writing

“Brookhaven” and the Pearl River Lumber Company

October 15, 2025 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

A reader of Brookhaven sent n email, asking if I modeled the McClure Lumber Company in the novel on the Pearl River Lumber Company. A great-grandfather had worked there, the reader said, and she wondered.

That I had to research the Pearl River Lumber Company to respond to her should answer the question. Or, more briefly, no.

The company was founded in 1899, building a large mill on the outskirts of Brookhaven, Mississippi. A community grew up around it and was called Pearlhaven. A rail line was built, appropriately named the Brookhaven & Pearl River Railway, and extended from Brookhaven to Monticello in the next county to the east. Coincidentally, int he novel this is roughly the road or direction that the young Sam McClure travels to reach home some months after the Civil War has ended. I even mention Monticello by name in the book.

The lumber company was eventually acquired by the Goodyear Syndicate, and the rail line was sold to the Illinois Central in 1910. The mill was closed that same year. The rail line operated for another 18 years, finally shut down in 1928.

In Brookhaven, from the 1850s Sam McClure’s family has been operating a grain mill, a lumber mill, and the general store across from the railroad depot in downtown Brookhaven. The grain mill, facing consolidation in the industry because of the growth of the big milling conglomerates like General Mills, was eventually closed and the property converted to racing racehorses. The lumber mill continued to operate, and the war in Europe increases demand for lumber and wood. I included a short scene about British and French representatives signing a contract with Sam, a contract which would lead to a major expansion of lumber operations.

*The Illinois Central deport in Brookhaven about 1903*.

But I didn’t know anything about the Pearl River Lumber Company or the associated railroad operations. The genesis of including a lumber yard in the story came from the fact that Brookhaven is part of the Great Piney Woods of Mississippi, and natural resources like wood and lumber would come to characterize the “New South” after the Civil War and Reconstruction. The South had enormous natural resources, and while agriculture would remain the major industry, it was industries like lumber that helped pulled the South out of post-war economic devastation.

While the novel had been published, the reader’s question took me back into research. I was rather tickled to discover what little I knew actually aligned very closely with the real story.

Top photo: Operations at the Pearl River Lumber Company.

The Value of Writing Short Stories

August 6, 2025 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

In the seven months since my last novel Brookhaven was published, I’ve been focused on talking about it, writing about it, publicizing it, sending out copies, and all the usual things you do to promote your book. I haven’t done much writing of anything else or anything new. An idea for a new novel has been percolating in my mind, but nothing has seen the light of day.

Yet the desire to write is there; it seems like it’s always there. I’ve had to stifle it a bit to keep focused on marketing Brookhaven.

I was able to scratch the writing itch by what resulted from a coincidence.

To continue reading, please see my post today at the American Christian Fiction Writers blog.

“The Collected Breece D’J Pancake”

May 28, 2025 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

Up to a point, the similarities between John Kennedy Toole and Breece D’J Pancake are uncanny.

Toole (1937-1969) wrote two novels. The first was The Neon Bible, which was published a decade after the second novel, A Confederacy of Dunces. Both received repeated rejections from publishers. Toole would eventually commit suicide in 1969. His mother, Thelma, was determined to see A Confederacy of Dunces published, and she pestered publishers and writers for years, finally wearing down Walker Percy who read it and was blown away. It took Percy three years to find a publisher, and it was LSU Press. A Confederacy of Dunces was a bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Pancake (an unusual but real last name) wrote 12 short stories and a few fragments of others. Born in 1952 in West Virginia, he managed to graduate from Marshall University. and taught at two military academies. He enrolled in the creative program at the University of Virginia, where he sensed a “class” consciousness between those who held only a B.A. degree and those who had more advanced degrees. But Pancake was the one selling stories to The Atlantic, which made a typographic error when they printed his stories, changing his middle initials “D.J.” to D’J; he kept it.

He killed himself in 1974 at age 26. His 12 stories represented his entire literary output, but his mother Helen was determined to see them published in book form, which they were in 1983. In 2020, the Library of America republished the 12 stories, along with fragments of other stories and his letters as The Collected Breece D’J Pancake. The introduction is by novelist and short story writer Jayne Anne Phillips, who would go on to win the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Night Watch. The collection also includes the 1983 introduction by James Alan McPherson, who was a director of the creative writing program at Virginia.

The stories are absolute gems, and even the fragments are excellent. For all of the stories, Pancake drew upon his knowledge of and upbringing in West Virginia. These are the stories of the people left behind America’s growth and prosperity. A farmer trying to keep a dying farm alive. A coal miner who somehow still has work, drinks, and shoots pool. A man who encounters an underage girl working as a prostitute. The death of two teenagers that’s meant to look accidental. A snowplow driver who gives a lift to a hitchhiker. Men who fight for money while onlookers bet. A man on parole out for revenge. And more.

The stories aren’t minimalist, which was a quite popular writing movement in the 1970s and early 1980s), but they are written sparingly, with no word superfluous or wasted. Pancake had an ear for authentic conversation; you know you are reading words that sounded exactly like people of the time and place spoke.

Both Toole and Pancake died way too young. Both left an impressive if limited literary estate. Both were so good one has to wonder what else they might have written had they lived. But both left us with something important and valuable. And both are well worth reading.

Related:

“Time and Again” – short story by Breece D’J Pancake at The Short Story Project.

Top photograph: New River Gorge National Park, West Virginia, by Ryan Arnst via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Research Doesn’t Stop with Publication

May 7, 2025 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

It was a year ago that the manuscript for my historical novel was attached to an email and sent to the publisher who requested it. I felt an incredible sense of relief. The thing was done. I could take a break from literally years of reading and research about the Civil War. Nine years of reading and research.

I had started this even before I’d thought about writing a historical novel. I started reading about the Civil War because I was interested in it. It was only when I stumbled across an event called Grierson’s Raid, a Union cavalry raid in 1863 that the idea for a novel arose. The raid began at the border between Mississippi and Tennessee, swept down through the state, and eventually ended at Baton Rouge in Louisiana. It was designed as a diversion for Ulysses S Grant to quietly move his Union army across the Mississippi and attack Vicksburg from the east.

My ancestors had experienced that raid. They lived in the Brookhaven, Mississippi, area, one of sites that Grierson’s raiders had visited.

I researched everything I could about the raid and the broader war. Once I knew I would be writing a novel, my research intensified. By the time I sent the email to the publisher, I was close to exhausted, at least mentally.

To continue reading, please see my post today at the ACFW Blog.

Rereading the “Dancing Priest” Series

April 9, 2025 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

Someone once asked me if I reread my own books after they’re published. And the answer is yes. Part of the reason is research and “story-checking.” When I was writing the Dancing Priest series, I had to reread the early books to make sure I was keeping story line, characters, and settings consistent and accurate.

But I must confess that, sometimes, I reread the books simply for pleasure. Occasionally, I get so wrapped up in the stories that I forget I wrote them. I suppose that’s a good thing. Yes, I have favorite scenes in every book that I like to reread, but I do reread the books in their entirety, about once a year.

I’ve had readers tell me that they reread the Dancing Priest series, too. Last week, Bill Grandi, a pastor in Indiana, started writing about it at his blog Living in the Shadow. This is part of what he had to say about the first book, Dancing Priest; he captured the very heart of the story in just a few words:

“Glynn has weaved together a wonderful story that even a non-religious person would enjoy. Even though Michael is a fictional character, one begins to admire this young man and his passion for life. Grounded without being preachy, Dancing Priest is a wonderful story of faith, hope, caring for others, putting other’s interests before your own, and being sensitive to those around us.”

And here’s what Bill wrote about the second one, A Light Shining, after summarizing a conversation between the Anglican priest Michael Kent and a 15-year-old boy on the steps of Michael’s church in San Francisco:

“…Each one of us matters to God. He sent Jesus to die so that we could be forgiven. While a story written by Mr. Young, the conversation is heard all over the planet. Every person has value and merit. Each one matters. We are all sinners, for sure, but we still matter to God.”

It might be time to reread my books (again). Thank you, Bill Grandi.

Meeting with a Monthly Book Club on “Brookhaven”

April 2, 2025 By Glynn Young 4 Comments

Last week, I sat with seven or eight members of a local St. Louis book club. I was there at their invitation to discuss my historical novel Brookhaven, which they’d chosen for their monthly reading. I was there to talk about the book and answer their questions.

The hostess was more than knowledgeable about the Civil War, having an ancestor who served on the Union side. She even had his picture and other memorabilia. Her husband had an ancestor who published Origins of the Late War in 1866.

As usually happens when you talk with engaged and knowledgeable readers – really engaged readers – you’re the one who comes come away with a new understanding of your own work.

What was the inspiration for the story?

My family history, supposedly passed down from my great-grandfather Samuel Young, who was a Civil War veteran. The family story was that he was too young at the start of the war, so he became a messenger boy. At the end of the war, he had to make his way home on foot from the Eastern Theater to southern Mississippi.

What a great story!

As I discovered in the middle of writing Brookhaven, it was also untrue. Completely. I had to piece together the real story from U.S. Census records, family memories from another branch, old military records, and the family Bible. The received story was so untrue that I suspect someone was pulling someone’s leg, or the story was artfully embroidered by people who weren’t there. My father, for example, said that we came from a long line of shopkeepers who never owned slaves. The census records tell a very different story. We came from a long line of farmers who had indeed owned slaves.

Any other inspirations for the book?

In early 2022, my wife found a reference to a book conserver in St. Louis, and I turned over the family Bible to repair what could be repaired. He did a great job; he also found a lock of auburn hair in the Bible. Given that all the recorded family records were in my great-grandfather’s hand, the lock likely belonged to my great-grandmother Octavia. She died at 44; my great-grandfather never remarried even though he was 43 when she died and lived until he was 75. That lock of hair and his remaining a widower told me there was a love story here.

How long did it take to write Brookhaven?

The writing itself took about eight months, but it wasn’t a solid eight months of non-stop writing. The research took considerably longer; I started reading about the Civil War in 2016, I think inspired by the red-blue divide that was just beginning to rage in contemporary America. The emotions aroused today are not unlike the emotions aroused prior to the Civil War, although the reasons were and are considerably different.

And the story is not just about the Civil War, of course, because it’s actually set in 1915, fifty years after the war ended. So that required two research efforts, like the clothes men and women wore, the kinds of automobiles driven, what you would see at county fairs, whether indoor plumbing was available in small-town Mississippi, and a whole lot more. One historical fact I learned that becomes a small part in the story was that Brookhaven in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries had a large Jewish population, unusual for a small Southern town.

How do you write? Do you have a set time each day?

My wife will tell you that I’m always writing, even when I’m not. Brookhaven was written in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings. The manuscript came with me when we spent three weeks in London in 2023, and I worked on it there and on the plane both ways as well. When I’m not sitting in front of the desktop or laptop, I’m often writing and rewriting in my head, like when I take long walks.

Do you write from an outline or plan?

No. I write from an idea in my head, but not from an outline. There’s a phrase for it, “writing into the dark.” When I start writing, I don’t know how the story is going to end. One of the main characters, the young reporter Elizabeth Putnam, was a relatively late addition to the story, because I kept stumbling over the need for a reason that the story was being told 50 years later. It was another main character, Sam McClure the Civil War veteran, who looked me in the eye one day and said, “You know, you really need a reason for this story being told in 1915.” Writing into the dark mean you learn to trust your characters. I know it sounds bizarre, but that’s how I write.

7 Tips for the Novice Historical Writer – Learned the Hard Way.

How My Novel Originated in the Family Bible.

Relearning Civil War History to Write a Novel.

10 Great Resources for Teaching the Civil War.

Top photograph: The Brookhaven, Miss., train station about 1915.

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