."

Could "Bunyan Henry" be one of those books that finds its way to the big screen? That can be a twisty path, but there would also be a nice destiny.

"There is some discussion about this," Cecil said. "I do try to write in a clear, accessible way." Because of its mythical nature, "It would probably be an expensive movie ... Nothing is settled yet."

Meanwhile, Cecil said he's excited about coming back to Worcester for an event at a bookstore with his own book. He once worked at a second hand book store in Worcester.

"I think we'll have a decent crowd," he said. His parents, Tom and Patsy Cecil, still live here and are recruiting people for the event. His father was a mathematics professor at the College of the Holy Cross and his mother taught music in the Worcester public schools.  He has two brothers. Cecil is also expecting to see some school friends again at TidePool.

"It's going to be really cool. It's going to be very meaningful to me to be back in Worcester for that."

Mark Cecil, author of 'Bunyan and Henry; Or, The Beautiful Destiny'

When: 7 p.m. April 25

Where: TidePool Bookshop, 372 Chandler St., Worcester

How much: Free. TidePoolbookshop.com

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Mark Cecil's epic fable 'Bunyan and Henry' leads back to Worcester.