In a fit of questionable judgment, consummate indoorsman John Sellers tags along on a journey to search for snakes with his eccentric, aging father--an obsessive fan of Bob Dylan, a giver of terrible gifts, a drinker of boxed wine, a minister- turned-heretic, and, most importantly, the self-designated guardian of the threatened copperbelly water snake.
The quest is their fumbling attempt to reconnect. Decades of bitterness, substance abuse, acrimonious divorce, and divergent opinions about personal hygiene have conspired to make the two estranged. Sellers has just begun to develop a new appreciation for the American wilderness, and all the slithering creatures that populate it, when his father's deteriorating health thwarts their mission and disturbs their tentative peace. Determined to finish what they started, he ventures back into the swamp-- alone, but more connected to his dad than ever.
tells the story of a father who always lived on his own terms and the son who struggled to make sense of it all.
Justin Halpern interviews John Sellers, author of The Old Man and the Swamp: Author One-on-One Justin Halpern is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Sh*t My Dad Says. He has more than 2.2 million followers on Twitter (@shitmydadsays) and is also the creator and co-executive producer of $#*! My Dad Says (WarnerBros/CBS), a sitcom starring William Shatner, Nicole Sullivan, Will Sasso, and Jonathan Sadowski.
Halpern: The obvious question first: If you started a Twitter feed for your dad, what would the first tweet be?
Sellers: "I, Mark Ashley Sellers Jr. leave to my three sons ‘Dobbin’ the velvet chair and ‘Seth’ the clock." This sentence actually appears in my dad’s last will and testament, which he emailed to us at 8 p.m. on a recent Friday night. How my two brothers and I will ever divvy up the two items is hard to fathom. I’m pretty sure it will end in a nasty legal battle.
Halpern: His wedding gift to you was a worthless baseball card. Which player was it?
Sellers: It was a 1985 Tom Brookens card. In his defense, it does have some value. Last I checked, it was up to 83 cents! But his wedding gift to me is nothing. He once gave one of his friends a homegrown zucchini, along with a note that read "Behold the fruits of the earth." My cousin received a fake shark’s tooth. He also once wrapped up a Snickers bar and gave it to my mom as a Christmas present—the only gift he gave her that year. Can you believe they’re divorced?
Halpern: Your dad has a severe stutter. So he'll be played by Colin Firth in the movie adaptation?
Sellers: One thing you need to know about my dad is that he smells like a mix of Skin Bracer aftershave lotion and an ashtray. Firth is an amazing actor who has nobly done much to bring attention to the plight of stutterers, but he conjures up images of roses and orange marmalade. I don’t think even someone of his talents could pull off that kind of transformation.
Halpern: He stored dead snakes in the freezer when you were a kid. Did that traumatize you for life?
Sellers: Well, let’s see. Whenever I open the freezer to grab a bag of Ore-Ida tater tots now—which is embarrassingly often—I have to take a deep breath and say my mantra five times, my mantra being "Frozen tater tots are not dead blue racers."
Halpern: Snakes often get a bad rap in pop-culture. Is there anything quite as terrible as Snakes on a Plane?
Sellers: I love Raiders of the Lost Ark, as does my dad, but we both agree that it has done the most damage, with its very manly hero whining like a sissy boy whenever he encounters a snake. But it’s a disservice to the species whenever serpents are depicted as menacing terrors out to destroy humankind, and sadly, negative portrayals like that pop up all the time in movies and on television. Snakes clearly need a better agent.
Halpern: You normally write about entertainment. What made you want to tell a more personal story?
Sellers: The compelling strangeness of my dad could no longer be ignored, as he has only gotten more eccentric through the years. But after I started getting into the story, and had gone through months and months of intensive aversion therapy sessions relating to my debilitating fear of being trapped in the woods with my dad, I was able to detach myself a bit and look at this as if I was writing a celebrity profile of, say, John Malkovich. Hey, how about if John Malkovich plays my dad?
Halpern: You have always been squeamish about outdoors, but you followed your dad into the swamp anyway. Was going far outside of your comfort zone to bond with him ultimately worth it?
Sellers:Absolutely, and not only because this adventure meant the world to my dad and allowed me to understand him a lot better. My street cred has finally been pushed above "wuss" level. I’m still a card-carrying member of the illustrious "milquetoast" club, but at least I will always be able to say that I was man enough just once to wade thigh-high through an icky, grody swamp that doubles as a toilet for reptiles and other stinky creatures.
