Holiday Shopping 2023: ‘Infinity Forever’ by Dan Holland

For this installment of our holiday shopping series, we interview Dan Holland about the recent publication of his first children’s book, “Infinity Forever,” illustrated by R.W. Rich. A 1993 New Canaan High School graduate who lives in town, Holland—following the passing of his mom—wrote a book that he says he wishes he’d been able to read to his own kids when they were little. (It’s available at Elm Street Books.)

We met Monday at New Canaan Library. Here’s our conversation.

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New Canaanite: Tell us a little bit about yourself and your family in New Canaan.

Dan Holland: My family’s been in New Canaan for almost 50 years. My dad still lives here. My mother passed away five years ago, unexpectedly. I went to the New Canaan Nature Center preschool, then West School. Five brothers, one of six boys. We all went through the New Canaan system. We moved here in 1976. My wife grew up in New Canaan, as well. We were living up in Fairfield and she had always wanted to move back to New Canaan. It wasn’t until my mom passed away unexpectedly, which was a huge part of the book and getting that done—

—We’re gonna talk about that.

—that I finally relented. I love Fairfield, it’s a great town. But when my mom passed, I reassessed and thought to myself, ‘You know what? I’d like my kids to be raised here.’ And we’ve been back here for a little over four years now. My two younger brothers are in town, so 50% of us are in town. One of my brothers is a black sheep, decided to move to Darien.  

How and when did you start writing?  

I always loved writing. I remember at Saxe Middle School. Do you remember Mrs. [Jane] Teaze? I remember I wrote a poem. It was this girl that I was crazy about. And I remember, I wrote this poem about her. She wanted to include it in the poetry book at Saxe Middle School. But there was one line in particular which caused her some issues. She didn’t understand. I wrote, ‘Her wrath is like a thousand bees.’ 

You were annoying this girl.

I was a 14-year-old kid and she was this beautiful girl. But I remember Mrs. Teaze was like, ‘I don’t understand this line.’ I’m like, ‘It belongs.’ I stood by it. So I loved writing from a young age. I remember writing at West School with Mr. [Rodger] Myers, who was a teacher at Center School, he was my fourth grade teacher, and he was a legend. He went to Yale. Big runner.

Tell me about “Infinity Forever” and your mom and everything. 

Where to start, Mike? Many years ago, when we were still living in Fairfield, I was tucking in my daughter, Callie, who’s a sophomore in college now. And she might have been seven or eight years old at the time. And I wanted to explain to her, in no uncertain terms, just how much I loved her, and I was searching for the right words and it just literally came out of nowhere, ‘I love you infinity forever.’ ‘Infinity’ is how much I love you and ‘forever’ is how long I will love you. And she was a little bit confused by that. And so the book is about explaining to our kids in no uncertain terms—and my mom, I shared this at her service at the Congregational Church when she passed away unexpectedly—she left me the most valuable inheritance, which isn’t money. It’s faith, it’s family and it’s friends. Faith is whatever you believe in—God, the river, a higher power, whatever. Family, faith and friends. That’s it. Those three in that order. This book is the family part of the equation. There will be two other books coming after this one, faith and friends. This all goes back to my mom. She modeled through her life, through words and through action, the most important stuff. She was everybody’s best friend because she was so loving and caring and she modeled for me what it means to be a good parent. And I knew that she loved me.

So you have this idea to turn that emotion you articulated to your daughter into a book, to try to flesh it out for her, if not for both of you. How do you go about composing a children’s book based on an idea like that?

Great question. It may sound a little nuts, but I basically went to a place where I needed to explain, needed to write something that captured the essence of my love for my kids. I don’t know, Mike. I don’t know how many grains of sand are left in the hourglass of my life, right? I could be alive for 50 more years. I could be alive for 50 more days or 50 hours. So I wanted to make sure that there was something that my kids could hold onto, a physical something that they would know. This is a book that I wish I could have read to them when they were little kids. They know and know in certain terms that I love them and that I’d do anything for them. I think it’s pretty apparent to everybody that our world is a little nuts right now. There’s a lot of craziness out there—a lot of darkness, a lot of fear. And the older I get, the more experience I have, the more I recognize the opportunity for people like us to do our part in sharing a light. And light, I believe, conquers the darkness. And I think this book is part of the light. And I’ve said this before: In my heart of hearts I’d love this book to be on every kid’s bookshelf in America.

It sounds like putting this book together was some catharsis for you. 

Oof. Yes. 

What were you healing?

We were talking about Mr. Myers. I remember at show-and-tell in fourth grade, we were told to bring in something for show-and-tell and I brought in my teddy bear. I was in fourth grade and I was a kickball player, athlete. And when I showed it in front of the class, people started laughing. It hurt, and for years I became much less inclined to share my vulnerability, because I got laughed at. And in retrospect, having gone through the work, I understand that. They weren’t laughing out of spite or whatever. But it made me less inclined to be vulnerable. And so that was in the back of my head for many years. And it’s just fascinating how that moment in time prevented me from showing my true colors and my true self, and I’m just beginning at 48 years old to get really comfortable just being my authentic self. I think a lot of us are there. And I still have the bear. The teddy bear is on my bureau. It’s in the book. I talked to that bear. ‘We got this.’ 

That was a thing that you remembered, that stayed with you. So it makes sense to me that you would have a line on that bear. Nothing would make more sense to me. Are you saying that part of what happened for you in putting all of this together was reclaiming that moment for yourself?

I think what I’m learning over the last five, 10 years—because I’ve done a lot—I look at my old self and I’m like, ‘Who the hell are you?’ The key for me is unlearning all this stuff. Like taking off like these layers and just becoming my authentic self and being unafraid and choosing love. I’m unafraid now.

It’s interesting that you’ve come back to your hometown. I imagine in some ways as you become your authentic self, you are becoming more similar to that fourth-grader in Mr. Myers’s class? 

Yes 100%. 

Maybe for you, part of what it means to become yourself, is to undo some of what took you away from your childhood.

It can be a big difference, no doubt. One of my favorite quotes of all time is from the ‘Le Petit Prince,’ ‘The Little Prince’: ‘It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.’ And that’s been a guiding principle for me over the years. In a nutshell, this book is about leaning into and embracing love. There’s so much craziness in our world. So much insanity. And I feel like the accelerator is just continuing to push down on the level of insanity. And I want to do my little small part in spreading some light amidst all this darkness, right? And when I finished writing this book, my wife Lindsay, was basically like, ‘Why would this just be for our kids? You should be sharing this with other people.’

Dan what would your mom say, do you think, about you publishing this book?  

You trying to make me cry?  

She’s part of this. It sounds like you have reconnected with your mom as a parent to your own kids. 

I’ll tell you something my dad told me two weeks ago on the phone. I was driving on White Oak Shade before my house on Nursery, on the corner there, and he made me cry. I was thinking about this earlier today. He said, ‘Your mom is so proud of you’ and ‘You have become the man that she always knew you could become.’ And I just lost it at that point. 

I think he’s right. What’s the plot of the book? 

In a nutshell, Little Elephant is going to sleep, going to bed, after a long day. And Little Elephant’s father wants to share the five most important words to Little Elephant that he’ll ever hear, which is, ‘I love you infinity forever.’ And the book is an explanation of how deep and how wide that love is. Again, for me, it’s about faith, family and friends. And this is the family part of the equation. Those are the three things that I learned from my mom through word and deed. I wrote the book for my kids that I wish I could have read to them when they were little kids.

‘Infinity Forever’ is available on Lulu and at Elm Street Books. Holland is working with the Elm Street shop on setting up a signing in January.