In Spirit, If Not Place

Can a story set in Pennsylvania be considered a Western?

Probably not, if you want to get technical. But my publisher Billie Johnson thought Fallen From Grace met the test in spirit if not place and decided to make it the first entry in Wild Oaks, the new Western imprint of Oak Tree Press.

I couldn’t be happier, because I love the genre. I grew up (and now live again) in a house reputed to have been built by a man who rode with Buffalo Bill. My mother said she devoured pulp Westerns while carrying me and I cut my reading teeth on the likes of Zane Grey (who, incidentally, began his writing career in Pennsylvania), Emerson Hough, Jack London and others from my dad’s well-stocked library.

All of this contributed to a lifelong interest in the history of the West and desire to trod in the footsteps of those legendary characters, both actual and literary, discovered in my reading.

As I’ve said before, Fallen was inspired by a character. I had written two short stories featuring a country sheriff named Sylvester Tilghman who asserted himself and demanded a book. Characters can be like that. They pop up, sometimes seemingly out of no where, in a writer’s imagination, develop personalities and go on to lead us into stories. Tilghman’s grandfather was in my first novel, Schlussel’s Woman, and his father has a bit role in Watch The Hour. Maybe he thought it was a family prerogative to be one of my characters.

Fallen From Grace is set in the 1890s. Tilghman is the third in his family to serve as sheriff in the small town of Arahpot, a generally peaceful place. Usually, his biggest problems are lack of a deputy and the refusal of Lydia, his girlfriend, to marry him despite many proposals. But that all changes when Conrad Runkle, a stranger in town, is fatally stabbed. Tilghman questions Valentine Deibert, an obese man with a wife half his age. Runkle's widow arrives in Arahpot and informs Tilghman her husband was in pursuit of a man who had scammed him, bankrupting his business. Suspecting a connection, Sylvester pays another visit to Deibert only to discover him dead of arsenic poisoning. Sylvester is plunged into a flurry of unusual activity and danger. And Lydia is pushing her obnoxious cousin on him as a candidate for deputy. Things go from bad to worse until Sylvester finally unravels the mystery.

Fallen From Grace is available from the publisher, http://www.oaktreebooks.com/Shop%20OTP.htm, from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other major booksellers.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering will I ever write a traditional Western, Oak Tree has the manuscript for another book, The Tithing Herd, set in the 19th century in New Mexico and featuring cowboys, bandits, Mormons and even an Indian or two.

A Writing Option

Writers today have more options for publication than ever before. Which of them we choose to utilize is a matter of personal preference.

Rights to The Accidental Spy, a novel I published with Lachesis, a Canadian firm, recently reverted to me as the contract period elapsed. The novel was published during the period of my mother’s final illness and never had the promotion it deserved.

As I was debating whether to submit it to another publisher I read several articles about the success other writers were having with Kindle versions of their books. Whiskey Creek Press is already offering others of my books in various electronic forms, including Kindle. The dominance of the e-novel in the current economic state has been trumpeted by the press this year and Amazon claims its Kindle sales in recent months have exceeded print.

This convinced me there was nothing to lose by converting my novel to Kindle and giving it a try. I made an arrangement with Laura Givens to retain the cover she had designed for the previous edition, and which I liked. The conversion process wasn’t exceedingly difficult, even for someone as technologically challenged as me. I admit to a few minor glitches, though none make the book a difficult read. If I decide to do another, I now know how to avoid my past errors.

The book is available at the low price of $2.99 here http://www.amazon.com/The-Accidental-Spy-ebook/dp/B004E3XCNQ/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291158848&sr=1-12
I’m looking for people to tag, review and (naturally) buy it. Any of the three would be appreciated.

What’s the book about? Here’s a synopsis:

Dandy Dan McCracken is a rogue wandering around eastern Pennsylvania and living by his wits in the middle years of the American Revolution. Through circumstance, he becomes a spy, first for the British and then for the Americans.

Wounded and on the run from a sheriff, he’s rescued and nursed back to health by the lovely ward of Benedict Arnold’s procurement officer in Philadelphia. McCracken is enamored of the girl, but when her husband returns from the front, he flees and falls in with a band of British spies.

He switches sides again when he discovers his conscience as a result of falling in love, and not because he favors one side over the other. His actions now—not through choice but again through circumstance—make him a hero.

Don't Take My Word For It

A review of a novel, film or other creative work is one person’s opinion.

And that’s exactly what it’s meant to be. As Darryl Ponicsan, a better known coal region-born writer, put it, “An honest reviewer reads a book and says, ‘I like it’ or ‘I don’t like it’ or ‘I’m lukewarm about it,’ and why.”

So what does that mean to you, the reader?

Many select a book on the basis of genre, their knowledge of the author or the suggestion of a friend or family member. There also might be the influence of advertising, an intriguing cover design or, simply, a whim. The reviewer is just another adjunct.

An honest review can help you sort out from the estimated 190,000 new books published every year in the U.S. those you might want to buy or borrow from your local library. That’s just the estimate for the U.S. Add another 130,000 for the United Kingdom. Care to guess how many worldwide?

My historical novel Watch The Hour just received an encouraging review (http://historicalnovelsociety.org/hnr-online.htm) which termed it “a page-turning yarn.” I’m not about to argue with a description like that.

My point is, don’t take my word for it. Watch The Hour is a book worth your time. The novel has received repeated good reviews elsewhere. To name a few: http://thebookbuff.blogspot.com/2010/06/j.html

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977713505

http://mindfogreviews.blogspot.com/2009/12/watch-hour-by-jr-lindermuth.html

Coming Soon

If you’ve read and enjoyed any of the Sticks Hetrick mysteries, you’ll be pleased to know Whiskey Creek Press soon will release BEING SOMEONE ELSE, fourth in the series.

If you haven’t read them, now’s a good time to start. The novels are available in print and electronic form, including Kindle. Other novels in the series are Something In Common, Cruel Cuts and Corruption’s Child.

Daniel ‘Sticks’ Hetrick is the retired police chief of rural Swatara Creek, Pennsylvania, and serves as consultant to his less experienced successor, Aaron Brubaker. Other regular characters are Hetrick’s protégés, Corporal Harry Minnich and rookie officer Flora Vastine.

As a note of interest, Hetrick—a longtime widower—has a new woman in his life in this novel and is offered a new job.

And, in case you’re wondering, I’m already at work on the fifth in the series.

Here’s the back cover blurb from Being Someone Else:

Some believe violence foreign to our nature. Dan ‘Sticks’ Hetrick, retired chief and consultant to the Swatara Creek police department, knows better. We put a lid on our natural tendency to violence when we started living in groups, devising moral codes to hold it in check and allow us to live in harmony with others. But, deep down in the Id, there’s always that tendency to violence.

When an out-of-state reporter is found murdered at a disreputable bar, the tendency to violence spirals in the rural Pennsylvania community, and the investigative trail keeps bringing Hetrick and his team back to the family of a wealthy doctor who has come back to his hometown in retirement.

Hetrick and his protégé, Officer Flora Vastine, are joined by an old friend from his State Police days as they unravel old secrets and mysteries in a tale with as many shocking twists as a country road

Understanding Backwards

History too often gets a bad rap.

Students dismiss it as boring. Politicians and others with a biased agenda abuse its factuality. But the truth is out there and available to any willing to take the time to search. Since that involves time and effort, history is either ignored or perverted.

“A land without ruins is a land without memories—a land without memories is a land without history.”

The poet Abram Joseph Ryan who penned those lines recognized that history is based on memory. Though not always accurate, history is important to a society. Thucydides rightly called history philosophy learned from examples.

As Soren Kierkegaard so aptly put it, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forward.”

As a writer and genealogist, I devote a lot of time to the study of history. Several recent events raised my optimism about public perception of history and its value.

Our historical society is located in the home of the last commandant of Fort Augusta, Pennsylvania’s largest provincial fort, which was commissioned for the French and Indian War and used through the Revolutionary War. Volunteers logged many hours to transform our former exhibit space into a more detailed interpretation of the importance of this historic site and the life of those who lived here.

Dedication of the new exhibit attracted more than 400 people and we have had a steady stream of requests since for group tours for families, clubs and school and scouting groups. The first of four scheduled Living History Days at the site of Fort Augusta was also successful and well attended.

Over the Memorial Day weekend my hometown of Shamokin held the fifth annual Anthracite Heritage Festival of the Arts, which also attracted larges crowds. While there’s plenty of emphasis on food and fun, history is not neglected in the mix which celebrates the mining heritage of the region and its polyglot ethnic society.

Romeo and Juliet in Pennsylvania

The theme of forbidden love has been used to advantage by many writers, from ancient times to the present.

Consider Abelard and Heloise. Launcelot and the Lady of Shalott. And, of course, Romeo and Juliet. A thousand other examples might be suggested. There are many reasons for love being forbidden. The most common include social distinctions such as class, religion or ethnicity.

Probably no one has used the theme to better advantage than Will Shakespeare—most notably in Romeo and Juliet, but also in a number of other classic plays and poems.

I don’t intend comparing myself to Shakespeare, but I’ve used the theme in my novel Watch The Hour and don’t feel it would be out of line to say it might be seen as another variation on Romeo and Juliet.

Fleeing famine and brutal oppression, more than a million Irish refugees flocked to the United States between 1846-1855 in search of opportunity and a better life. They worked whatever jobs they could find and were routinely exploited. Many found their way to Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal region where they encountered some of the worst exploitation and hatred.

In the 1870s, mine owners and their employees, particularly the Irish immigrants, were in conflict over working conditions. Private police forces commissioned by the state but paid by the coal companies were sworn to protect property of the mine owners. The miners knew their real purpose was to spy upon targeted agitators and intimidate and break up strikers.

My Romeo is Benjamin Franklin Yeager, a coal company police officer. He does his best to follow orders while trying to be fair to the workers whose lot he sees as little different from his own. Despite his efforts at fairness, Yeager’s job makes him the enemy of the Irish.

And that’s the crux of his troubles. For Ben is in love with an Irish girl, Jennie Teague. You’ll have to read the book to see how their love plays out.

Watch The Hour is available in print and electronic forms from the publisher at https://www.whiskeycreekpress.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=725

Meet Aaron Brubaker

Aaron Brubaker is the police chief of Swatara Creek in my Sticks Hetrick mystery series.

Though they’ve become closer in later books, Brubaker is both a little jealous and suspicious of Hetrick. Though he has more than 20 years in law enforcement, he readily acknowledges the former chief has something he lacks.

“Most of the time, Brubaker liked his job as police chief of the town of Swatara Creek. It entailed a certain amount of power and gave him respect he’d never expected to have. Normally he faced nothing more taxing than handing out parking tickets and dealing with occasional Saturday night drunks and mischievous kids.” (from Something In Common, Whiskey Creek Press, 2006)

But when it came to murder, he felt out of his depth. It was for that reason he called Hetrick in as a special consultant on their first joint case in Something In Common. Hetrick had dealt with murder, both as a police chief and earlier in his career as a state trooper. Still, Brubaker wanted the arrangement kept between them. His was a political appointment. He didn’t want those supervisors thinking he wasn’t up to the job.

Brubaker is a good, honest man; a good family man, and a good cop. He has grown in the subsequent novels, Cruel Cuts and Corruption’s Child. But even in the fourth novel in the series (awaiting publication) he still harbors a suspicion Hetrick wants his old job back.

Welcome to Swatara Creek

There is a Swatara Creek, but no town of that name in Pennsylvania. The Swatara Creek of which I write is solely the invention of this author, though it is representative of many of the older Susquehanna River towns that have become bedroom communities for the more metropolitan areas of the Commonwealth.

The Swatara Creek of which I write is the fictional home of Daniel ‘Sticks’ Hetrick, retired police chief of the community and now unofficial consultant to his less experienced successor, Aaron Brubaker.

The town sits on a promontory in a bend of the stream for which it is named. What follows is from Something In Common, first in the Hetrick mystery series:

“The town owes it existence to the descendants of one Jacob Koontz who acquired the land circa 1754 after immigrating from Germany. Tradition said the rise had been the site of an Indian village at some time before the coming of Koontz and there’s evidence to support the legend since it’s still possible to find an occasional flint arrowhead if one looks hard enough down on the flats along the creek after a hard spring rain. It was said Koontz went through two wives and produced a dozen children before he decided the land was not suited to farming; the soil being too shallow and brittle with shale to produce much more than the broom grass that already covered the land when he arrived.

“So old Koontz turned his attention to providing his neighbors in that misbegotten wilderness with what was missing, and what he felt was most needed in their empty lives. He opened the first tavern in the county in a large limestone building which stands yet today on the square, though it now serves as the village municipal building, police station and library. Koontz’s enterprise flourished and led, naturally, to the distilling of whiskey.

“Thus from a simple pot still behind the tavern came the industry that gave birth to the village, which was known for generations afterward as Koontztown. His descendants grew rich and fat and complacent and Koontz Rye Whiskey became a favored brand in that area of the state and was even shipped as far away as Connecticut. By the 1800s, the distillery now located down on the flat provided employment for some two hundred men who resided with their families in the town, and the railroad even built a spur line up along the creek to service the plant. If things had continued as they were, the place might still be Koontztown. But after Prohibition closed down the distillery, the town was in danger of dying and would have had it not been for the arrival of LeRoy Finkbine who purchased the empty distillery and established his shoe factory, which provided employment for those who remained in the moribund community.”

(Next time, Aaron Brubaker)

Meet Sticks Hetrick

Daniel “Sticks” Hetrick is the lead character in a mystery series named for him. Though he’s the primary, there’s a cast of continuing characters and I’ll be introducing others in coming weeks.

In the first novel in the series, Something In Common, Hetrick was introduced as the retired police chief of the rural community of Swatara Creek, Pennsylvania. His successor in the job, acknowledging his more limited experience, reluctantly opened the door for Hetrick to act as an unofficial consultant to the department. There is a continuing element of rivalry in their relationship, though they’ve become closer friends in the later novels.

In addition to his years with the local police department, Hetrick previously served with the state police. His retirement was precipitated by the illness and subsequent death of his wife, Sarah, as well as a feud between him and his political overseer. Both issues continue to haunt him and frequently result in personal conflicts.

Hetrick had been bored in retirement. The challenges of his new responsibilities and comradeship with Brubaker and, particularly, his protégés, Harry Minnich and Flora Vastine have given him a new lease on life.

In the second novel, Cruel Cuts, he renewed acquaintance with an old friend and nearly became romantically involved. Though it didn’t occur then, a new romantic possibility cropped up in the third novel, Corruption’s Child, in the person of Anita Baker. Will love change Hetrick? That remains to be seen.

Gift Suggestions

With the holidays fast approaching, it’s a good time to consider gift ideas for family and friends (or yourself, should you be so inclined). I’d be remiss if I didn’t suggest one of my novels as a viable choice.

I’m taking a hint from my friend Margaret Blake and offering the following blurbs as enticement. (you can read Margaret’s blurbs here: http://www.larkjournals.blogspot.com/)

My blurbs:

WATCH THE HOUR
Ben Yeager is a police officer, sworn to protect property of mine owners in the 1870s in Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal region. His job makes him the enemy of the Irish. And that’s the crux of his troubles. For Ben is in love with an Irish girl. (Published by Whiskey Creek Press and available in both print and electronic form)

CORRUPTION’S CHILD
Retired police chief Daniel ‘Sticks’ Hetrick, still serving as unofficial consultant to his less experienced successor, has another murder to solve in rural Swatara Creek, PA. It soon develops the death of a local waitress is not the only trouble in the township. An elderly man has been seriously injured in the latest of a string of burglaries from the Amish and items are missing from the police department evidence room. (Whiskey Creek Press, third in the series)

THE ACCIDENTAL SPY
Wounded and on the run from a sheriff, Dandy Dan McCracken, a rogue wandering around Pennsylvania and living by his wits during the American Revolution, is rescued and nursed back to health by the lovely ward of Benedict Arnold’s procurement officer in Philadelphia. McCracken is attracted to the girl, but when her husband returns from the front, he flees and falls in with a band of British spies. Love will have him discover his conscience, switch sides and become a hero. (Lachesis Publishing)

CRUEL CUTS (second in the Hetrick mystery series)
When a rash of animal mutilations plague a rural Pennsylvania community and a vicious poison pen campaign targets an ambitious young lawyer, it leads to murder. Dan “Sticks” Hetrick, retired police chief, and Flora Vastine, a novice officer, team up and encounter false leads, dangerous episodes and another murder before the case is resolved. (Whiskey Creek Press)

SOMETHING IN COMMON (first in the Hetrick series)
A lonely widow finds the severed head of an unknown young woman on her front porch in a quiet, rural community. In seeking her identity, retired Police Chief Daniel “Sticks” Hetrick discovers a link to a major theft of rare ornithological books and a trail that leads from the big city to his hometown where he is forced to confront danger and the darker side of his community and residents. (Whiskey Creek Press)

ST. HUBERT’S STAG
An elderly man hoping for one last deer hunt forces himself and his family to confront secrets that have separated them from one another and the truth for years. (iUniverse)

SCHLUSSEL’S WOMAN
Early in the 19th century, expanding markets for Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal created a smaller scale prelude to the California gold rush. Many who flocked to the region were ambitiously ruthless in pursuit of this ‘black gold.’ Captain Isaac Schlussel is typical of the breed. When he’s felled by an assassin’s bullet his greed provides a multitude of suspects who are introduced in chapters which flash back and forth in time to reveal his history and his obsession with the beautiful woman who is both his wife and the unintentional source of his downfall. (iUniverse)

Does Height Influence Crime?

In researching for my newspaper column on local history I came across an article about a psychological study conducted in 1934 at Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania.

The article was of interest for several reasons. One, because the penitentiary involved is in my home territory. Another was because of the quirky nature of the some of the results reported in the study.

The examination involved some 800 inmates and was conducted by the Public Health Service under the leadership of Dr. Michael J. Pescor. Dr. Pescor was a respected clinician who developed a reputation as an authority on criminology and drug addiction.

The study at Lewisburg used as its basis a personality test originated by Professor R. E. Woodworth of Columbia University. To quote the report: “Every phase of the prisoner’s life before his entrance to the penitentiary is unfolded as the doctor puts pertinent questions to him which bring out his psycho-neurotic tendencies. They delve into the prisoner’s family history, his medical record, his experience in early childhood, and even ask him to what degree he can tolerate offensive odors.”

The study found that a majority of the prisoners gave answers about the same as ordinary citizens, except “…most worry easily, are irritable, have little or no sense of humor, and complain often of a bodily pain which does not exist in reality.”

Personally, I’d say those exceptions were pretty broad, though they might have been influenced by the fact of incarceration. The study also appears not to have taken into consideration the possibility the men were lying or boasting in response to some questions.

Regarding those inmates who were found to be emotionally unstable, the report said these were primarily composed of habitual criminals, chronic drunkards and men who had a disrupted home life before they were 16. Nearly all blamed their trouble on drinking.

Here’s the conclusion I found most interesting: “This group (the emotionally unstable) averages about an inch less in height than the stable group, and also average slightly more than seven pounds less in weight.”

So, does being short in height and light in weight indicate a propensity for a life of crime?

A Harmful Philosophy

B. F. Skinner, the apostle of Behaviorism, spent much of his life preaching a doctrine proven false by his own achievements.

A failed novelist whose philosophy is best known through a novel which is not a novel, his career was in opposition to the forces he contended shaped individual existence.

A native of Susquehanna, Pa., a small community with socio-economic similarities to my own area, Skinner rose from a background of limited opportunity to achieve prominence as an educator, psychologist, writer and inventor.

Yet his theories negate free will, viewing man as a mere robot reacting mechanically to the influence of environment. His views influenced generations of students and have engendered much harm to a world sorely in need of hope and reason.

Despite his own achievements, Skinner was blind to the human capacity for change and adaptability exemplified by those who continue to overcome bleak existence and monumental obstacles through imagination and perseverance. He denied the wonders of faith, optimism and creativity which are responsible for all that is marvelous about the creature called man.

He abandoned hope of achieving success as a writer of fiction when he decided he had nothing to say. Turning to the study of psychology, he forged a radical philosophy which was as much rooted in the Calvinistic religion he abandoned as a youth as it was in the discoveries of Pavlov he championed.

Skinner’s experimentation with rats and pigeons convinced him man could be similarly be influenced for behavioral modification. He failed to grasp that man’s superior brainpower makes him less susceptible to generic gratification and more capable of eccentric resistance to control devices.

He taught that man could be reshaped for a happier and more productive life only through a tightly controlled system of rewards and punishment. Apparently he was unable to achieve the proper balance of these influences in his own life for he is remembered by colleagues as an unhappy person.

His 1948 utopian novel “Walden Two,” which quickly became a textbook in colleges across the nation, is little more than a polemic for his theories.

The thesis he expressed later in life already had been formed when he abandoned literature at age 24. This is confirmed by a quote from his journal of the period: “I feel that greatness is merely the result of a happy combination of trivial influences, that the great man cannot help being great, the poor man cannot help being poor.”

A critique of the playwright Ibsen in Skinner’s readable autobiography “Particulars of My Life” might as easily be applied to him: “Philosophy deals with or rather plays with objects of its own creation. Ibsen was essentially a philosopher in his habits of thinking. The desire for order led him, as it leads all of his ilk, to defining, to delimiting, an aspect of life into a word and hence to deal with the word rather than the aspect.”

Had Skinner contemplated Carantouan, the magic hill of the Susquehannock Indians which can be seen from his hometown, he might have been led to speculate on a people who defied the limitations of a harsh environment and the encroachment of stronger enemies to create a rich and complex society uniquely their own.

Each person chooses whether to float passively with the stream or swim boldly against the current.

A Worthy Endeavor

Despite their less than affluent status, many writers devote energy and financial support to charitable projects.

An example of this is my friend Bob Bomboy who, since 2005, has been operating a free model railroading program called Saturday Trains in Bloomsburg PA. He is now expanding the program with the first ever hands-on railroad layout for wheelchair-bound children and adults. The program was recognized in the May issue of Classic Toy Trains magazine.

Simply creating the program for the benefit of handicapped children and adults is worthy of praise. But Bob is also using proceeds from his writing to support the project.

He's holding a book signing this Saturday from 1-3 p.m. at Waldenbooks in the Susquehanna Valley Mall, Selinsgrove PA. Proceeds from sales of his novel, Smart Boys Swimming in the River Styx, will benefit the project.

The novel, available on Amazon and from other major booksellers, centers around the Korean War and the tragic wreck of a troop train. The wreck is based on an actual event, one of the worst in American railroad history, which Bob remembers from his childhood.

If you happen to be in the neighborhood Saturday, stop by and support the project.