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The Next One

30 Thursday Jun 2016

Posted by ghosteye3 in A Plot for Pridemore, author, fiction, stephen roth

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About five months ago, I completed the manuscript for my second novel. There will be a few rounds of editing ahead, but I’m confident that the stack of 324 pages in my downstairs office reads cleanly and is largely free of embarrassing typographical errors.

I do not want to give away too much about the new novel until I have more clarity on how and when it will be published. Let’s just say that the book draws from my personal experience of being part of a weekend rock band with a few of my middle-aged buddies. If you enjoyed the wry humor of my first novel, A Plot for Pridemore, I think you will appreciate the new book. Even though the characters and subject matter are quite different, the style of storytelling is very much the same.

It’s been two years since Pridemore came out, and my original goal was to complete a second novel by January 2015. That proved to be a bit ambitious, as much of my writing time is relegated to late nights after we have put our child to bed. I finished the initial draft last fall, put it through a couple of rounds of edits, then shared it with a handful of readers who provided me with some excellent advice on the story’s tone and structure. After implementing many of their ideas, I reviewed the manuscript one final time earlier this year.

I’m excited about the new novel, and a little bit proud of myself for completing it, albeit a little later than planned. I believe the new work is a topical, engaging, uniquely American story. Hopefully, it is a forward step in my life as a fiction writer, which I would love to turn into a full-time endeavor one of these days.

I will be sure to update you as soon as I have any additional news to share. In the meantime, be sure to check out A Plot for Pridemore if you haven’t already. You can find it here, along with many other fine works on the Mercer University Press website.

A Lazy Stroll with Digby Willers

13 Friday May 2016

Posted by ghosteye3 in A Plot for Pridemore, author, fiction, humor, stephen roth

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This month marks two years since my first novel, A Plot for Pridemore, was published by Mercer University Press. I have a hard time believing it has been that long since the first copies arrived on my doorstep, and I held in my hands the product I had spent so many years working on. It seems like only yesterday.

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I recently completed a second work of fiction, and I hope to tell you more about it in the near future. In the meantime, I’d like to share an excerpt from Pridemore that introduces Digby Willers, a character who plays a decisive role in the scheme to bring notoriety to the small town of Pridemore, Missouri:

A few blocks away, Digby Willers kicked an old soda can and whooped with delight as it bounced across Main Street and clanked against a curb.

He had kicked the can through most of the downtown business strip, from Saynor Circle to the blinking stoplight at Dunbar Street. The can left scuff marks on his new pair of Dingos, but Digby didn’t mind. The marks, he thought, gave the boots a real-life cowboy look.

Pang! He kicked the can into the street near the faded centerlines. It was an unseasonably hot, breezeless afternoon in late May that left the courthouse flags sagging and stray dogs sprawled and panting in the shade of a few parked cars along Pridemore’s main drag. Digby kicked his can against the stucco walls of The Lizard Lounge, which closed after Willie Larson shot Alan Carr in the thigh over some girl they were both seeing. Digby kept on kicking past the abandoned Westbrook Feed & Seed and he playfully range the big brass bell outside Truman’s Malt Shop, which no one answered because the shop’s owner, Ernie Tate, was in Farley getting an alternator for his Monte Carlo.

Anyone who strayed out into the 90-degree heat at that particular moment (and most locals had more sense than to do something like that) couldn’t have missed the 6-foot-3-inch, 280-pound man-child zigzagging his way up Main Street. Digby wore army fatigue cut-offs, an orange T-shirt smeared with peanut butter and jelly, and a Cub Scout cap that sat on the back of his head like a navy blue beanie. He had a round face with cheeks that turned crimson at the first sign of embarrassment and thick lips that curled into a slow, open-mouthed smile. His hair, yellow as lemon custard, rolled over his ears in long bangs that gave him a Prince Valiant look. Digby cared very little about that. He just knew that he hated getting haircuts.

Today, the hair was matted around his brow like a helmet. His sweaty hands clutched a brand-new five-dollar bill, as well as a perfectly smooth stone that would be great for skipping if there were a lake nearby and someone to teach him how to do it.

Several other stones scraped each other in Digby’s fatigues as he hopped the curb and stepped inside Sanderson’s Hardware, a jingling bell on the door announcing his arrival. He basked in the air conditioning and wiped his face with his shirt. The clerk, a skinny kid in a bright red apron, studied him a moment, then shook his head and walked to the back of the store.

“Hiya, Digby,” Red Sanderson called out from behind his old iron cash register. “Come to get your hot rod, I suppose?”

“Yessir.”

“Well, let’s have us a look.”

Sanderson led Digby down Aisle B, where the Pinewood Derby kits were stacked on a shelf about waist high. He watched Digby pick up one kit, examine it closely, then pick up another. Aside from the clerk, he and Digby were the only ones in the store.

The Pinewood Derby for the Cub Scouts’ Yellow Jacket District was more than two months away. But for Digby, who’d won the race nine of the past 10 years, that was barely enough time to make a serviceable racing car from a scrawny block of pine. Each May, he bought his kit the first week Sanderson’s had them in stock. He spent June and July in his mom’s garage, carving the block into an aerodynamic form and sanding it to a smooth finish. He even sanded the plastic wheels because he thought it made them faster. He topped it off by painting the car blue with white numbers and red stripes. One year he painted his car green and gold, which looked pretty cool, but he lost the final heat to Timmy Thurson.

Digby returned to the blue-and-red color scheme and hadn’t lost since. That was seven years ago. Competing against a field of mostly 10- and 11-year-olds, he was the Dale Earnhardt of Pinewood Derby racing in Pridemore.

Naturally, parents complained. The scouting committee hemmed and hawed for years on the issue, briefly making Digby an “honorary” racer, meaning whoever finished behind him could get a trophy, too. This pleased absolutely no one, and the grumbling intensified. When it came to racing little blocks of pine down a 30-foot ramp, Digby Willers was as polarizing as Rush Limbaugh or the Dixie Chicks. You loved him or hated him. There was no middle ground.

Sanderson watched for several minutes as Digby sat cross-legged on the floor, staring at seven or eight kits spread before him. Sanderson was exceedingly patient, something he honed after taking on a grenade in North Korea and spending a year in a VA hospital as they put him back together again. He could spend hours playing with his grandkids or needle-pointing a landscape of his lake house. Or he could sit behind his register, read an old paperback and wait to hear that bell on the double doors. Sometimes hours would pass between the rings.

“You gonna pick one out? They’re all the same, you know,” he said with a wink as Digby arranged more kits on the floor.

Digby stared at Sanderson as if the old man couldn’t possibly be serious, then returned to studying the kits. After a few minutes of pondering, he chose a favorite, helped Sanderson return the other kits to the shelf and followed the old man to the cash register.

“You give ‘em hell this year, Digby,” he said, ringing up the kit and putting it in a paper sack. “You hold on to that trophy.”

Digby nodded and grinned. He waved to Sanderson and the skinny clerk as he skipped out the door. The soda can was right where he left it, so he gave it a nice, swift kick.

“That’s a good boy right there,” Sanderson said. “Wish there were more like him.”

“That boy is 22 years old going on two,” the clerk said with a snicker. “What do they call it – water on the brain?”

The old man glared at the clerk before tossing him a plunger from Aisle C.

“Clean the toilet, smart guy,” Sanderson said.

To read more of A Plot for Pridemore, visit Amazon.com or Mercer University Press.

A Book Club for Pridemore

19 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by ghosteye3 in A Plot for Pridemore, author, fiction, humor, stephen roth, Uncategorized

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Over the past few months, I have been delighted to speak with a couple of book clubs that took the time to read A Plot for Pridemore. The most recent engagement was conducted via conference call with a friend’s club in North Carolina. The ladies drank wine and peppered me with questions about the book while I paced around my basement trying to summon intelligent-sounding answers. As far as Saturday night conference calls go, it was a lot of fun, and I was flattered that the book club would want to talk with me about my novel.

If you have a book club, or are thinking about starting one, let me provide you with five compelling reasons why A Plot for Pridemore would be an excellent selection:

1. The book is funny.

2. The plot is fast-moving and engaging.

3. The characters are colorful.

4. There are some dark, chilling moments that should spark interesting conversation next time your club gets together.

5. I would be happy to talk with your group about my book, whether you are in Kansas City or Kathmandu. Obviously, if you are based in Nepal, we might have to converse over the phone.

These books aren't going to sell themselves.

These books aren’t going to sell themselves.


Want to know what the book’s about? Here’s a summary:

For five heart-churning days, the world turns its attention to tiny Pridemore, Missouri, where rescue teams work around the clock to free a mentally challenged man from a collapsed cave.

That’s how Mayor Roe Tolliver envisions it, anyway. Weary of watching the town he’s led for more than forty years slide into economic oblivion, the mayor hatches a devious and dangerous plan-trap a local man in the bowels of nearby Dragon’s Ice House cavern, start a massive rescue operation, and prompt a media vigil that puts Pridemore on the map for decades to come.

Over the course of a year, the mayor and his cronies carry out the convoluted scheme, which involves everything from bilking state money for a bogus tourist attraction to hiring a militia “ballistics consultant” to detonate the limestone cavern. Their success hinges on unassuming pawn Digby Willers, whose simple-minded likeability provides human interest in the made-for-television crisis. As events unfold, however, forces beyond even the mayor’s control turn Digby’s rescue into a real, life-or-death drama.

Get ready for a fast-paced romp filled with quirky characters, hilarious twists and turns, and a small town that just might get its fifteen minutes of fame.

You can find more information about A Plot for Pridemore on the Mercer University Press website, as well as Amazon. If you’re interested in reading the book with your club, please send me a comment and let me know.

What to do with All These Books?

02 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by ghosteye3 in A Plot for Pridemore, author, fiction, stephen roth

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A year ago, when the first copies of my novel arrived, it was exhilarating to open that cardboard box and hold the hard-bound product of several years’ hard work in my hands.

Since that time, I have sold more than 100 copies of A Plot for Pridemore from my personal inventory. I still have another 25 copies sitting in a basement closet, just waiting to be read.

So here’s the deal: if you are looking for a good summer read, or a possible Father’s Day gift for a friend or loved one who enjoys fiction, send me a quick message with your mailing address. For $15, I will mail you a signed copy of my book.

It has been a blast promoting and sharing my book with readers over the past year, but I really need to find a home for these copies of Pridemore, and free up some extra closet space while I’m at it. Send me a comment (I will not post it publicly) if you’re interested. Thanks!

Interview with the Southern Literary Review

28 Thursday May 2015

Posted by ghosteye3 in A Plot for Pridemore, author, fiction, stephen roth, Uncategorized

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a plot for pridemore, allen mendenhall, fiction, mercer university press, southern fiction, southern literary review

A few weeks ago, Allen Mendendhall posted a view nice interview with me on the Southern Literary Review‘s website. I thought he asked some great questions that really got me to think about why I wrote things a certain way in A Plot for Pridemore. What follows is the the conversation in its entirety:

AM: Pridemore, Missouri—the setting for your novel, A Plot for Pridemore. Why this place in particular?

SR: Missouri has been my home for the past 26 years, so it made sense to write about a part of the country that was very familiar to me. I also felt that basing Pridemore in Missouri would allow me to start the story with something of a clean slate. Readers have preconceptions and expectations when you write about events that happen in places like Florida, Texas or Alabama. Few people living outside of the Show-Me State have a strong opinion about Missouri. I felt that could work to my advantage in portraying Pridemore as kind of a struggling Anytown, USA.
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AM: A Plot for Pridemore is your first novel. What did you find most challenging about writing the book?

SR: I think the biggest challenge for a first-time author is the lingering fear that what you are producing is not quality work. While working on Pridemore, I felt that I had a compelling topic, and I enjoyed writing it, but I didn’t know if it was any good until people starting reading the manuscript. It was very important to me that I selected a handful of professional writers to read my first draft, in addition to the usual collection of family and friends. When my writing colleagues reported back (some with surprised looks on their faces) that they thought my book was pretty good, I was genuinely relieved. Their feedback gave me the resolve to continue improving the manuscript and to seek a publisher.

AM: I can think of characters from history and literature who seem similar to Mayor Tolliver. I’m assuming this figure didn’t spring fully formed in your mind in a single moment of creative genius. How did he come about?

SR: I would have to say that Roe Tolliver is a composite of a few different people I have known over the years. I was a newspaper reporter for much of my 20s and 30s, and I was blessed to meet a wide range of scoundrels, blowhards, narcissists, and all-around colorful characters while covering city politics and business. I also came to know many fine, capable public servants and business leaders. However, I leaned on some of the more outlandish characters from my reporting days to create Mayor Tolliver. Of course, a lot of his quirks and motivations came from my imagination as well.

Incidentally, I believe that reporting is a wonderful education on how the world operates when you are a young adult. The pay and career track aren’t so great, but reporting is an excellent way to learn how to write, and what to write about. You also meet an incredible array of people. Neil Young once said that he would rather travel in the ditch than in the middle of the road because he “saw more interesting people there.” The same could be said of newspaper reporting.

AM: Tell us about your decision to divide the book not only into chapters but into parts. Is there any subtle significance to that decision?

SR: Since the book covers a full year, I thought it would be helpful to the reader to break the text into the three seasons when most of the action takes place: Summer, Spring, and Summer again. I have no idea if this approach added any value to Pridemore. You are the first person to mention the parts of the book to me.

AM: Where did you grow up?

SR: My father was involved in textiles, so we split our time between Georgia and South Carolina when I was growing up. Most of my boyhood took place in LaGrange, Georgia, which I consider to be my hometown.

AM: I lived in West Virginia for several years and came to know several “Pridemores.” It’s sad and sometimes eerie but also, in a way, strangely beautiful to behold once-thriving cities and towns that are now decaying, their buildings and roads in disrepair, their downtowns now ghost towns. How does this make you feel? Is this something you’re passionate about? Were you making any kind of political statement in your novel by focusing on Pridemore?

SR: I did not set out to make a political statement. However, I know Pridemore’s problems are shared by many American towns as the country continues its shift from a rural to an urban society. It’s a very topical issue, and you don’t have to look very hard to find a feature story in The New York Times or Wall Street Journal about some spunky town in the middle of nowhere that is trying to get its act together, even though there may no longer be an economic reason for it to exist. I think those stories about people pulling together to save their towns are beautiful and inspiring. Hopefully, none of those towns go to the drastic lengths that Pridemore does to revive their fortunes.

I have always loved the intimacy of the small town. The ability to get from one place to the next in just a couple of minutes, and to run into someone you know everywhere you go, are things you take for granted until you live in a city. If the evening news is any indication, those places on the map where you can leave your front door unlocked or let your kids walk alone to a friend’s house are rapidly disappearing. In Pridemore, Missouri, I tried to create a place with that small-town intimacy that readers could believe and visualize. I’ve been told by a handful of readers that Pridemore reminds them of the towns they knew growing up. I love hearing that.

AM: It’s unusual to ask an author about his publisher, but I want to do so only because Mercer University Press seems to be coming out with several books, like yours, that readers of contemporary Southern literature will appreciate and enjoy. What caused you to submit to Mercer?

SR: A few years ago, I started sending out query letters to agents and publishers, but I had not considered pitching A Plot for Pridemore to a university press. Then, in 2011, I attended the Chattahoochee Valley Writers Conference in Columbus, Georgia, where I met Marc Jolley, who is director of Mercer University Press. He encouraged me to enter my manuscript in Mercer’s annual contest for the Ferrol Sams Fiction Award. I submitted Pridemore and, a few months later, received an email from Dr. Jolley asking me to call him. Lo and behold, my book won, and part of the award was a publishing contract. I feel very fortunate to have run into Dr. Jolley in Columbus.

Mercer University Press does produce an impressive number of books, both fiction and non-fiction, that any lover of Southern culture would enjoy. You can check out all of their titles at http://www.mupress.org.

AM: Just a couple more questions. First, A Plot for Pridemore features an interesting relationship between Pete and Angela. What motivated this part of the book?

SR: One of my goals in the book was to give each of the main characters a dark side that would lend them more authenticity. There are no white knights arriving to save the day in A Plot for Pridemore. Pete Schaefer is the newspaper reporter for the Pridemore Evening Headlight whose job it is to unravel the mayor’s devious plan to save the town. I could have drawn Pete as a bona fide good guy, but that just didn’t seem right. His relationship with Angela reveals a different layer to Pete’s personality that even he finds to be a little unsettling.

AM: You were born in LaGrange, Georgia, and now live in Kansas City. Do you feel that Southern authors are under-appreciated at the national and even international level?

SR: Everyone has their own opinion of the South, much of it having to do with politics. I believe that many Americans have an appreciation for the rich cultural gifts the South has given us, from music to cuisine to literature. I don’t think that Southern authors as a whole are under-appreciated. I do think that some of the South’s finest literary writers, from Ron Rash to Charles Portis to Terry Kay, have not received the public acclaim they deserve, but that’s probably true of any genre of fiction.

New Books from Harper Lee and Some Guy Named Stephen Roth

04 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by ghosteye3 in A Plot for Pridemore, current events, fiction, humor, media, my life, satire

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On Monday, Harper Lee dropped a literary bombshell by announcing to the world that her second novel, Go Set a Watchman, is set to be published this summer.

Today, Stephen Roth amused a few of his friends and a smattering of other fiction readers by announcing work on his second novel, tentatively titled An American Band, which he hopes will be published someday.

“I have nothing but profound respect for Harper Lee. I’ve been a huge fan of hers since I was in 6th grade,” Roth said in a recent interview. “I’m not trying to steal any thunder from her big announcement, but I wanted to let people know that I am halfway through writing my second book, and I hope to finish the first draft this summer.”

Lee’s first novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is an American literary classic, and still sells hundreds of thousands of copies each year. The book spawned an iconic movie, in which Gregory Peck portrayed the soft-spoken but courageous small-town lawyer, Atticus Finch. Go Set a Watchman, described as a sequel to Mockingbird, will be Lee’s first published work since 1961.

A pretty good rookie effort.

A pretty good rookie effort.

Roth’s first novel, A Plot for Pridemore, was published last May, and has earned 22 positive reader reviews on Amazon.com. The author has described book sales as “pretty good so far,” but declined to share specific figures. He noted that the book is available as a Kindle or Nook eBook, “if people prefer to read it that way.”

Unlike Lee’s new book, An American Band is not a sequel, although it does share the same humorous storytelling style as Roth’s rookie effort. The new novel focuses on two groups of people: a three-man, middle-aged rock band in Charlotte, N.C. that decides to go on tour, and a collection of retired conspiracy theorists in South Georgia who are ready to engage in radical activism. Roth said he has enjoyed writing about how these two distinct groups become intertwined. To date, he has completed 160 pages of An America Band.

The announcement of Lee’s new book has sparked a firestorm of excitement and speculation. Fans have been clamoring for another book from the reclusive Alabama author for 55 years. The book’s publisher, Harper, plans to print two million copies of Go Set a Watchman, according to an article in The New York Times.

Roth expressed excitement about his own second novel, and said he felt the need to “get the word out” about it.

“I’ve gotten a few emails from people asking me when I’m going to write another book, so I felt like now was a good time to make some sort of announcement,” Roth said. “It’s nice to know that some people are interested in reading another one of my books.”

Stephen Roth is the author of the humorous novel, A Plot for Pridemore. Be sure to “like” his author fan page at https://www.facebook.com/StephenRothWriter

The Rule of Five

30 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by ghosteye3 in A Plot for Pridemore, fiction, satire, Uncategorized

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Five years to write.

Five years to find a publisher.

Five stars on Amazon.com.

A Plot for Pridemore is now available in paperback, Kindle or Nook.

Georgia on My Mind

08 Wednesday Oct 2014

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One thing I have learned in my three-plus months as a published author: sometimes things don’t work out exactly as you had planned.

PlotForPridemore (2)I was originally slated to speak about A Plot for Pridemore at the Georgia Literary Festival in Augusta on the weekend of November 7-9. Last week, I learned that the festival had been canceled for this year. This sent me scrambling to set up new gigs to fill up my weekend visit to Georgia.

Thanks to some understanding folks who were willing to work with me on just a few weeks’ notice, I have been able to pull together a few appearances in the Peach State:

At 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 8, I will sign books and possibly do a reading from Pridemore at FoxTale Book Shoppe in Woodstock. FoxTale is one of the top independent bookstores in the Atlanta area, and has hosted many Mercer University Press authors over the years. I am thrilled that FoxTale is willing to fit me into its schedule on such short notice.

At 1 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 9, I will be signing books at the Barnes & Noble in Columbus. This will not be a formal author appearance, but I will be in the bookstore’s coffee shop to meet with people and chat.

Finally, at 6 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 10, I will be speaking and signing books at the LaGrange Memorial Library as part of its “Author Talk” series. This is especially meaningful because it is the first author event I have done in my hometown of LaGrange. I am really looking forward to catching up with friends I haven’t seen in a few years.

So that’s the plan for my trip to Georgia next month. If you happen to be around those parts on that particular weekend, or know someone who is, I would appreciate some company at any of my scheduled appearances. Can’t wait to get down there!

Another Review on Pridemore

29 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by ghosteye3 in A Plot for Pridemore, book review, fiction, humor, my life

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I have been so very fortunate to have received lots of praise for A Plot for Pridemore. Currently on Amazon.com there are 16 consumer reviews that give the book the maximum five stars, which is almost a little embarrassing. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by comparison, averages a mere 4.3 stars on Amazon. There is no way my book is five-star worthy, but I do appreciate the enthusiasm.

The big banner will travel with me this summer as I share the good word about Pridemore.

The big banner will travel with me this summer as I share the good word about Pridemore.

The book has also been fortunate to have collected some positive press in Foreward Reviews, The Kansas City Star and my hometown LaGrange Daily News. The most recent review is from Southern fiction blog Dew on the Kudzu. I don’t know that the writer enjoyed my book very much. She found many of the characters to be unlikable, which I can understand. Everyone in A Plot for Pridemore has a dark side, some darker than others. All in all, it is a pretty cynical tale.

At any rate, I am grateful for what publicity I can get. I’ll let you know if I see any more reviews of Pridemore posted in the near future!

Pridemore Excerpt: Pete Schaefer

13 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by ghosteye3 in A Plot for Pridemore, fiction, humor, my life, satire, Uncategorized

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a plot for pridemore, literary fiction, mercer university press, missouri, satire, southern fiction, Stephen Roth

One of the key characters in A Plot for Pridemore is a young, frustrated newspaper reporter named Pete Schaefer. As a journalist, it is his job to peel aware the layers of what could be most scandalous story in the history of Pridemore, Missouri.

This is NOT Pete Schaefer.

This is NOT Pete Schaefer.

There is no reason, however, to believe that Pete is up to the task. He spends most of his time mired in loneliness and self-pity, occasionally summoning the ambition to scroll through job listings in the latest edition of Editor & Publisher.

As a former small-town reporter myself, I can relate to Pete’s anxieties, although he is not a carbon copy of me in my 20s (at least I hope not). Anyway, here is how we first get to know Pete in A Plot for Pridemore…

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Expelling a long, low groan, Pete Schaefer slapped the facsimile from Edwards Funeral Home on the computer clipboard and started typing:

Naomi D. Elbert of Marshall City, formerly of Brush Hill, died Sunday, May 25, at Truman Retirement Center. She was 81.

Before anything else Monday morning, Pete’s job required him to type the obituaries of everyone who died over the weekend – often a lengthy assignment given the number of blue-hairs in the region. Right now he was on Obit No. 8, his mind so far removed from what he was doing that he’d unwittingly invented two new ways to spell Naomi.

Pete found it hard to concentrate on the obits, or “Oh-bitches,” as his coworkers sometimes called them. After a year at the Pridemore Evening Headlight, the formula was so ingrained that he would merely slap the funeral notice on the clipboard and let his fingers clack away at their 50-words-a-minute pace. This freed him to contemplate the newsroom’s avocado green decor, the fluorescent light that flickered annoyingly over his head and a faded poster that advertised the Affair on the Square arts and crafts show from 1986.

Funeral services will be held 2 p.m. Tuesday at the Edwards Funeral Chapel with the Rev. Edwin Hodge officiating. Visitation will take place prior to services.

Edna Bright fastened one of her Jimmy Carter grins on Pete as she waddled past his desk. It was a rare morning he beat her to work. Plump and cheery as a Christmas ham, she was the Headlight’s society editor and probably the most contented person Pete had ever met. Watching her swing an oversized purse around the back of her chair while singing an off-key version of “Escape (The Pina Colada Song),” he wondered if Edna Bright wasn’t the source of the old notion that all fat people are jolly.

Pete kept his head down, pretending to focus on his work: Survivors include one sister, Maureen Dowell of LaGrange; two sons, John Elbert of St. Louis and Duane Elbert of Wellsville; and a daughter, Yula Mae Lowry of Forest Park.

Edna nibbled a doughnut and slurped her coffee while reading the St. Louis Intelligencer, occasionally clucking an “Oh, my,” or a disapproving “Ewww!”

Then silence. No slurping. No ewwws. Peter sensed her beady eyes, dark as night, watching him.

“Hiya Pete,” she said when he finally looked up. “How’s your morning?”

Slowly turning from his computer, Pete decided to shock her with a smile of his own. Not one of those put-on numbers he gave the cut-and-paste girls in production that even they could see through, but a real, genuine smile.

“How are you, Edna?” he asked so naturally as to make you think he said it every morning.

Edna wasn’t surprised. If anything, she seemed encouraged.

“Say Pete, did you catch The McClusky Files last night?”

“The McClusky Files,” he said, vaguely recalling the show in which an aging actor plays an aging detective. “Is that the one that’s set in Miami?”

“No, you’re thinking of Randy Slaughter, Medical Examiner,” she said. “McClusky Files is in L.A.”

“Of course.”

“I just really love that McClusky, don’t you? I mean, he’s nice and polite like a gentleman should be, but he’s tough, too. He always gets his man and he’s not afraid to call a spade a spade, if you know what I mean.”

Edna smiled. “I can tell that’s probably the way he is in real life, too.”

Pete gave one of those half laughs that most people would read as a sign of disinterest. Not Edna.

“Last night was one of the better ones,” she said. “McClusky and these other people are guests on this millionaire’s yacht, you see. And, almost as soon as they all get on board, the millionaire disappears.”

“Really?” Pete said.

“So all of a sudden, people just start disappearing: the millionaire’s wife, the movie star—”

“—the professor and Mary Anne?” he offered.

Edna giggled to show she caught the reference, and went on.

“Usually I’m pretty good at picking out the murderer before everyone else. But I didn’t have a clue on this one. Jerry thought it was the millionaire, but what does he know? I mean, he’s the only guy in Rotary who thought O.J. was innocent, you know?”

“Right.”

“Just when we’re at to the part where McClusky’s gonna nail the bad guy, I get this phone call from my daughter, Alicea. She’s about your age, you know.”

Edna was shaking now, her banshee cackle filling the mostly empty newsroom.

“So I get off the phone and I rush back to ask Jerry whodunnit. Well, he’s already switched the channel to SportsCenter. Took me six phone calls to find out it was the Portuguese deck hand who strangled ‘em all with a piano wire and threw their bodies overboard.

“Ewwwww,” she said. “I almost strangled someone myself last night!”

“That’s funny,” Pete offered in a tone that suggested he didn’t think it was funny at all. He gave her a tight smile and returned to his computer.

Edna let out a huff and left her desk for another cup of coffee. Peter felt pretty evil for leading her on like that. He could be pretty mean when he was depressed, and he was depressed nearly all of the time lately.

He thought about starting another conversation when Edna returned. But the other staffers were ambling in and he needed to call the area cops to see if there‘d been any overnight car wrecks. Obits and road fatalities – it was some sweet gig he’d scored for himself more than a year removed from journalism school. Woodward and Bernstein had better watch their jocks.

From the corner of his eye he watched Edna settle into her seat. He’d come up with something thoughtful to say to her first thing tomorrow, even if he had to watch network television to do it.

____________________________

The afternoon sun sprayed rivulets of light through the dusty blinds that hung over Pete’s futon. Angela sat up, crossed her skinny legs under the sheet and watched Pete sift through the dirty clothes, old magazines and sports gear that cluttered his bedroom closet.

“What are you looking for?”

He smiled as his fingers grazed the beat-up leather briefcase.

“My soul,” he said, pulling the briefcase out of the closet and opening it.

“Wow,” she said as he pulled out a fistful of typed pages. “You wrote all
that?”

“It’s nothing. Maybe 200 pages in all, double-spaced.”

“That’s nothing?”

“Not for a book,” he said. “You heard of Schubert’s unfinished symphony? This is Schaefer’s unfinished novel.”

“Wow,” she repeated, plopping next to him on the floor. Save for the three-legged recliner that tilted like a sinking ship in Pete’s living room, there were no chairs in his one-bedroom apartment, so the two spent most of their time on the futon or the floor.

“You never told me you were a writer,” Angela said.

“I’m a newspaper reporter. You know that.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know you were a writer,” she laughed, folding her arms across her chest. “What’s it about?”

“Oh, your typical Coming-of-Age, Loss of Innocence, Love Story.”

“Sort of like Great Expectations?” Angela suggested.

“Yeah,” Pete said, and he gave her a soft kiss. “Except with zombies.”

“Can I read it?”

He flicked through the pages before finding a chapter he liked, the one in which Sully and Bart take Bettger down to Creepy Woods for one last bong hit. He ran his hand through her long hair and studied her crinkled brow as she read, making note of whether she smiled at the funny parts. She giggled once or twice, always a good sign.

It was that giggle that reminded him of Angela’s current status on the high school varsity cheerleading squad. Most of the time, Pete thought her comparable to the somber, artistically inclined women he’d dated in college. The crinkle in Angela’s brow gave her a thoughtful look that seemed older than her years and she could quote whole passages of Dickinson or Thoreau. He would almost start to take her seriously until, in a beautifully unguarded moment, she’d relate a fart joke she learned in study hall or clumsily pick the chords to “Smoke on the Water” on his guitar. That’s when the giggle came out and it was suddenly Saved By The Bell time at Pete’s place.

He loved and detested that giggle. Loved its affirmation that he could make someone laugh at a time in his life when he didn’t laugh much at all. Hated how it reminded him that what he was doing with Angela went beyond the bounds of acceptable adult behavior. He’d tried many times to tell her this. Well, once or twice. But Angela would just giggle and kiss him and tell him to shut up, and Pete would mind his manners as they crawled back onto the futon.

They met in October at a downtown festival called Olde Pridemore Days. He’d seen her around town a couple of times, hanging at Truman’s Malt Shop with her high school buddies or passing through the newspaper office to drop off her “Teen Beat” column. But Olde Pridemore Days was the first time they really talked.

He remembered almost every detail of that day: she wore a spaghetti string halter top and a pair of ripped-up blue jeans, edgy stuff for a Sunday in Pridemore. They spent the day walking around, eating Sno-Cones and funnel cakes, making fun of the lame country/western act on the main stage. They talked about books and music, and how cool it would be to move to Paris, just living and writing like Hemingway and Fitzgerald and those other Lost Generation guys.

They made out that night on the courthouse steps, an encounter that soon led to Angela’s afternoon visits to Pete’s apartment when she could slip out of her independent studies class. The first four visits, Pete was able to pull back, throw on his jeans and mumble something about getting Angela back to school before the start of seventh period. The fifth time they reached the precipice, an unseasonably warm February day when Pete was supposed to be covering a livestock show in Hodgeville, Angela straddled his waist, grabbed his shirt with her fists and said in a husky voice, “I’m not taking no for an answer.”

Pete gave in. He hated himself for it, but not enough to stop meeting Angela at his place most Wednesday afternoons. He was weak. He was stupid. But mostly he was bored. She was the only girl he’d met since moving to Pridemore, and he was tired of pretending he didn’t like having her around.

“How long ago did you write this?” Angela asked when she finished the chapter.

“It’s been a while. I haven’t really touched it since college.”

“You ought to finish it,” she said, pulling him close. “I mean, think how much you’ve improved as a writer since then.”

“Really?” he asked. “You think it needs work?”

“I dunno. I mean, this part about the guys drinking and partying, making all the pop culture references – it’s funny, but it’s kind of played out, you know?”

She wiped a strand of hair from her mouth and gave a half-smile.

“It kinda reads like a beer commercial.”

He was still reeling from the blow as they drove to the high school in his beat-up Ford Explorer. Kinda reads likes a beer commercial. This from someone who ate Oreo cookies icing first, who’d only recently shifted her musical allegiance from Beyonce to Taylor Swift. It was a mistake letting her read his book, he thought. Did he expect an educated response from someone who was struggling to maintain a B average in junior English?

Come to think of it, this whole thing was a mistake. And driving Angela to school was beyond dangerous. They were getting very careless, Pete thought. He watched her light a Marlboro while grooving to a pop song on the radio. It was amusing to watch her smoke because she hadn’t mastered how to tap the ash off a cigarette.

“What did I tell you about smoking in my truck?” he asked.

“That I’m allowed to do it except when you’re pissed over something I said about a book you wrote.”

“I’m not mad.”

She leaned across the gear shift and kissed his cheek.

“I’m such a meanie,” she said with a pout that was both cute and condescending. “I guess when you’ve been reading Crime and Punishment for two weeks, everything else reads like a beer commercial.”

“Oh, so now I’m not even as good as Dostoyevsky?” he said, breaking into a grin as they approached their drop-off point near the gym.

She gave him a kiss that surprised him with its deepness. It was the kind she planted on him that night at the courthouse steps.

“I love you,” she said in a throaty whisper. “I know you hate that, but I do.”

“Okay,” Pete said, handing Angela her books as she stepped out of the truck. “Just don’t tell your daddy.”

____________________________

Pete was explaining his premature baldness to a waitress when his buddy, Headlight sportswriter Dave Felton, walked into One-Eyed Willie’s, the only Pridemore establishment left with a liquor license since the Lizard Lounge closed.

“Yeah, my brother’s losing a little on top himself,” the waitress said. “He’s pretty freaked out about it.”

“It’s genetic, you know,” Pete told her after a sip from his longneck. “It’s passed down from your mother’s side of the family.”

The waitress pondered this for a minute.

“My mom’s not bald,” she said.

Felton and Pete exchanged the same weary look they shared in the newsroom whenever Edna referred to the president’s anti-terrorism policy as The War on Towel Heads.

Like two strangers in a strange land, Felton and Pete clung to each other almost out of necessity. They were both about the same age and both St. Louis natives. They both enrolled in journalism school with grand thoughts of someday working for The Washington Post or The New York Times, and they both graduated into a crappy job market with $18,000 salaries at a newspaper they’d never heard of (“This,” Felton said after a couple of whiskey shots one night at Willie’s, “is what is known as paying your dues.”).

Meeting once or twice a week at Willie’s had become something of a social highlight for Pete. He cringed to think what Pridemore would be like without having a friend around.

He nodded toward the baseball highlights on the overhead TV. “Cards took a pounding today.”

“No pitching, yet again,” Felton replied.

Pete ordered a Bud Light and surveyed Willie’s decor of birds, bayonets and batting helmets. It beat looking at the clientele, which this night consisted of two utility workers and a woman with mall bangs dancing alone. The jukebox was playing its usual mix of Three Dog Night, BTO and, in a token nod to the ‘80s, Night Ranger.

“Larry asked about you today,” Felton said. “He’s starting to wonder where you’re spending your Wednesday afternoons.”

“I’m spending them at home,” Pete said with a shrug. “Comp time.”

Felton shook his head and laughed. “You’re an idiot.”

“What?”

“He’s gonna find out.”

“I guess I’ll be out of a job, then.

“It’s kind of like detonating a highly sensitive explosive,” Pete added after some thought. “You never know when it’s going to just blow up in your hands.”

“Don’t romanticize it, Schaefer. You’re screwing your boss’s daughter. Your boss’s 17-year-old daughter.” He laughed as he fished his shirt pocket for a lighter. “You’re just an idiot, that’s all.”

“You said that already.”

The door creaked open, and Felton and Pete glanced back as if they expected Angelina Jolie and Scarlett Johansson to drop by for drinks on their way through town. But it was just some grubby guy in a shirt with his name on it. The dancing woman left her spot at the jukebox to give him a lingering hug.

“Done any work on your book lately?” Felton asked.

“Looked at it today, that’s all,” Pete said with a sigh. “How’s yours coming?”

“I can’t summon the muse,” the sportswriter said. “Every night, I sit there, blinking at a blank screen. I end up watching re-runs of Seinfeld and falling asleep on the couch.”

Pete laughed. “It’s this town, you know? It’s sapping our brains.”

“Yeah,” Felton agreed, mashing his cigarette into an ashtray. “I need to get out of this fucking town.”

Pete looked at the TV, which was flashing highlights from the previous night’s Marlins-Phillies game.

“Florida would be nice,” Felton said, reading Pete’s mind.

“I’ve got an uncle in Jacksonville,” Pete said. “We could crash at his place until we found jobs. Maybe we could open a hot dog stand on the beach, or whatever.”

“Felton’s Franks, we’d call it,” Felton said.

“That could give us some cash until our novels got published. We’d open for lunch at eleven and close around two so we could get some beach time—”

“—and watch the sun go down each evening with our beautiful, bikini-clad girlfriends,” Felton added. “When do we leave?”

“Tomorrow,” Pete said instinctively. “How much money you got saved up?”

“About two hundred – give or take a hundred.”

“I’ve got about five hundred,” Pete said, really thinking now. “So we’ve got enough for the drive and maybe a week after that.”

“Should we give two weeks’ notice?”

“In two weeks we’ll lose our nerve,” Pete said. “It’s gotta be now.”

Felton took a thoughtful drag from his Camel and grinned. Meatloaf was on the jukebox now, wailing about how two outta three ain’t bad.

“You don’t even have an uncle in Florida, do you?”

The door opened. Felton and Pete glanced back, in case a starlet appeared.

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I am a mother of five active, sometimes aggravating children that drive me crazy, provide me with lots of entertainment and remind me constantly about the value of love and family. I am married to my best friend. He makes me laugh every day (usually at myself). I love to eat, run, write, read and then eat again, run again…you get it. I am a children's author, having published four books with MeeGenuis (The Halloween Costume, When Santa Was Small, The Baseball Game, and The Great Adventure Brothers). I have had several pieces of writing published on Adoptive Families, Adoption Today, Brain Child, Scary Mommy, and Ten To Twenty Parenting. I am also a child psychologist, however I honestly think that I may have learned more from my parents and my children than I ever did in any book I read in graduate school. This blog is a place where I can gather my thoughts and my stories and share them with others. My writing is usually about kids and trying to see the world through their eyes, a few about parenting, adoption (one of my children is adopted) and some other random thoughts thrown in… I hope you enjoy them! So grab a cup of coffee, or a glass of wine, depending on what time of day it is (or what kind of day it is) and take a few minutes to sit back, relax and read. Please add your comments or opinions, I know you must have something to say, and I would love to hear it. Thanks for stopping by. Anne Cavanaugh-Sawan

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