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\u201cWhite Flight\u201d is the fictional tale of Joe Walsh, a teenager whose family moves to LaGrange and later Brookfield from Chicago and whose life events mirror Hillmann\u2019s own. Credit: Provided by Julia Borcherts<\/p>\n\u201cWhite Flight\u201d is the fictional tale of Joe Walsh, a teenager whose family moves to LaGrange and later Brookfield from Chicago and whose life events mirror Hillmann\u2019s own. Credit: Provided by Julia Borcherts<\/p>\n
In the 1990s, Bill Hillmann and his family moved from Rogers Park on Chicago\u2019s far north side to LaGrange during a tumultuous time \u2014 one of his sisters was recovering from being shot while his older brother was freshly released from jail.<\/p>\n
After a few years, he and his family relocated from LaGrange to Brookfield, where Hillmann has lived on-and-off for two decades and where his parents settled down once and for all.<\/p>\n
Now, the author, boxer and professor at East-West University has dramatized his family\u2019s experiences during their stay in LaGrange and time in Brookfield \u2014 the good, the bad and the ugly \u2014 in his autobiographical novel, \u201cWhite Flight,\u201d set to publish on Sept. 2 through Tortoise Books.<\/p>\n
Hillmann will celebrate the book launch with a reading and meet and greet at the Green Mill Jazz Club in Chicago, 4802 N. Broadway, on Sunday, Sept. 21, from 3-5 p.m. He said he\u2019s looking into bringing a similar event to Brookfield, too.<\/p>\n
A spiritual successor to his 2014 book \u201cThe Old Neighborhood,\u201d \u201cWhite Flight\u201d follows a mixed-race family who, much like Hillmann\u2019s own, briefly moves to LaGrange in the \u201890s before settling down in Brookfield. While Hillmann said his family is mostly white, two of his sisters are Afro-Caribbean adoptees, which added to the tension the family experienced in the suburbs, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe family, they kind of escape, but, of course, they\u2019re still goofy Chicago people. They move out onto LaGrange Road, and there\u2019s a huge culture clash that happens,\u201d Hillmann told the Landmark. \u201cAt one point in the LaGrange part, they\u2019re having a fight about something [with the neighbor] because my sister bumps their BMW \u2026 Then the lady is like, \u2018Who is she? The maid?\u2019 That really happened. They really thought that my sisters were the maids.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Brookfield resident Bill Hillmann is the author of \u201cWhite Flight,\u201d set for publication on Sept. 2. Credit: Provided by Julia Borcherts<\/p>\n
The protagonist, a teenager named Joe Walsh, experiences similar life events to Hillmann. Joe\u2019s sister is recovering from a gunshot wound when his family moves, and his brother is released from jail, too. In the meantime, the teen starts attending St. Joseph High School in Westchester, discovers his love of boxing and studies physics, just like Hillmann did.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe starts accumulating wins and fights. He wins the Golden Gloves [amateur boxing tournament], and he starts to dream about going to the Olympics,\u201d Hillmann said, based on his own time in the Olympic boxing circuit. \u201cBut every step, he kind of runs into a brick wall. Then, he finds his way through it, and then he gets to another layer, and he runs into another brick wall.\u201d<\/p>\n
The conflict in the book escalates when Joe\u2019s brother starts to fall back on his old ways and their grandmother enables his behavior, Hillmann said, culminating in a violent confrontation between the two brothers.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe decides he\u2019s got to kill his oldest brother,\u201d Hillmann said. \u201cIt\u2019s a really crazy family drama.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eventually \u2014 spoiler alert \u2014 after the story takes Joe to Louisiana and he ends up in prison alongside his brother, his brother manages to redeem himself before dying in Joe\u2019s arms. Hillmann said he and his brother really fought, physically as well as verbally, like the characters in the book, but that his real-life brother survived the ordeal and managed to turn his life around.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the book, I hint at it a little bit. As he\u2019s dying, the main character is holding his hand in the hospital inside the prison, and he\u2019s telling him, \u2018You\u2019re going to live. You\u2019re going to do great. You\u2019re going to meet a great woman, and you\u2019re going to marry her. She\u2019ll give you children, and you\u2019re going to have a big house in the suburbs, and it\u2019s going to be beautiful,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cThe real-life happy ending is the coolest thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hillmann said the 150-page manuscript that eventually became \u201cWhite Flight\u201d was first written in 2005 while he was in college and had just been introduced to the world of literature and writing, inspired by the likes of Ernest Hemingway.<\/p>\n
He started writing about the events of his life but said he \u201crealized pretty quickly that I was really embarrassed\u201d by the quality of his fledgling prose.<\/p>\n
\u201cI put that down. I went back and wrote \u2018The Old Neighborhood.\u2019 I wrote that for 10 years, and that came out in 2014. Then, I said, \u2018OK, I got to write the sequel,\u2019 so around 2015, I started working on it again,\u201d he said. \u201cI put a lot of effort into it and took a lot of years with it, and I\u2019m really happy with it. I think it\u2019s the best thing I ever wrote.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the message of the book is that there\u2019s always the possibility to overcome the obstacles you face and find redemption.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter how good you are, or how good you\u2019re trying to be, life is probably going to grab you and tear you down and drag you through the mud. The thing is, even in an inhumane environment and world, you can still hold onto your humanity, and you can overcome,\u201d he said. \u201cYour spirit can be set free, no matter how bad the things [are] you had to go through \u2026 You just got to hold onto the goodness and to the hope and love, and you can survive, and you can escape, and you can make it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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