Pump Up Your Book Chats with Mike Thomas, author of The Mysterious Treasure of Jerry Lee Thorton

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ABOUT THE MYSTERIOUS TREASURE OF JERRY LEE THORTON

What does a guy do when his best friend starts doing things that are completely out of character? In the case of Luke McAllister, you can’t do anything – until you figure out exactly what it is that is different.
The fact that his best friend is a girl complicates matters a heap. Nothing makes sense when RaeNell Stephens, the girl that has “the best curve ball he’s ever seen”, starts blushing and acting like a durned female. All of this at the beginning of the ‘summer to end all summers’ too. This is the summer that Luke, RaeNell, and their friend Farley Midkiff set out to locate, and cash in on a rogue Civil War soldier’s stolen one million dollar Union payroll.

Undaunted by thousands of scholars and fortune seekers having looked unsuccessfully for the treasure for a hundred years, the three twelve-year-old friends search diligently for themselves. What they find is an adventure that leads them on a spiraling path of discovery.

They discover newness in themselves, their families, and the closeness of a small southern community in the process. Luke wrestles with his morality, ethics, and his slowly emerging awareness of the difference between boys and girls. He also discovers that his late father left him an incredibly large legacy of duty, fidelity and caring for those around him.

The telling of the story takes place in imaginary New Caledonia County, NC in 1966. The deep rural traditions, vernacular, and ways of life of the region and community are portrayed in great detail as the story unfolds.

This is an adventure story, but it is also a story about making good decisions whether you want to or not… It is also a story of relationships. Family and community are underscored, but there is an underlying theme of male/female relationships. It’s really okay for boys and girls to be buddies without always having to be boyfriends and girlfriends. It is also a story about innocence. NOT innocence lost, but innocence maintained.

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Q: Can you tell us why you wrote your book?

I guess the simple answer is, “I’m a writer.” I began as a writer forty years or so ago. I was a news writer, joke writer, reporter, editor, commercial ad copy writer, speech writer, and newspaper columnist. As with most writers I found it difficult to make enough of a living at our craft. I wound up moving into a “non-writing” career to make ends meet and to support the writing habit. The Mysterious Treasure of Jerry Lee Thorton was written in a forty-eight hour burst of inspiration while I was in the middle of another novel. I call it my ‘accidental novel’.

Q: Which part of the book was the hardest to write?

No question there… Vernacular, colloquialisms, and idioms. The south is rich with these things, and three twelve-year-olds use them all – a lot.

I wanted to write a story taking place in North Carolina, BUT I wanted it to have an appeal all across the country. I didn’t want to write something that three quarters of the country wouldn’t understand.

The first draft of the manuscript was dripping with idiomatic dialogue and odd vernacular, but it was the way folks talked in that area of the country.

My original editor was from New York, and blue penciled just about every line of dialogue because she didn’t understand the local stuff. She sent me an email asking if “techous” was really a word, and if it was correctly spelled. (It means tender as in painful to the touch. As in “The bump on his head was a right smart techous.”).

How was I to know how it was spelled? That was how it was pronounced.

I eventually got a southern editor who was aware, and sensitive to what I was trying to say. We eventually got it cleaned up to where somebody from Seattle, New Mexico, or South Dakota could understand it from the text.

Q: Does your book have an underlying message that readers should know about?

I knew I wanted to tell a good adventure story, but I also wanted to say that it’s Okay for boys and girls to be buddies without having to be boyfriends and girlfriends. I wanted it to be a simple story of kids having fun. It needed to be a story of innocence. Not innocence lost, but innocence maintained. It had to be a story of having to do the right thing, whether you wanted to or not. I also wanted it to be a book that adults would enjoy too. It had to be a story that triggered fond memories of childhood summers while we were growing up.

Q: Do you remember when the writing bug hit?

Sure do… I was sitting alone in the bleachers of a baseball field on a blazingly hot summer afternoon, and finished reading Diamonds are Forever by Ian Fleming. I had read Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, also by Fleming, the day before. I figured right there that if somebody could write two such totally different books, in basically the same voice, then that’s what I wanted to do too. It was 1965, and I was eleven years old.

Q: Besides books, what else do you write? Do you write for publications?

I have written a moderately successful slice-of-life newspaper filler column for years. I became a Registered Nurse in the early nineties. As such I have written for nursing journals, and have done one text book. I also contributed to several other texts as well. I am frequently called upon to write or ghost write position papers, technical evaluations, and instructional papers for medical colleagues and institutions. I also edit books for various companies and individuals.

Q: Do you have a writing tip you’d like to share?

The most common question I get about writing is, “How do I get started?” This usually comes from someone that wants to write, but has put virtually nothing on paper. My best advice to them is simple:

1 Park your tail in a chair

2 WRITE!

3 Repeat tomorrow.

Just as with any skill, one has to learn the process. The writing craft is not issued at birth, it must be honed. The only way you can improve your skill is to WRITE! It has taken me thirty some odd years to get to where I thought I could call myself a writer.

Q: Can you tell us a little about your childhood?

I grew up in the great state of North Carolina. I was born in Mt. Airy, in Surry County. Mt. Airy was the pattern for the ‘Andy Griffith Show’ back in the sixties. Andy grew up there, and used a lot of local stuff in the show. I’ve gotten a lot of good eye-rolling looks from people when I told them I was literally from Mayberry.

Then the family moved around for a few years, and we wound up in Yadkinville, NC over in Yadkin County, right next door from where we started. I did farm work and retail work while doing what teenagers usually do.

In perfect retrospect, I guess it was an idyllic childhood. But, when you’re doing the growing up you didn’t think of it as idyllic. It just was.

Yadkinville, where I spent most of my youth, is almost cliché southern. It has a courthouse square with clusters of businesses all around it, and half a mile away, in every direction from the square, it’s all farmland. It was tobacco everywhere in those days.

The main thing is that the people there are the salt of the earth sorts, and you get a real strong sense of family. It’s a “You cut one of us and all of us bleed” type mentality.

Q: Where’s your favorite place to write at home?

I have a bedroom converted into an office. It is cluttered with research, scraps of paper and various projects under construction. There is a huge computer on one desk, and my little laptop on the other. I switch back and forth between them as needed.

The rest of my home is pretty neat, and ready for company. The office looks like a pound of C-4 explosive just went off. It gives me comfort though.

Q: What do you do to get away from it all?

If I need to get away, I do just that. I may hit the wall with a story, or some such and I just get in my car and go… I have no itinerary or plan, I just drive. I may go three blocks, or I may wind up in another state. Just going is my catharsis. Some of my best ideas have been conceived behind the wheel of a car.

Q: Are you familiar with the social networks and do you actively participate?

Yes, I have a personal Facebook account, and one for The Mysterious Treasure of Jerry Lee Thorton. Because of the book, I am now on twitter, and goodreads as well.

Q: What is the most frustrating part of being an author?

The most frustrating part of being an author is getting someone, anyone, to read your stuff. You can write like the illegitimate child of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Willa Cather, but agents don’t want to mess with you unless you can prove that you’re going to make them some money. Forget getting a publisher to read your stuff. Without an agent you can BE F. Scott Fitzgerald, and publishers will want to talk to your agent only.

Q: What is the most rewarding?

Getting someone, anyone, to read your stuff. It is also immensely gratifying to have a reader just say something simple like: “I enjoyed that story a lot.”

Q: If you had one wish, what would that be?

I live in a county that has a 28% functional illiteracy rate. My mind has difficulty wrapping around that thought. In this enlightened age, to have an area where one-in-four persons can’t read, is an abomination. I am working hard to help fix that problem. My one great wish is to see that staggering number reduced in my life time.

Q: If you could be anywhere in the world other than where you are right now, where would that place be?

I am content to be right here, right now. I spent years and years traveling around the United States as a contract nurse. I worked on ninety day contracts, and was able to sniff out and explore nearly every state in the union.

Then I spent three years as a Medical Officer for one of the cruise lines. I was in South America, Europe, Africa, Turkey, the Mexican Rivera, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Baltic and both coasts of the USA.

After nearly fourteen years it occurred to me that I had spent almost a full career living out of a suitcase. It was time to settle down.

Yes, I am content to be right here, right now. There is no other place I would rather be than at home.

Q: Thank you so much for this interview, Mike. Do you have any final words?

I love the writing life, and recently the writing life is starting to like me back. That makes me happy.

For more information, I have a website at www.mikethomas-writer.com

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ABOUT MIKE THOMAS

Mike Thomas is a southern writer. He grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina where he learned a lot about family, traditions, and the genteel lifestyle most southerners enjoy. The richly eccentric folks of his youth have become his characters in today’s books and stories.

Mike began as a newswriter, editor, columnist, reporter, and speechwriter before switching to the role of Critical Care Registered Nurse. He traveled nearly every corner of the world as a vagabond contract nurse before resettling in North Carolina a few years ago.
He lives with Bobby, his desktop computer, and Rachel his laptop, in Halifax County, NC.

“That’s all I need,” He says, “Just my computers and a bit of focus. Then we can make up worlds we could only have dreamed of last week.”

You can visit him at www.mikethomas-writer.com

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