Editorial
Front Page - Friday, September 10, 2010
Local author discusses novel, announces book signings
David Laprad
Author and Southern humorist William Thedford’s newly released novel is “Moon and the Grave Digger.” Thedford based the book on the stories of friends and acquaintances he’d known through the years. He’ll be signing copies at area Belk stores on September 18.
- David Laprad
Someone once said, “Write what you know.” Author and Southern humorist William Thedford shows this is good counsel in his newly released novel, “Moon and the Grave Digger,” in which a couple of good ol’ boys team up to take down the corrupt banker of a small Tennessee town. Thedford based the book on the stories of friends and acquaintances he’d known through the years. Judging by what takes place between the front and back covers, he’s met some real characters.
A sample: “Moon, all six foot two inches and three hundred and ten pounds, was delicately balanced on the back legs of his cane-bottomed chair against the cigarette machine. Sweat rolled off his forehead and down his face, crossing his double row of sweat beads. The mixture of sweat and the dust from the station had accumulated in the folds of the big man’s neck.”
Thedford, a retired engineer who lives in Spring City, Tenn., opens a dog-eared copy of the book and points at a sketch of Moon on page 16, his sizeable mass sagging off the edges of a tiny stool while he plays an old stand up piano. According to the author, who was good friends with the real Moon, that’s what the man looked like.
“His pants would be low and his crack would be showing,” he says, a glint in his eye.
Like his fictional counterpart, the late Moon owned a gas station in Spring City. This is where Thedford heard many of the stories that wound up in his novel, including a knee-slapper in which two brothers bag a deer and toss it in the trunk of a 1955 Chevrolet, only for the animal to “come alive” during the drive home.
“I worked at Lockheed for ten years. About once a month, I’d take my wife and kids to Spring City to see her folks. While they were visiting, I’d go to the gas station to catch up on the gossip,” he says.
To populate the town in which his story would be set, Thedford pulled people he’d known at different times in his life into the same time period. Like customers at a gas station, they come and go, leaving behind anecdotes, nuggets of down-home wisdom and laughter.
“I knew a couple of the characters real well. Moon was a classmate of mine. But to write a story about a small town, I needed more than one or two characters, so I thought back to a man I knew when I was kid,” Thedford says.
While much of “Moon and the Grave Digger” is based on real persons and events, the narrative thread that pulls the reader through the book is pure fiction. The story follows Moon and Lloyd, the titular gravedigger, as they attempt to bring down a deceitful banker. Along the way, they decide to take the law into their own hands and rob the bank.
“About 90 percent of what’s in the book actually happened, but I made up the other 10 percent. The Spring City bank has never been robbed,” Thedford says.
Since many of the people on whom the characters in the book are based are still alive, including Lloyd, who’s dug graves for Vaughn Funeral Home his entire life, Thedford was careful to not include anything libelous.
“I made up all the really bad things that happen,” he says.
When Thedford sat down to write “Moon and the Grave Digger,” he had no idea he’d be writing what his publisher, Tate Publishing, would call a mystery novel. While reading feedback from Tate, he was shocked to see the company considered it a detective story.
“It has a lot of humor in it. I didn’t realize I was writing a mystery novel. I just sat down to write a book about a small town, and it took shape as I went along,” he says.
Having made peace with Tate’s decision to market “Moon and the Grave Digger” as a mystery, Thedford says the process of writing the book was tremendously satisfying, as he was able to commit to the published page a community of people and a place he hopes will be remembered.
“I’d written a book about my dad, who was a navy man, and while that had been hard at times because of the emotions that came out, I enjoyed it and wanted to write something else. My wife suggested another book, as I’d done a good job of taking facts and figures from my father’s life and writing stories around them,” he says, referring to his father’s biography, titled “TED: The Life of a Navy Man.”
The next thing Thedford did was sit down with a pad of paper and a pen. Then he started writing.
Calling himself “uncomputerized,” he wrote “The Moon and the Grave Digger” longhand. As he completed portions of the story, he’d hand the pages to his wife, Betty, who’d key them into their computer. While Thedford was writing the next section of the book, he’d often hear his wife, who was in another room, call his name in a drawn-out manner.
“I knew what that meant. When I’d start writing, I’d have an idea, and it would expand. I have a knack for putting myself right there, in that place and time, so the more that came to me, the faster I’d write. It would get to where I was scribbling without knowing it. When I started the next paragraph, my handwriting would be readable again. It would take me a minute to figure out what I’d written,” he says.
Fans of Southern fiction, or good books in general, can obtain a sample of Thedford’s infamous penmanship at one of several book signings to take place at area Belks stores on September 18. Called the “Belk’s Blitz,” the author will be at the Belk in Northgate from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., the Dalton Belk from noon to 1:30 p.m., the Belk at Hamilton Place from 2 to 3:30 p.m., the Belk in Cleveland from 4 to 5:30 p.m., and the Cleveland Belk from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
“Moon and the Grave Digger” is also available as an eBook. PDA, cell phone and standalone eBook readers can purchase and download the novel at www.tatepublishing.com. Owners of Kindle devices, including cell phones, can access the first chapter for free. Simply download Kindle for iPhone or Android and search the Kindle Store by title.
Thedford is already in the process of writing his third book, although publication depends on sales of “Moon.” He’s not concerned about whether or not it will see the light of day, though. He just wants to take his pen and paper, sit down and write about what he knows.
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