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Terrell, Middleton, Melton to be at City Lights Saturday
By Lynn Hotaling
City Lights this weekend will host a Jackson County extravaganza with three local authors who grew up in Sylva and have written new books about the area.
On hand Saturday, Oct. 11, from 3 until 5 p.m. will be Asheville Citizen-Times columnist Bob Terrell, whose new novel is “Get Rufus!”; the Rev. Walter Middleton, who has a new collection of local stories titled “Middleton of the Mountains”; and Ann Davis Melton, who has penned “Home is Where the Heart Is,” a sequel to her popular “A Place Called Home.” Bookstore owner Joyce Moore calls the afternoon reception a “mini book fair,” and said she scheduled the three writers together because she anticipates that their books will resonate with a similar audience.
“I think these books will appeal to many of the same people, so we decided on one event instead of three,” she said. “All three new books celebrate the people of Sylva and the history of the area. I can’t remember an instance where we’ve seen three books so specifically about Sylva released at one time.”
The authors won’t read individually from their books; instead, each will be set up at a table so they can sign books and speak individually with those who attend. This format also means that attendees aren’t required to show up at 3 p.m. on the dot but can come anytime during the two-hour period that suits their schedule, she said.
Moore anticipates a good turnout both because all three authors are well known locally and because she’s noticed a surge in interest in local history.
“I think ‘Sylva’ (the book of vintage photos and information on the town released last month by Arcadia Publishing) has really kindled an interest in the town and area,” she said. “I think these three new books add to that, because each one celebrates the history of the community in its own way.”
Another reason for grouping the authors into one event is the current economy and gas prices, Moore said.
“At a time when gas is tight, area residents can see three local authors at one time,” she said.
Terrell, who grew up in Addie and got his journalistic start at The Sylva Herald, said recently that “Get Rufus!” is based on an incident he remembers from his childhood – the mysterious 1934 disappearance of Frank Allison. According to Terrell, who has several newspaper clippings from the Jackson County Journal relating to the incident, four men went into the Balsam Mountains on a coon hunt but only three came out the next morning. Frank Allison was never seen or heard from again, but searchers found his shoes and socks and a fire where it appeared some clothes had been burned; it seemed evident that Allison had met with foul play.
“I was 5 years old, but it stayed in my mind,” Terrell said. “Up until then, no one in Addie locked their doors, but after he disappeared, they started locking them up tight.”
In “Rufus,” Bob takes the fact that Allison vanished and creates a storyline that explains it as well as a memorable character named Rufus Raby to solve the mystery. But the fact of four hunters going into the woods and only three coming out is the only reference to a real event in the book, he said.
That doesn’t hold true for the names of the characters, though. Legendary Main Street merchant Sol Schulman is in his clothing store, even though the book is set in 1917 and Sol didn’t open his famous store until 1933.
“I changed the dates of a lot of people in the book,” Bob said.
In addition, he called a number of characters by the names of boys he grew up with, including his cousins, Jack and Roy McClure, Clyde Rector, Eddie Sutton, Andy Blanton, Clyde Bumgarner, Bob Shuler, Pos Stevens, Forrest Bryson (another cousin), Jim Ryan, Bobby Jones, Bill Shuler, Max Blanton, Bill Sutton, Ted Mull and Sid Frady. The story also references Doc Hooper, Velt Wilson (and his cafe) and Preacher Dietz, who were also people Bob remembers.
His main character Rufus, however, is not based on anyone he ever knew.
“All of Rufus, including the man himself, came out of my head in a rush,” Bob said. “I don’t think I could have created a better character than Rufus, who lived with his mother, rode a mule, could not read, write, or cipher, made whiskey on Possum Branch for a living and was the best darned tracker to ever come out of Jackson County.”
In a similar fashion, Melton uses her youth in Sylva as the basis for “Home Is Where the Heart Is” just as she drew from the same well in writing her first novel, “A Place Called Home.”
However, where Terrell sets his story in Sylva, Melton calls the town of her childhood “Sheldon,” and she changes the names of most of her characters. A lawyer in the stories named Silas Kennedy is actually her grandfather, early Sylva attorney Will Sherrill, she said, and all the characters are based on the real people who inhabited the Sylva where she roamed freely as a child.
“It makes me sad that my grandchildren will never know the freedom we had,” said Melton, who now lives in Waynesville. “At least I could write about those very special times.
“Sylva had such characters – today those people wouldn’t be allowed to walk the streets,” Melton said.
Melton terms her novels “historical fiction,” and said that as she was writing the stories, her characters began to take on lives of their own, and that neither book ended the way she thought it would.
While she hasn’t ruled out the possibility of a third novel in the series, she says she currently has no plans for one.
Middleton’s new book – his fourth – shares the experiences he’s collected during a lifetime in Jackson County.
“It’s a little bit of everything,” he said. “It’s about 65 short stories and oddball things.”
Many touch on his career as a preacher, and most are based on real events, he said.
“Some of the others are stories I’ve picked up along the way,” he said.
Since his retirement from the pulpit, Middleton has enjoyed a successful career as an author, with his previous books being City Lights best-sellers. These include his World War II memoir “Flashbacks” and “Trouble at the Forks,” his history of Tuckasegee’s Hooper-Watson Feud.
For more information, or to reserve a book by any of Saturday’s featured authors, call City Lights at 586-9499.
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