(2 of 2)
Evans spent six weeks in the Western U.S., tooling around in a rental car listening to tapes of Aaron Copland suites and Neil Young's Unplugged, interviewing Zen-like animal healers and watching degrading horse exorcisms. Because of his career troubles, Evans recalls, "I was vulnerable and moved by everything I saw."
Back in London, Evans retreated to his cramped home office to start writing. When he was half finished, with mortgage payments overdue, he showed the book to an agent friend to get his opinion. The 215-page manuscript, circulated to publishers last October, sparked a frenzy of interest. Three different Hollywood producers agreed to pay $3 million for it. Evans eventually sold the book to Robert Redford after a soulful phone conversation. "He told me a story about riding in the mountains and seeing an antelope, a kind of communion they shared," Evans recalls. "He knew the book inside out and the--for want of a better word--spiritual things I was trying to get into."
Eight million dollars later, Evans has bought a new house in London and temporarily abandoned his film career. (Eric Roth, the screenwriter of Forrest Gump, will write the movie adaptation of his book.) Next year Evans will start a second novel, yet there's still a trace of resentment at the drubbing his first one took from reviewers. "The money," he says, "is blinding critics to the story." But apparently not readers.
--With reporting by Andrea Sachs/New York