I hear from the publisher and the powers-that-be that The Mulligans of Mt. Jefferson is doing really well in the bookstores, on the online outlets and with the ebook markets. The Statler Brothers mail order website has been jumping and I’ve been busy with phone interviews all over the country with the press. I think I have answered every question imaginable about the who, the why and the how of the story and all its characters. Just the other day someone asked me in an interview what my most asked questions were about the book and because it took me a few seconds to think about it, I was very impressed with the question. I thought I’d share the answer with you.
These are probably the three most asked questions I get from interviewers and readers alike:
Is Mt. Jefferson a real town?
Yes, it is but it’s not known by that name. My hometown, the place where I was born and still live is Staunton, Virginia. It’s a small town, about 22,000, in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley in the mid-western part of the state. I have stolen its identity and location and renamed it to my liking, and used it as the setting in two novels – O Little Town and The Mulligans… Then I’ve written about it, not as it is but as it was. I was a child in the decade of the 50s and the streets and the stores, the merchants and the people are as I see them in my sweetest of memories. So, yes, it is very real to me.
Are any of your characters actual people you know?
Yes, but the names have been changed to protect the guilty. (I couldn’t resist saying that even though it is fundamentally false.) I have never taken a complete person and transferred him or her to the page. I do admit to taking a little of Tom, a little of Dick and a smidge of Harry and making a ‘new and improved’ character. If any of my old or current friends (or enemies) see any of themselves in anything I write, it is only fleeting. They can never say, “That’s me he desecrated and defiled!” They can only say, “I think that might have been me he was thinking about.” This not only preserves friendships, it also discourages lawsuits.
What’s the difference in writing songs and writing books?
My standard answer is, “About 300 pages.” But the long answer is this. I trained myself for 40 years to tell a story inside of three minutes and make it rhyme. Then I get this wild notion to write books and I’m told to take as long as I like. It was like diving into a pool of chocolate. I couldn’t believe the luxury I was being offered. I can take months to write it; use as many pages as I desire; have as many characters as I think necessary; and don’t have to worry about a word to rhyme with orange. (I used that example because there is no word that rhymes with orange. Just a little tidbit that every songwriter knows.)
As I get more MAQs I’ll share them with you. Right now I have to run. I have an interview in ten minutes with someone who is just dying to ask me one of these three questions.
–DSR
Feb. 13, 2012