MovieChat Forums > The Astronaut Wives Club (2015) Discussion > The Book

The Book

posted 10 years ago by sunneyone
8 replies | jump to latest

Is anyone else reading the book? I started the show before the book, but now I'm almost through with the book (will probably finish it tonight - I just read about the Apollo 12 mission). Is anyone else struck by how the show has changed events to make them a little more dramatic?
For example, in the book, it's Alan that won't let Marilyn See into Elliot's office. On the show, it's Deke that meets them at the fence. Another difference is on the show, Betty tells the NASA representative that she knows what he's there to say, she just needs to hear him say it. According to the book, Roger Chaffee's wife Martha is the one that said that. The show also seems to air events out of order. I feel like they're doing it to boost the drama of the show. But then I wonder if they added things in to make it even more dramatic. The book doesn't mention Scott and Rene losing a baby, but it's part of the episode when he's on his flight.
Overall, though, I do think the show is doing a decent job.

[–] Tel100 10 years ago

Actually, most seem to be surprised how close the show follow the book... But yes, there will always be some creative license, no doubt about that. But the thing is, that goes for the book too. IMO the important thing is how close the show follow the actual real life events, and not how close it follow the book.
The website CollectSPACE fact check every episode, and overall the show is pretty true to history. As for the baby Rene and Scott lost, that did infact happen in real life, but was not mention in the book. And that perfectly underline what I said about being true to history, and not only the book.

[–] sunneyone 10 years ago

It's my understanding that the book is pretty true to fact as well. I finished it Friday and she wrote about interviewing the wives, including Rene, in the afterward. I'm not sure why she didn't mention the baby's death. I am glad that the show did. I know people didn't talk about those things then, but they should have.

[–] allie106 10 years ago

As the other person responded, there have been multiple posters who have commented on how close the show is to the book actually. In terms of specifics that you mentioned, at this point Alan and Deke are working in the same office/part of NASA because Alan is now grounded as well. To me, it doesn't really make a difference whether it was Alan or Deke who went out to tell Marilyn See she couldn't go into her husband's office, the point is that it was said at all.

As for Betty saying she needs to hear him say it as opposed to Roger Chaffee's wife, well the show is heavily focused on the Mercury Astronauts and their wives so I think that's why you saw them give that line to Betty. Betty and Gus have been main characters from the beginning I'm sure that's why we saw the NASA guy at her house and not giving the news to the other 2 wives which they certainly would have done as well.

I have seen it mentioned that the show played around with times lines to some degree but for the most part it seems like they are just moving events back or forth in when they happened, they aren't completely inventing things, with the possible exception of that picnic which has been debated back and forth on several threads.

[–] wab-3 10 years ago

The picnic wasn't invented. It's described explicitly in Koppel's well-researched book. There is no question that it happened.

The most egregious fabrication is the dalliance between Louise Shepard and Max. Max is based on LIFE journalist Loudon Wainwright, and nowhere in Koppel's book is Louise depicted as having a close relationship with any journalist.

The writers probably transferred Al Shepard's dealings with Marilyn See to Deke in order to beef up his narrative. Deke also didn't have that much to do with calling for a slowdown in Apollo operations after the Apollo 1 fire. It was Frank Borman who took the lead on Apollo safety issues since he was the only astronaut serving on the investigation board.

[–] sunneyone 10 years ago

My thoughts on the picnic is that it did happen, but the Carpenters weren't there.

[–] wab-3 10 years ago

But the Carpenter kids would certainly have heard about it from the other astro-kiddies, even if they weren't there.

No, possibly a case of "eyewitness error," and only possibly because no one has yet posted a cite to a source quoting the Carpenter kids denying the picnic happened. The reason you should trust well-researched books by historians of professional journalists is that they almost always use multiple sources when writing an account of events. There's always someone squawking "But I was there!" and insisting that some account in a non-fiction book is wrong...and they almost always turn out to be wrong themselves.

[–] johnston.scot 10 years ago

I hope nobody's describing Lily Koppel as a historian, as that would require a pretty expansive notion of what a historian is.

She's a writer. Marginally a journalist - she wrote celebrity blurbs for the New York Times.

[–] wab-3 10 years ago

Like it or not, The Times is The Times. She may be young but you have to give her credit for having written for major periodicals, plus she published one well-regarded non-fiction book before The Astronauts Wives Club. I would like to have seen more direct quotes and some footnotes in the book, but that's hardly surprising in a mass-market memoir. Koppel did interview a lot of the wives and kids, specifically Betty Grissom and the Lovells. If Betty Grissom had had a problem with the accuracy of the book, she would have said so--loudly.

I was referring to Stephen Ambrose and his experience in finding out that the oral histories of WWII vets turned out to be dreadfully inaccurate, despite the insistence of said crusty vets that they were there, doggone it, and knew what had actually happened.