H.G. Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, A Dream tells the story of the 1988 Permian High School football team of Odessa. Bissinger, a journalist by trade, spent an entire year in Odessa in order to acquaint himself with the team, the fans and the culture. In doing his research, he found rampant racism and sexism in Odessa. He also found that Permian High valued football over academics.

Last year, Friday Night Lights was challenged in Beaumont ISD for racism, sexual content, and profanity. The district responded to the challenge by not just banning the book in a single school, as is most often the case, but by banning the book in every one of the districts’ 30 school libraries.

A ban of such magnitude is rare, and the ACLU of Texas believes it was the most egregious instance of censorship reported last year. In an effort to follow up on this story we interviewed H. G. Bissinger to get his thoughts on the banning, and censorship of public school library books in general.

Q: Please tell our readers a bit about yourself.

A: I was raised in New York City. I went to Phillips Academy in Andover and then to the University of Pennsylvania. I was a newspaper reporter for about 15 years before I went down to Odessa in the summer of 1988 to begin researching Friday Night Lights. I lived there for a year with my family.

I’ve written several books since Friday Night Lights. The second book was a book about urban America called A Prayer for the City (1998). My third book was about major league baseball called Three Nights in August (2005). And then there’s a fourth book coming out in September that I’ve written with the basketball player Lebron James that’s called Shooting Stars (2009). I am also a contributing writer and editor at Vanity Fair magazine. I’ve done that for over a decade. And— not to brag—but I won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting in 1987. I now live in Philadelphia with my wife and three sons.

Q: Would you describe the responses you have received from individuals who have read Friday Night Lights?

A: Overall, the responses have been fantastic. I’ve gotten thousands of very positive reactions: “the book was seminal…” “very important…” “it really described the culture of sports and the impact it has on small town lives in way no book had before…” It’s also used in hundreds of high schools and colleges around the country. I’ve had dozens of teachers say “this is the best book we’ve assigned, particularly for high school boys because they really don’t like to read anything but they read Friday Night Lights.”

Q: What did those in Odessa think of the book when it was first released?

A: The initial response in Odessa was not fantastic. They were upset with the book. I felt the book was empathetic, but it certainly told the truth when it had too. Whether it was about race, academic standards or gender inequality and the way women were treated in Odessa, it did not sugar coat. The basic message was that high school football had been over-emphasized beyond all rational proportion in Odessa. But it was certainly not unique to Odessa. It was a common phenomenon in Texas and in virtually every state in the country.

I also received threats of physical violence from some in Odessa. I was supposed to go down to Odessa to do a series of book signings when the book came out. Various bookstores called the publishers and said, “We cannot guarantee your safety.” So, the publisher elected to cancel those book signings. I know Odessa, and there are great people there, but they take their football very seriously. Though it wasn’t related to the book, Permian had just been declared ineligible for the playoffs. They had been turned in by their rival. So everyone was going crazy and, as the book came out, they blamed the book and they blamed me for the team’s troubles. It was a very chaotic situation.

Q: Are they still upset with you in Odessa?

A: I’ve been to Odessa five or six times since then. I did go back in 2004 to write an article for Sports Illustrated about going back to Odessa on the eve of the film coming out. And within Odessa, many people admitted they hated me when the book came out: “We though the book was unfair, but as we thought about it and read it, we realized it was a horrible look in the mirror. But it was in many ways an accurate one. So we had to change.” From what I can tell, there have been positive changes in Odessa.

As a result of the book, football is not as important. Other sports are being emphasized, education is being emphasized, and there is more racial equality. This is music to my ears. The book had a positive impact on Odessa, but I also give Odessa a lot of credit for that.

Q: What was your reaction to hearing that Beaumont ISD had banned Friday Night Lights in all of their school libraries?

A: I was saddened, a little surprised, and angered. Sure, the book has a few obscenities. Whether we like to admit it or not, kids down to the age of five have heard obscenities—just turn on a television! But, I think this is an important book for everyone to read, in particular kids from the age of 14 and up. It is very accessible and easy to read, but it talks about themes that are very important. As I said, it talks honestly about race and the ways in which African-American athletes are treated poorly.

It talks about educational standards becoming ridiculous because of the over importance of high school football. It talks about gender inequality. It talks about what happens when a town puts all its hopes and dreams into a high school football team, as Odessa did and so many towns in Texas still do.

The situation is not getting any better in Texas. They’re building these outlandish stadiums that cost millions of dollars, have replay scoreboards, VIP seating and licensing opportunities.

I thought Beaumont’s decision was a horrible form of censorship and extremely shortsighted. I understand it was banned in part for sexual content, but I’m not sure what they were referring to in terms of sexual content. I barely remember anything like that in the book. Profanity was used because you have to quote people accurately, that’s what a reporter does. This is the language kids sometimes use. I’m sorry if that offends people, but let’s wake up. It wasn’t used gratuitously; it was used to accurately reflect the feelings of the people I wrote about at the time.

I’m also sorry if the people of Beaumont or anyone else got offended by the use of the n-word in the book. Trust me, I was incredibly offended by the use of that word while in Odessa. The idea that that word would be used routinely by whites in the late 1980s was appalling to me as well, but I had to use that word. If I don’t use that word in the book, then the whole impact of writing about racism would have been completely lost.

Q: It seems like Beaumont ISD is trying to shield students from the fact that racism exists. How do you feel about this tactic?

A: I don’t know what they think they are shielding kids from. It’s like they’re acting as if racism doesn’t occur in Beaumont. And that’s not to single out Beaumont; racism occurs everywhere. Just like racism wasn’t unique to Odessa, Texas. It also occurs in Philadelphia where I live and in New York City where I grew up. It occurs everywhere.

Kids and adults should know about racism, and they should be sensitive to it. Friday Night Lights hammers home the message of how we often think of African-Americans who play sports: we love them on the football field, but off the football field we often think they are inferior. This extends to African-American athletes being treating as subhuman in the classroom and not being worth anything except that they play football. And this still goes on today.

For Beaumont to think they are doing anyone a favor by sheltering and shielding kids from depictions of racism, they’re doing exactly the opposite. They are depriving kids of knowledge they should have so that they’re more sensitive to saying things that are inflammatory and aware of the repercussions of what can happen.

Q: How different do you think the high schools in Beaumont ISD are from Permian High School in the late 1980s?

A: My sense from past history is that Beaumont takes its football pretty seriously. I have to imagine the book hit pretty close to home for many in Beaumont. I’ve been in Texas long enough to know football is important in virtually every community and town in Texas. It’s part of the culture and myth of Texas. And nowhere is the culture of football stronger than it is in Texas. So, I’m sure it did.

As it turns out, it hit close to home not just in Texas, but in every state in the country. Otherwise, it would not have sold two million copies. It would not have been made into a movie or a television series. So obviously it hits close to the bone in many places. Beaumont ISD is probably sticking its head in the sand and acting like these problems don’t exist there. But I can pretty much guarantee you, if I spent a year in Beaumont and had the type of access I had in Beaumont that I had in Odessa, I would pretty much find the same things there that I found in Odessa.

Q: How are schools and students affected when books like Friday Night Lights are banned?

A: Whether it is my book or any book, they’re being deprived of knowledge they should have. Kids are sophisticated enough today to read something and agree with it or call it silly and not agree with it. Or they can be offended by it. But no one, whether they’re adults or kids or senior citizens, should be deprived of knowledge. It’s ridiculous.

Friday Night Lights is probably considered the most classic book written on sports in the last 25 years. It was named the best book ever written on football by Sports Illustrated and the fourth best sports book of all time. Not only is that an honor, it is an indication that this book is really saying something important.

Now, as I said, people don’t have to agree with it and people don’t have to like it, but they should have access to it. And that’s true of any book.

Q: Are there any messages in your book that you think were lost on the censors in Beaumont?

A: Look, football is exciting and I love football and in particular I love high school football. I loved going to those Permian games in Odessa. I’m not against football by any stretch of the imagination. But, this book shows what can happen when high school football becomes the major thing in town, or the only important thing in town. It kind of swallows everything: academic standards go down, football players don’t get the education they should get and minorities are treated as animals. There is also a very serious gender gap between young men and women who go to high school. The women are treated as inferior and encouraged to not be as smart as the male students because it’s simply not cool.

High school football is fun and exciting, it’s great for the fans, but the game ends. And for a lot of these kids, they’re playing in front of thousands of people at the age of 17 or 18, and then they’re has-beens at 19. And no one should have to live that way. I remember hearing an assistant coach saying, “We’re not here to have fun. This is a business trip.” And if anyone in Beaumont says, “We just treat it as a game and it’s just for fun,” he is lying. It is of supreme importance and it’s becoming more and more important all over the country. Calling attention to these problems is all part of the message of Friday Night Lights.

Q: What advice would you offer to those parents who place emphasis on athletics?

A: There are great lessons that can be learned from playing sports: lessons about discipline, camaraderie, what it means to work in collaboration, and about achieving your dreams, particularly at the high school level. But you cannot do that to the detriment of completely ignoring a kid’s education. For everyone who gets a college scholarship, or every rare one who gets to the pros, there are hundreds of thousands of kids who don’t get there.

These kids are going to wake up one day and they’re going to ask, “What happened? I have no education, I really don’t have any skills, and I don’t really like to read. What am I going to do?” Life is becoming more complex and more competitive worldwide.

America is a very different place than it used to be. So, if you’re a parent and all you care about is sports for your Johnny and Judy, you’re leading them down a terrible path. And I think Friday Night Lights showed that.

If, however, you combine the lessons you can learn in sports with academics, then you will have raised a spectacular kid. I know this because the kids I went to high school with who were good athletes and also good in the classroom are the most formidable, competitive professionals I’ve ever met—and they’re enormously successful. So, sports can have a great role, but society must pay more than simple lip service to the value of education.

Q: Finally, what advice would you offer the parents who try to get books like yours banned in school libraries?

A: They are absolutely just fooling themselves. Not only are they fooling themselves, they are fooling their kids. If they really think that by banning books they are protecting their children then they are crazy. They’re not going to be able to do it. Books are beautiful and wonderful, so to deprive a kid of books to shield them from the real world is ridiculous. And it often leads to the opposite; the more you deprive a kid of something the more he or she wants it. So, I think what these parents are doing is dangerous.

Mary McDonagh Murphy is a journalist who fell in love with To Kill a Mockingbird as a teenager. When she revisited the book as an adult, she was moved to travel down to Monroeville, Alabama, where Harper Lee grew up to research the roots of the book.

She recently finished a documentary entitled Hey Boo and published a book about the lasting impact of To Kill a Mockingbird. As she interviewed acclaimed novelists and thinkers of our time, she realized the book continues to inspire young writers and exert a pull on readers’ imaginations like few others.

For the last 40 years, Harper Lee has famously refused to give interviews. She never published another book. As such, Mary Murphy is one of the leading experts on To Kill a Mockingbird and the small town Southern landscape that inspired it.

Q: You were a journalist at CBS? What made you fall in love with these characters and inspired you to write a book and produce a documentary?

A: To Kill a Mockingbird had a huge effect on me when I read it as a younger girl. At the time, I was largely completely besotted by Scout Finch. I just thought she was fantastic and hilarious and would probably grow up to be a writer some day. But it was really my adult re-reading of the book that made the greatest impression on me. I decided to go exploring and see what I could find out about the novel and where it came from. I began to look into the kind of impact that it’s had. I worked as a journalist for 20 years at CBS News, and along the way I pitched this as a story different times in different forms. Whoever I was working with came back and said, “Well if Harper Lee’s not going to do an interview, then there’s no real news value.”

But once I left CBS News and I was doing my own documentaries and casting about, I read the novel again. And I saw very clearly this time that the story was the novel. “the story is the phenomenon that the novel became and the effect that it had on so many people. It still endures. We’re still talking about it 50 years later. And I would wager that it may not be you and me, but that people will still be talking about it in 100 years.

Q: How old were you when you first read it?

A: I think I was about 18. I almost escaped high school without actually reading the novel. When my mother and my sister figured this out, they sort of crawled across the kitchen table one morning… I read the book and saw the movie. It’s one of the only books that I had to read in high school that I remember really enjoying.

It’s often the first adult book we read when we’re still pretty much kids. For many people that I’ve talked to, it’s the first time a young reader gets completely kidnapped by a novel, captivated from beginning to end.

Wally Lamb [famous novelist] describes this. Whenever he did a book report, he picked the shortest books he could find. His sister had been raving about this novel, he went and picked it up, and then he – the pokiest reader in the world – just sat there until it was done. I think we all know what that feels like. And for many people, this was the book that did that to them.

Q: Do you understand the flip side? What about this book makes people so angry?

A: Not everybody likes the novel. Many of those people are parents who find that some of the things dealt with – whether it’s race relations being portrayed in a way they don’t like, or the fact that there’s a rape in it – people have trouble with some of that. I can see it, but I’ve also always thought that literature is not history or sociology, it’s literature. And you can’t necessarily treat it any other way.

Q: I think other books which are also part of the curriculum have had rape scenes, so it’s always made me feel that perhaps it really is about the social implications of race or the free-spirited feminist character that Scout represents. Do you agree?

A: I’ve never read that anyone’s objected to Scout as a reason to challenge the book, though you’re absolutely right. Scout had more freedom as a six-year-old girl growing up in the Depression than most American women had in the 1960′s when the book was published. She wore pants, she played with boys, and she spoke her mind. In 1960, in this country, that was not necessarily the way it was going.

Q: I feel like everyone fixates on Scout and Atticus. My favorite character is Boo Radley. What was his function in the book? What do you think he represents?

A: Harper Lee beautifully wrote and articulated something that’s in every town and every neighborhood. There’s a Boo Radley practically everywhere.

I think we can all talk about some house that was a little bit scary or a person you only saw behind the blinds, peeking out. As children, the kind of suspense and imagination and creepiness that you can build up around a person like that is a very familiar thing.

Scout says, “Hey Boo.” That is one of the greatest reveals in a novel ever. What you’ve been expecting about Boo all this time tells you something about yourself. The fact that Boo turns out to be not a monster, but capable of incredible kindness… Boo Radley represents how you judge. It tells you something about judgment in general.

Q: Did you know immediately Hey Boo was what you wanted to name your documentary?

A: The more I delved into it… Oprah Winfrey tells me that she had lunch with Harper Lee in New York. It was an effort for Oprah to try to get her to come on her show. And Harper Lee basically said to her, “Do you know Boo Radley? If you know Boo Radley, then you know me and you know why I won’t be going on TV.”

Q: Why do you think that Harper Lee retreated so completely from the press and public attention? Is she a shy person?

A: I can’t speak for her. I can tell you what other people told me. Her editor wrote that she was a shy person. I think surely that kind of fame must have been overwhelming to a 34-year-old person from a small town who, first time out, basically wrote a bestselling masterpiece. And it wasn’t just a best-selling novel, it got turned into a masterpiece of a movie. It won the Pulitzer Prize. These were huge things in succession very quickly. I think you could see how that could have overwhelmed a person like that.

Her sister Alice still practices law every day at the firm that her father helped found in Monroeville, Alabama. I spent a lot of time with Miss Alice. She said that Harper Lee got misquoted in the press and didn’t like it and just decided that it wasn’t really the place of a writer to be this familiar or this quoted or recognized. So she stopped giving interviews. It doesn’t mean that she’s a recluse. You can’t equate not giving interviews with being Boo Radley.

Q: Did she have to bear the brunt of the criticism or the attacks on the book at the time?

A: No, I don’t think so. I know that she was asked about it in a Newsweek article. A county in Virginia had famously banned it, and she did write a very good – if not tongue ‘n cheek – letter to the editor. So there was that. But I don’t think she personally had to answer for the book.

Q: Do you think she was trying to write a political book or was even aware of how political a lot of the implications were?

A: She herself said, “This is a love story, plain & simple.” I don’t think she set out to write a novel about race or to make a political statement. Everything I’ve heard and read about her would suggest that’s not the way she operated. I think she wrote a novel. And it’s a novel about many, many things. It’s about childhood. It’s about growing up. It’s about parenthood. It’s about love. It’s about loneliness. It’s about tolerance. It’s also about race and justice, and I think all of those things are beautifully intertwined to make the novel.

The other thing that’s important to say is, it’s a great read. The characters are indelible, incredible. And it’s a novel of suspense as well.

Q: What does that mean, “It’s a love story, pure and simple?”

A: I interpret that on many levels. It’s about a love for the South, a love for your family, a love of mankind, of humankind honestly. And a kind of reminder to people that that’s what life is about.

Q: It’s a beautiful way to describe a story which has no big romantic plotline, no leading man and no leading lady.

A: Exactly. And it’s not a love story in a romantic sense at all, though sometimes you do wonder what Miss Maudie’s doing over there at Atticus’ house.

Q: What was it like going down to Monroeville?

A: I was fortunate to spend a lot of time with Harper Lee’s sister and to learn a lot about how they grew up. Miss Alice tutored me in Alabama soil, politics and history, literature, government.

I’m a Northerner. It’s a very different world there in Alabama – I found it fascinating. I love the way people told stories and the language, and the rolling hills of Alabama, that in their own way were like Tuscany.

Q: How do people there feel about the book? It’s obviously a lot harder to have the lens of a writer or a camera focused on yourself and reveal your shortcomings along with your beauty? Do people there tend to be proud of the book?

A: I think they are. I think it’s a book that changed people’s minds, and you know, that rarely happens. The novel was beautifully done – a story well told, great characters, had an important message, a social message. Because it had all these other ingredients, it really gave Southerners a way to think about the system in which they’d been raised – and to find another way. A lot of that had to do with the story being told through the eyes of a child, as an adult looking back.

I think it made a great difference to white Southerners… and black Southerners too. It allowed people to question the system, to begin to understand that there was something morally bizarre about the situation.

Q: Does it surprise you that still, every year there’s some school somewhere, where a parent objects to having the book read?

A: I don’t how often that happens. But I think some of that is about treating literature like it’s sociology, which I don’t think you should do. There’s also something else going on which is this: there’s another group that’s saying, “We don’t need to teach this anymore – because Obama’s in the White House. There’ve been incredible strides and progress. This is not a world that we recognize anymore, nor should we.”

I think we’re still gonna be reading it. As long as people are arrested in situations where there’s racial profiling. As long as there’s injustice. It tells a story we all know is true.

I think that argument overlooks some fundamental aspects of the movie. It’s set in the ’30′s, and Atticus Finch is not a crusading civil rights attorney. He was a man in town who was assigned the case. It’s not like he took this on. But what he did, to the surprise of his neighbors and townspeople, was rigorously defend Tom Robinson.

From our 2006 report

Judy Blume seems to raise the ire of strict parents year after year for its girl narrators that confront puberty, and the desires and fears of adolescence in diary entries. In 2010, Blume’s Then Again, Maybe I Won’t and Forever were banned in Thrall and Cuero ISDs while her It’s Not the End of the World was restricted for using the word “Goddamn.” while Blume’s books are challenged every year, none were banned in Texas during the 2008-2009 school.

In Leander, a discussion between the school principal and librarian resulted in keeping the ever-popular Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret at school. Interestingly, Blume’s books contain very little actual sexual content, especially when compared to the way teen sexuality and behavior is portrayed on TV. Rather it is the narrators’ willingness to openly admit to questions, fears, and curiosity about sex that seems to threaten would-be censors.

In honor of the ACLU of Texas Banned Book Project’s 10th Anniversary, Jeremy Wright, the founder of the Project, spoke with Judy Blume about her career, the banning of her books, and the impact of censorship on writers and young readers.

Q: Please tell us about the start of your career as a writer.

A: I began to write when I was in my mid-twenties. By then, I was married with two small children and desperately in need of creative work. I wrote Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret right out of my own experiences and feelings when I was in sixth grade. Controversy wasn’t on my mind. I wanted only to write what I knew to be true. I wanted to write the best, the most honest books I could, the kinds of books I would have liked to read when I was younger. If someone had told me then I would become one of the most banned writers in America, I’d have laughed.

Q: When you began your career, did you instinctively limit the language you used or the themes you explored out of fear of offending readers?

A: No, it never occurred to me that what I was writing would offend anyone. I was writing what I knew to be true. I wasn’t trying to shock. Who knew puberty would turn into such a taboo subject? How sad for kids. When I’m in the writing “zone,” I actually hear my characters talking. I can’t censor them. My readers would know I was being dishonest.

Q: When was it that censorship of your work became noticeable to you?

A: Almost overnight, following the presidential election of 1980, the censors crawled out of the woodwork, organized and determined. Not only would they decide what their children could read but what all children could read.

Those who were most active in trying to ban books came from the “religious right,” but the impulse to censor spread like a contagious disease. Other parents, confused and uncertain, were happy to jump on the bandwagon. Book banning satisfied their need to feel in control of their children’s lives. Those who censored were easily frightened. They were afraid of exposing their children to ideas different from their own. Afraid to answer children’s questions or talk with them about sensitive subjects.

Q: Has the focus on your books by censors impacted your writing?

A: My worst moment came when I was working with my editor on the manuscript of Tiger Eyes (the story of a fifteen-year-old girl, Davey, whose beloved father dies suddenly and violently). When we came to the scene in which Davey allows herself to feel again after months of numbness following her father’s death, I saw that a few lines alluding to masturbation had been circled. My editor put down his pencil and faced me. “We want this book to reach as many readers as possible, don’t we?” he asked.

I felt my face grow hot, my stomach clench. This was the same editor who had worked with me on Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret; Then Again, Maybe I Won’t;
Deenie; Blubber; Forever – always encouraging, always supportive. The scene was psychologically sound, he assured me, and delicately handled. But it also spelled trouble. I got the message. If you leave in those lines, the censors will come after this book. Librarians and teachers won’t buy it. Book clubs won’t take it.

I tried to make a case for why that brief moment in Davey’s life was important. He asked me how important? Important enough to keep the book from reaching its audience? I willed myself not to give in to the tears of frustration and disappointment I felt coming. Ultimately, I caved in and took out those lines. I still remember how alone I felt at that moment.

I’ve never forgiven myself for caving in to editorial pressure based on fear, for playing into the hands of the censors. I knew then it was all over for me unless I took a stand. So I began to speak out about my experiences.

Q: Most, if not all, of your books for young readers are written in the first person. Do you think that censors are drawn to your books because of this personal writing style?

A: I don’t think that has much to do with it, although I can’t be sure. With my books it’s always been about language, sexuality, and something the censors like to call “undermining authority.” But when you’re writing about 12 year olds, puberty is often an important issue, as is the questioning of authority. I’ve always found it interesting that those who would ban books for young people tend to attack the books the children most enjoy. It’s as if to say, “If kids like it, there must be something wrong with it.”

Q: Do you feel that those who call for the banning of your books are generally unaware of what is going on in the real lives of children today?

A: I think they don’t want to know, they don’t want to believe, and they’ve forgotten what it was like for them. They don’t want to talk with their children about personal issues, or answer their questions. The kids get the message pretty quickly and stop going to their parents for information. That doesn’t mean they stop thinking about it.

Q: Do you feel that the presence of censors has impacted the quality of writing for young readers?

A: It’s hard to write when you feel the censor sitting on your shoulder. But the writers I know who are just starting out are almost as unaware as I was when I began to write, and that’s good. You have to be fearless in your writing in order for it to resonate with your readers, no matter what genre and for which age group. Fear is chilling to creativity.

Q: What has been the impact of censorship on young readers?

A: What I worry about most is the loss to young people. If no one speaks out for them, if they don’t speak out for themselves, all they’ll get for required reading will be the most bland books available. And instead of finding the information they need at the library, instead of finding the novels that illuminate life, they will find only those materials to which nobody could possibly object.

Q: What advice would you offer to parents who are concerned about what their children are exposed to?

A: Exposed to in books or in the world? Either way, if your children have questions, answer them as honestly and to the point as you can. Don’t make a big deal out of it. Read the books yourselves, get comfortable with the characters, try not to be judgmental. Use the characters to discuss issues and situations. Reading the same books is a great way to communicate with your kids. I know this isn’t always easy, but don’t give up. Like everything, talking to your kids gets easier the more you do it.