{"id":3067,"date":"2021-09-13T10:35:25","date_gmt":"2021-09-13T14:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=3067"},"modified":"2021-09-13T12:10:22","modified_gmt":"2021-09-13T16:10:22","slug":"michael-a-almonds-the-tannery-a-tale-of-mystery-courtroom-drama-and-north-carolina-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2021\/09\/13\/michael-a-almonds-the-tannery-a-tale-of-mystery-courtroom-drama-and-north-carolina-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael A. Almond\u2019s The Tannery: A Tale of Mystery, Courtroom Drama, and North Carolina History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Michael A. Almond\u2019s debut novel, The Tannery<\/em>, pairs up perfectly with Harper Lee\u2019s To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em>.\u00a0 Both are historical novels set in the South during the Jim Crow era.\u00a0 Both deal with the impact of racial prejudice on the court system.\u00a0 Both include highly principled lawyers who fight for justice even though the odds are stacked against them.\u00a0 And both provide readers with insider depictions of life in small Southern communities.\u00a0 It might not seem fair to compare The Tannery to Lee\u2019s To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em> since Lee\u2019s novel is recognized as one of the most important novels in the history of Southern literature, but The Tannery <\/em>stands up to the comparison. <\/em>Michael has created a riveting novel that combines the excitement of a legal thriller with the complexities of a well-researched work of historical fiction.\u00a0 Michael\u2019s depiction of North Carolina\u2019s bigoted past is unflinching and disturbing, but his portrait of his native state is not entirely negative.\u00a0 His story has its bigots, but it also has its heroes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In writing The Tannery, <\/em>Michael drew on his experience and contacts as a long-time Charlotte resident.  He moved to Charlotte in 1976, a year after he graduated from the law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He spent many years with the Charlotte law firm of Parker Poe, and because of this background, he has a deep understanding of the intricacies of the legal system.  This background helped him when writing the courtroom scenes in The Tannery.  <\/em>His many Charlotte contacts also helped him when he decided to try his hand at writing a novel.  As he was writing The Tannery <\/em>and preparing to submit it to publishers, he sought feedback from the writing community in Charlotte, and he readily acknowledges the help that he received from these writers.  For more information about his career and his debut novel, please click on the following link:  www.michaelalmondbooks.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I recently contacted Michael and asked him for more background about his decision to write The Tannery.  <\/em>Here is what he sent to me:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My debut novel, <\/em>The Tannery, <\/em>will be released by Koehler Books on October 19, 2021.  The book is a work of historical fiction, a murder mystery\/legal thriller set in Wilkes County, North Carolina, in the pivotal year of 1900 amidst the turbulent world of post-Reconstruction political, social, and racial conditions in the South at the dawn of the Jim Crow era.  When I began researching and outlining the novel back in 2007, I had no idea that the themes of Black voter suppression and intimidation, vigilante \u201cjustice,\u201d and White Supremacy that drive the story would resonate so vividly in today\u2019s polarized environment.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am a lifelong resident of North Carolina, raised in the small town of Pilot Mountain in the Piedmont foothills, and I came of age during the Civil Rights upheavals of the 1960s.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My decades-long career as an international business lawyer was entirely spent in Charlotte.  Back in 1976, I turned down offers from law firms in larger cities, convinced that Charlotte was about to make its case and stake its claim as a leader in global trade, business, finance, and investment.  It turns out that this was the right idea, at the right time, in just the right place.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am a voracious reader, getting through 40-50 books a year, and somewhere along the way I began to wonder\u2026perhaps there is a book in me?<\/strong>  I am not a historian, but I am a huge fan of Southern history and historical fiction, so the genre appealed to me as I began thinking about what sort of story I wanted to tell.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Budding authors are always told to \u201cWrite what you know.\u201d So in researching and outlining <\/em>The Tannery, <\/em>I drew heavily from my own personal background and experience.  I grew up in Surry County, next door to Wilkes, and I was generally aware of Wilkes\u2019 rich and compelling history: Daniel Boone, the Overmountain Men, Tom \u201cDooley,\u201d the Fort Hamby Gang, Eng and Chang Bunker (the original \u201cSiamese Twins\u201d), the C.C. Smoot & Sons Tannery (the largest steam leather tannery in the Southeast), the devastating Yadkin River floods, and of course, moonshine!  Maybe I could build a story around that?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last April, after 13 years of historical research, plotting, and outlining, I proudly presented my wife, Helen Ruth, with what I thought was the final outline for the book.  Exasperated, she looked me in the eye and said, \u201cListen, Michael, all of your friends and I are tired of hearing about your research and outlining.  We are stuck at home in the middle of a pandemic, so you have no excuse.  Either go upstairs and write the book or be quiet about it!\u201d  So, I did.  Overcoming the terrifying image of a blank computer screen before me, I began to write.  And five months and 125,000 words later, <\/em>The Tannery was complete.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my experience, readers of historical fiction always want to learn something new, but they are also interested in just where the \u201chistorical\u201d ends and the \u201cfiction\u201d begins, the line between reality and imagination.  My goal was to write a fast-paced, suspenseful, compelling, and, most of all entertaining story with lots of twists, turns, and surprises, all the while weaving in the historical details that hopefully enrich the narrative.  The keys to successful historical fiction, I believe, are authenticity and context.  In a sense, then, <\/em>The Tannery is a sort of \u201ctime machine,\u201d transporting readers to a different time and place, aiming for a deeper understanding of the post-Reconstruction South and exposing some of the darker, more shameful forces and personalities at work in 1900 North Carolina.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tannery is by no means autobiographical, but the book does draw upon my own personal and professional experiences as an international attorney and long-time resident of Charlotte.  Local venues in the book include Wilkes County, Raleigh, Wilmington, and Charlotte, but many scenes take place in such far-off places as Oxford, London, Alsace, Baden-Baden, and Argentina.  My international travels over the years also suggested many of the fictional characters (and the languages they speak, as well as many of the meals they consume!) who appear in the book alongside such historical personalities as Charles B. Aycock, Cameron Morrison, and Josephus Daniels.  I expect that many of my Charlotte friends, who have patiently listened to my stories and anecdotes over the years, will smile and recognize much of the Michael Almond they know in <\/em>The Tannery!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the novel was completed, I faced the challenge of getting the thing published.  And here I must salute the incredible community of local Charlotte authors and others in our local Book World who so generously contributed their time, wisdom, and resources to help me, as a novice, navigate what is an always challenging and sometimes bewildering publication and marketing process.  Kudos and much appreciation to Mark Ethridge, Mark de Castrique, Millie and Tom Cox, Kim Wright, Kimmery Martin, Tracy Curtis, Tommy Tomlinson, Leslie Hooten, Bess Kercher, Frye Gaillard, Frances and Bill Thompson, Landis Wade, Judy Goldman, Karen Beach, and Judith Sutton!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since retiring from his career as an attorney, Michael and his wife divide their time between their farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains and Charlotte.  However, he still considers himself a Charlotte writer, and so do I.  As the keeper of Storied Charlotte\u2019s ever-expanding library, I am pleased to add The Tannery <\/em>to the collection of historical novels by Charlotte authors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael A. Almond\u2019s debut novel, The Tannery, pairs up perfectly with Harper Lee\u2019s To Kill a Mockingbird.\u00a0 Both are historical novels set in the South during the Jim Crow era.\u00a0 Both deal with the impact of racial prejudice on the court system.\u00a0 Both include highly principled lawyers who fight for justice even though the odds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-storied-charlotte"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3067"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3081,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3067\/revisions\/3081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}