Q: What was the inspiration for Pay It Forward?

CRH: About twenty years ago, I was driving alone at night in a rough area of downtown Los Angeles. My car, an old Datsun 1200, was the best I could afford at the time. I drove it constantly for business, relied on it for every cent of cash I earned; as a result, it was not in great condition. When I braked at the end of a freeway off-ramp, the engine suddenly died. All the lights went out-headlights, dash lights-and then the passenger compartment started to fill with smoke.

I jumped out of the car to see two men running toward me, one holding a blanket that he had pulled from their car's trunk. My panicked first thought was "I'm dead." Pushing past me, one of the men popped the hood of my car. My engine was on fire; flames were burning along the throttle line. This total stranger proceeded to smother the blaze with the blanket. The car could have exploded at any moment, killing all of us. The fire department arrived quickly, called by another thoughtful motorist, but by then, the fire was out. The two men had saved my car, saved me-my livelihood, possibly my life-all the time putting their own lives at risk for a stranger. Once the emergency was over, I looked up to thank them, but they were gone.

Over the following months, I decided that if I couldn't do anything to repay those two men directly, I would have to return the favor elsewhere. I started looking for someone who needed help as much as I did the night my engine burned. I believed that brand of caring could be contagious.

Q: What happened?

CRH: When I did have the opportunity to help someone, it didn't seem all that dramatic at first. I had stopped to help a woman who was stranded by the side of road in the dark. Her car wasn't in flames, just unable to hold radiator fluid. The problem wasn't serious; all I had to do was take a utility knife from my car's glove compartment, cut off the split end of the radiator hose, and reclamp it. It was when we took a drive to get water that I found out how important my help was to her.

She never told me what had happened to her in the past; what type of violence or assault she had survived. And I didn't ask. But it became clear as we talked that, in her mind, she had been in a life-threatening situation. That I was the first person to happen by, that I cared enough to stop, that I had no bad intentions toward her, was a life-and-death flip of the coin for her. She kept asking how she could repay me, offering to give me money. I wanted to hold onto the idea that I could send one more person into the world owing a favor to a stranger. "Don't pay it back to me," I said. "Pay it forward to someone else." She understood. Then I spent the next twenty years wondering what kind of world it would be if an idea like that caught fire.

Q: While writing this novel did you envision your readers "paying it forward"?

CRH: I confess that I often had fantasies of people emulating the book. There are infinite possibilities for the ways in which this could be done. How many times do we step around a homeless person on the street? "Oh, dear," we think. "That person certainly has a problem." But we let it remain their problem. We would not normally think to stop and make it our own. I'll bet almost everyone who reads this book has a warm sweater or coat in their closet that is never worn, that would never be missed. And, I bet that almost all of these same people know of a homeless person in their town. So why is that sweater or coat still in their closet, when they could take it and give to that person? It's a new way of thinking; to begin to see beyond our own problems into other people's lives and figure out if there is some way we can help them.

Q: How would you suggest that people "pay it forward"?

CRH: The possibilities are limitless. It's important to stress that it needn't be anything earth shattering. As Trevor observes in the book, "It doesn't even have to be a big thing. It might just seem like a big thing. Depending on who you do it for." A small kindness can go a long way. A few things I've done are anonymously leaving breakfast every morning on the porch of an elderly local woman who had broken her wrist. Giving my used truck to a younger friend when I bought a better car, along with a loan to get it registered and insured, on the understanding that he could pay me whenever, however, and whatever he was able. Hiring a team of men to keep up the yard work for a friend recovering from surgery. Offering a couple enough money to remodel part of their house as a rental property, thus helping them become more financially stable. And, of course, assisting people with car trouble.

Q: You have a wide spectrum of characters in Pay It Forward, and write from several different perspectives. What do you feel this adds to the story?

CRH: Someone who read Pay It Forward early on asked me whose story I thought it was. I said it was mankind's story. The various character viewpoints are at the core of the book's message. Although it's a little unorthodox, if we don't get into the heads of different characters, how can we see that, at heart, they are all the same? The driving force of the Pay It Forward concept is that the idea multiplies out, exponentially, to more and more people, touching their lives, either directly or indirectly. Because this is an idea that can affect everyone on the planet, I am hopeful that every person who reads this book will see himself or herself in its pages. This is not just the story of what happened to a couple of fictional characters. It is about all of us.

Q: Which books have most affected and inspired you?

CRH: The books that shaped me as a young person were Flowers for Algernon, Bless the Beasts and Children, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon, and Of Mice and Men. Later, as an older teenager, there was Midnight Cowboy and Cat's Cradle. The beauty of these books is that they showed me something about the human condition, something I had observed but had no words for (yet). They taught me to appreciate stories that tell the truth about who we are as humans, without painting us in a completely hopeless light. I particularly like portrayals of marginalized, edgy, down-and-out individuals who still shine with the light of humanity, with all of its courage and grace. The message of the books I've loved-and, hopefully, my own novels-is that all human beings are the same at their core.