Where would it sell? In the dog house of an oil derrick, at the landing of a logging operation, in the hunting camps in mountains and prairies, at truck stops across the nation, near the green chain in a lumber mill, in a lumber camp after supper when it is dark and the smell of tobacco and stale clothing permeates the bunkhouse. That's where it would sell.
The title of the book--In The Company of Men, would be a book of working men from 1950 to 1960 from "Whitey" Cook, the ancient oil field roughneck I knew in Wyoming, to Filoh Smith, the calm, deliberative, no-nonsense logger in the Waha Mountains out of Lewiston, Idaho.
Damn, I'd like to write that book. Like to write it while my memory is clear and I can do justice to those men who taught me the ways of the blue collar working man. Patting down their sweaty clothes with blistered hands searching for their snus, they typified the short but satisfying moments of a hard working day.
Often it took an entire truck and trailer to haul one tree I had felled to the mill. The attached photo shows a "giant" cherry tree I felled to support my wife's gardening habit. The moose had pruned it nearly to death and it was shading the flower that grew in its shadow.
Jim, you should write this book. Here are the reasons: 1. The title is great. 2. Women (who buy books) like men. We like books about real men, about what they're like when they're together, about what they do. And many women like the blue collar guys and the life they represent. We may not want to live with them, but reading about them is different. 3. I don't buy that collections of short stories don't sell. What sells is good strong writing about people you want to spend time with. 4. It would sell in the places you mentioned (with great poetry in your voice), but also in independent bookstores, Amazon and all the places you sell now. 5. You could experiment with the format, find a way to string the stories together so each is a chapter and the thread that holds them together is what you learned from them, did with them, observed. 6. This could be the followup book to your best one to date (in my opinion), about working the mink farm. Some people said that was too strong, too, but it was wonderful! 7. Don't be held back by all those practical reasons not to write this book. WRITE IT.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the encouragement, Sally. I have an outline and the desire. Now what is needed is the marketability and the decision to put aside the six remaining novels I have stored in my head to go with this one.
ReplyDeleteWrite that book! The characters would be unique and real, perhaps heroes, perhaps scoundrels. I like to read Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch crime novels so don't rule out women readers. I like the outdoors and tales of adventure. Women also like to have books to give to men. The idea of stringing the stories together (from Sally Peterson) with some sort of a common thread or character is good. "Olive Kitteridge" by Elizabeth Strout is a case in point and a Pulitzer winner. So someone is reading short stories! Do write the book, my friend.
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