Author With Chronic Fatigue Scores a Hit

N E W   Y O R K, Aug. 29 -- Seabiscuit was the most unlikely of champions: a stubby-legged horse with knock knees, a gnarled tail and a fiery temperament.

And author Laura Hillenbrand, who wrote Seabiscuit: An American Legend, is also an unlikely champion. She suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome, a disease that made writing the book a grueling day-by-day marathon. But together, she and the once-scrappy thoroughbred created an unexpected bookselling phenomenon.

The story begins in the Great Depression. Seabiscuit, by age 2, had been raced into the ground and was almost discarded, when three unlikely men looked at the broken-spirited horse and saw something the others had missed.

"Here comes this horse from the bottom of the sport, surrounded by a jockey who had been abandoned at the racetrack as a boy, who only had one good eye," Hillenbrand said.

A Motley Crew

Seabiscuit's jockey lived in a horse stall and was, at one time, one of the worst jockeys in his sport. The horse's trainer was a cowboy type who rolled in off the mustang ranges and was virtually mute. And the owner of the budding champion was once a bicycle repairman, Hillenbrand said.

This motley crew and homely horse became champions of their era. Now more than 60 years later, they are heroes again. Seabiscuit: An American Legend spent 23 weeks on the best-seller list.

The author was so weakened by chronic fatigue syndrome that writing the book was an exhausting ordeal every day.

"The world appears to be pitching up and down and spinning to me, and I feel as if I'm pitching up and down and spinning," Hillenbrand said. "And reading and writing makes that a lot worse. A lot of times it was a matter of lying on my back in bed with my eyes closed and a pad in front of me just writing. And I would be writing over the top of what I had written on the last line. But at least it was on paper."

Childhood Passion for Horses

Hillenbrand's childhood passion for horses and the legend of Seabiscuit drove her on, even though she knew the toll that writing a novel would take a toll on her body.