Obviously, you hadn't set out to buy a zoo, let alone write a book about buying a zoo, so at what point in the process did you decide this is worth writing about?īenjamin Mee: Well, I was a journalist before, and I knew that I could only do this thing if I could get some publicity for it. I'd call her, she'd call him, and she'd call me, and we'd move on, but it took about six months.
I'm not, and I actually ended up dealing with his sister instead. I think if I would have been a proper businessman, I would've walked away, because he was so cranky. Something in him made him spike every sale for the past few years, and he was really hard to deal with, because he really couldn't bear to leave. The old guy who owned it, hadn't wanted to sell it, but he was forced to sell it by the bank.
We thought we must do this, but it wasn't a simple process. So we thought we'd just see it, to rule it out, and as soon as we did see it, we absolutely fell in love with it. I was writing a book on animal intelligence, when this thing came up, and we've all been interested in animals. Who would buy that, and why is it for sale?' We made the big mistake of actually going to see it, because we're a real animal-loving family. Then you turn the page and it has seven tigers, three lions, and a pack of wolves, and you say, 'That's crazy. The real estate details came through for this house, and it says there are 12 bedrooms and three bathrooms and 30 acres. We were actually looking for a big house for my mom to live in, with my sister and my brother and their kids, so that she wouldn't be on her own in her old age. Just as Matt Damon, in the film, wasn't looking for a zoo, we weren't either. It's interesting comparing the two, because every book has to lose things, to be translated into a movie, but (director) Cameron Crowe has done very well in keeping the essence of the story the same. Can you talk about your initial desire to buy the zoo, and what kinds of things you had to do to be approved for the buy?īenjamin Mee: The title of the film is the same as the title of my book, which details the process. I read that your actual purchase of the Dartmoor park took a lot longer to complete than in the movie.
0 kommentar(er)
