James Franco Gains New Book Fans

Clad in a denim black jacket, jeans and sunglasses, James Franco walked into Kepler’s holding a Dutch Goose baseball cap in one hand and an anthology of James Joyce in the other.

A group of admirers at the front door gushed with emotion and squealed that he said, “Hello.” They quickly got on their smartphones to share with friends.

Franco starred in 127 Hours for which he received an Academy Award nomination, appeared in Oz, Spring Breakers, Pineapple Express, Spiderman, Freaks and Geeks, and the daytime soap-opera General Hospital.

Yet the Palo Alto native had not stopped by the Menlo Park book and magazine store Monday for his movie roles, but as part of his book tour for “A California Childhood,” his second book about his hometown in which he shares his artistic side through the use of personal artifacts like photographs, paintings and poems.

Sipping from a venti-sized Starbucks cup filled with black coffee, the 35-year-old actor, author, director, painter and professor sat alongside his mother Betsy Franco, an accomplished author, playwright and actor in her own right.

In this forum with nearly 325-pairs of eyeballs staring at them, Betsy asked her son questions, including why he chose the books current format, which blended family photographs with fictional text.

“At first I tried to keep things separate, but in fact found that once I accepted it and took down the walls and allowed different aspects of my life to come together, there was great energy created,” James said. “When the photographs are juxtaposed with fiction, they are revitalized in a certain way.”

James admitted to his mom that after he wrote Palo Alto, he didn’t want her to read it and think it was real. Though he acknowledged that some reality is hidden within the fiction.

“I got insight into my son’s creative process,” Betsy said. “I feel refreshed, it was really fun for me.” 

The interaction between the two revealed a lot to Betsy, who has written more than 80 books, some for children and more recently for young adults.
 
“I learned about my son,” she told Palo Alto Patch. “I don’t always have a chance to sit down with my son for an hour and discuss work. Yes at dinner sometimes, but it's never that focused.”

Betsy first Young Adult book Metamorphosis delves into the complex life of a teen boy and he records his world in his imaginative. Her latest novel, Naked, will be out this Fall.

While Betsy’s books are fiction, like James, there’s something about her in each one.

“I feel that all my books are memoirs,” she said. “I find that I'm always writing about my own issues but in a different context.” 

The thread of writing and expressing the adolescent experience runs through the work of the Franco family. For example, James shared his admiration for filmmakers like Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting and Milk) and Haromy Korine (Kids and Spring Breakers), both whom he’s worked with.

Adolescence “it's a period before you get into the routine of the rest of your life,” James said. “It's a great way to maximize drama. Everything feels really intense or really slow.”

And despite growing up in Palo Alto, which James explained “is not a sociological study of what it's like to grow up in the world, it's only one side,” he said that as a teenager he felt the same intensity about life as any other teen.

“I keep turning to youth and some of the things we try to figure out young,” he said. 

The intergenerational audience at Kepler listened intently to every word and learned more about James and his family.

“I thought it was interesting to hear his thought process. None of his answered seemed rehearsed,” said Los Gatos resident Michelle Brumm, 29.

Brumm stood with her friend Maria Yeamans, 26, at the end of a very long line to get their books signed. Yeamans didn’t know he was an author.

“I just found out he wrote books. Just knew him as an actor,” she said. “It explains him a lot more. He made more sense to me.”