Courtney
Thomas was born
in Trinidad
and Tobago over
40 years ago.
He has
two sisters
and is the youngest
of three children.
His father was
a police officer.
His mother worked
for the government.
He lived in
Trinidad until
he was about
10 years old.
On arriving
in the United
States, the
family stayed
for a time in
Brooklyn. They
eventually moved
to Boston. Thomas
had always been
a bright student
with poor grades.
This didn't
change in the
US. Nevertheless,
after graduating
high school
from Boston
Latin, he won
a
scholarship
to the University
of Connecticut.
Bored with school,
he promptly
flunked out.
He took
off to see the
world.
Thomas
kept
a
diary
during
his
travels
but
had
no
intentions
of
doing
anything
with
it.
Eventually
he
finished
his
undergraduate
studies and
obtained
his
bachelors
degree
from
Stonehill
College. In the years between, he lived many places, including Spain and China, meeting many people and gathering many experiences that would infuse his writing with the realism for which it has been praised. He also bounced from job to job, as he learned to fix fighter jets, did general contracting work, managed business accounts, learned to bake the best home made bread anyone has ever tasted, was broke and homeless in places from Los Angeles to the Canary Islands, and more. Always however, he kept writing his journal. One day he experienced an unexpected moment that was to have a profound effect on his future. It was an evening he was supposed to go out with friends. Instead he was called into work and decided to take a book along with him. He grabbed the first one from the shelf. |
 |
The
moment he
began reading
Victor Hugo's Les
Miserables,
it were
as if a
light had been
switched on.
The window into
literature
suddenly
was opened.
Where
he'd been
just reading
books before,
now he
began
to 'see'
them. He
began devouring
all the
other novels
from
the French Romantic/Realist
period. He
also went on
to read
authors
from Spain's
'Generation
of 98', then
epic German
poetry, and
more, from many
other countries.
Somewhere
in there he
also began organizing
his notes. He
began writing
his own novel.
In no time,
he was blocked.
Wanting to write
a novel is different
from writing a novel,
and what Thomas
soon realized was that
he didn't know how to
do it. He took classes
but this didn't help.
He was about to
give up when a professor
at Stonehill College suggested
he copy a book he liked
and use that as a template.
He picked the Odyssey,
a story
loved since
childhood. He
decided to add Gilgamesh,
another he'd
also long loved.
He pressed on
by rewriting
these books
to fit a modern
setting. He
never experienced
writer's block
after this.
It did take more
than 23 years to finish
writing Walls
of Phantoms,
one of the longest
and finest novels
ever written.
The
manuscript
finally
was finished
in 2007.
Thomas
has one son,
who recently
graduated from
high school.
Currently, Thomas
is
teaching high
school
in Boston.