- AUTHOR -
CRAIG SAVOYE
ADDISON TRUE
A Historical Novel of the West
Addison True is the title character of my four-years-in-the-making and recently completed historical novel that aims for epic and sweeping saga. Yes, those are immodest descriptors, but let me tell you how I tried to get there: the book is 1,000 pages long and follows the exploits and adventures of Addison from age 18-36 beginning in Gold Rush California and ending on the plains after two Civil War chapters. Addison is meant to embody the American character (independent, impetuous, a wanderer, a common man, common sensical, self-reliant) while the story itself explores America’s character, using the two seminal events in our history as a steel-hard forge: westward expansion and the Civil War. The novel is divided into 10 roughly equal chapters (see the synopsis below). I’ve been contemplating the book for 35 years, but a non-fiction book I wrote ten years ago taught me how to approach the writing of Addison. It was based on interviews with cowboys and ranchers and resulted in profiles (character studies) that are a retelling of the interviewees' stories. I realized that oral storytelling (converted to print) was mercifully lacking the description and exposition that often bogs down feature writing. When I wrote Cowboys, Ranchers, and Assorted Characters, the profiles contained one anecdote after another. Addison True is one adventure after another. That is the strength of Huckleberry Finn, which served as something of a model: Addison is an adult Huckleberry Finn…on steroids; meaning, grander adventures and more of them—1,000 pages worth. Addison True is based on the reading of 152 contemporary accounts and diaries, culled for anecdotal material that could be reimagined for Addison. I grew up reading James Michener and miss his BIG books. I’m certainly not comparing myself to Michener, and Addison is not a multi-generational saga, but it is written in the spirit of Michener, and if you like his books, and of course, Lonesome Dove, I think you'll enjoy Addison True.
ORIGIN STORY
I've been contemplating Addison True, the novel, for so long--over 30 years--I can't pinpoint its precise origin. I grew up in the Bay Area of California from age 8-14 and we visited the Sierra, including gold country, on numerous occasions, so my love for the West is longstanding. But I did not travel much in the mountain west until the summer of 1976, when I worked at the Old Faithful location in Yellowstone National Park. I had taken a year off from college and thus arrived for duty the first day the park opened in early May. I still remember descending the exterior stairs of the employee’s dormitory the second day and seeing a bison grazing on the grass not 15 feet away (they were in no wise tame; rather, they were used to having the park to themselves the prior eight months). I didn’t know it at the time, but I believe Addison True began to take root in my mind that summer on the high plateau that is Yellowstone.
My interest in writing didn’t really blossom until immediately after college. I started my first novel in 1980--a year after graduating--and managed to secure an agent, but couldn’t sell the manuscript. I was working in journalism then before entering in government service. I was prohibited from writing for publication while in government (1983-88), but I never stopped thinking about writing, and indeed, the oldest piece of research in my Addison file is a magazine clipping about the Pony Express dated 1983. Thus Addy was apparently bouncing around in my mind for 32 years--given that I did not begin writing the novel until March 2015.
Addison began to take fundamental shape from May-November 1993. The government posted me to Palo Alto and we fell in love with the area, had our first child, and bought a house. My wife had a great job at Stanford Law School, so when the government was ready to transfer me I went to work instead in Silicon Valley. It was for a mainframe computer company, and when they went the way of dinosaurs in 1993 I was laid off. For the six months I was between jobs I spent about an hour a day looking for work and 7 working on Addison, who was also named about this time. (No, my pregnant wife was not particularly pleased at my job-search-to-Addy-research hours-spent ratio.) It was during this period I outlined the 10 chapters, formulating what each would be about--generally--although the last chapter remained in flux until shortly after I began the real writing in 2015. (Addison’s last name is simply an eponymous reference to his stolid integrity, while his first name is that of the elementary school where my kids went in Palo Alto in the 90s.)
I worked full-time from 1994-2010 in public relations and academia but was still able to complete a number of screenplays and two other novels. Yet I knew Addison was too big a project to undertake part-time. I had the opportunity by 2015 to write full-time and finally answered the longstanding siren call to pick up pen and tell Addison’s story.
AS OF LATE JULY 2020, ADDISON TRUE IS AVAILABLE ON AUDIBLE IN TWO VOLUMES; SIMPLY GO BACK TO MY HOME PAGE AND CLICK ON BUY AUDIOBOOK
SYNOPSIS
A fictional 3-page introduction by Addison’s great-great-grandson provides Addy’s back story while also explaining the narrative voice (the book is written [the story is told] in vernacular). Addison was born in Vermont, the middle of three boys, but orphaned by an epidemic at age 8. He and his older brother were turned out of their uncle’s house when Addison was 13. The two found factory work in Boston but became separated. Addy shipped out of Nantucket as a cabin boy on a whaler at age 15. He eventually became an outstanding harpooner on the Pacific whaling grounds but when the ship put in at Honolulu he heard about the discovery of gold in California. There had been trouble aboard the whale ship. Addison and two others deserted and left for San Francisco.
When Addy and his friend in the book, Stogie Bumpus, are old men, around 1900, Stogie recorded Addison’s stories. The manuscript is found in modern day, and is being published in Stogie’s words.
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Chapter one begins with the arrival of Addison and two of his shipmates in San Francisco in the summer of 1849. Using his skills as a harpooner, Addison earns a grubstake with a stranger and heads for the mines with him (Pard for pardner), leaving his shipmates behind. He and Pard stake a claim on a river that is producing gold on every claim but theirs, which was previously quit on by many miners before them that summer. A gambler and his gang torment Addison. He and Pard discover the secret to their claim late in the season, but Pard’s loose tongue puts them at risk and Addison is chased over the Sierra by the outlaw gang during the first snowstorm of winter 1849.
Chapter 2 has Addison leading a wagon train, blocked from crossing the Sierra by heavy snow, down the east side of the Sierra to a snow-free southern pass. They are plagued by Paiute Indians along the way and dysfunction among the desperate members of the train. Addy attaches himself to a family consisting of a shady storeowner, Eldredge, and his young daughters, the older of which, Emma, becomes Addison’s book-long love interest. Chapter 3 is set back in San Francisco in early spring 1850 where Addy meets up with his old shipmates and seeks to ensure justice for someone close to him who was murdered. The city is rife with gang crime, though a Vigilance Committee aims to stop it. Addison must find the man he wants to see hung while also avoid the vigilantes, who are led in part by Emma's father.
The novel is divided into “books.” Book 2 and chapter 4 open four years later, in fall 1854, in Los Angeles. Eldredge arrives on a stagecoach from San Francisco with Emma. He is trying to get Emma home quickly to her ailing mother in Saint Joseph, Missouri and decides sending a stagecoach across dangerous Apache country, while pioneering a commercial route, is the best way to kill two birds with one stone. Addison has been in L.A. for several years, is recruited, and he and Emma make the cross. In chapter 5 Addison joins an expedition across Nebraska territory and both tangles with and befriends Indians that resurface in two other chapters. In Chapter 6 he is sheriff of Leavenworth during the “bloody Kansas” era. In chapter 7 he and friend Stogie operate a Pony Express station on the plains. In chapter 8 he is a spy for General Grant at Vicksburg. In chapter 9, after escaping Vicksburg, he connects with a slave he met leaving California, and with his son, escape north through Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee, attempting to reunite with the rest of the slave’s family in Cincinnati. Chapter 10 is back on the plains. Addison becomes a scout on the transcontinental railroad and renews his rivalry with a longtime Sioux nemesis who is harassing construction. Addison chases him up to Powder River country and becomes enmeshed in Red Cloud’s war.
In addition to the just described “outer story,” the romance with Emma runs throughout the book. But no way I’m revealing the details of that.