[Announcer] This program is brought to you by the generous support of The Secular Society, advancing the interests of women and the arts in Virginia and beyond.

[♪♪♪] -♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ [♪♪♪] -Welcome, I'm Rose Martin, and we are Write Around The Corner in Southside, Virginia, with debut novelist Henry Wise.

His book, Holy City , takes us on a journey with a sheriff who is trying to not look the other way.

There's a fire, there's a murder, there's death, there's cover up.

There's so much.

And let me introduce you to him.

Hi, Henry.

Thank you.

-Hi.

Thank you, Rose.

-We're excited to be here with you, and let everyone know about this amazing location and this house behind us.

-Well, this house is called Millbrook.

It's actually owned by a friend of mine.

A few years ago, I went through...

I was going through this area of Southside and taking film photos of some of the houses in the area, some of the landscape.

And I actually submitted a photo of this house to Grove Atlantic, my publisher, and they actually made it into the cover, and that was unexpected.

-So were you a photographer beforehand, or it was part of writing the book that you were looking for a place?

-Um, really looking for some inspiration for the book, but I've never been, it's always just been a hobby of mine, photographing some abandoned properties and just some of the landscape in the area.

-You certainly have a lot to choose from.

I mean, and it's beautiful.

It's a fun location for us to be in.

What's the actual story behind this house?

Do you know it?

-The only thing that I know is that it dates back to at least 1839, and as you can see, not a lot has been done to it, so it's very authentic in that way.

The house was called Millbrook, and that's really about all I know.

-Well, and we'll get into it when we talk about the book, but an old, abandoned, rundown house plays a key thing in this book.

But I'm curious about you, Henry.

So you went to VMI, and you're a professor at VMI.

What's your story?

-I grew up mostly in Richmond, and part of this book is set in Richmond.

Did go to VMI in the early 2000s, graduated in '05, and I started as a writer there.

I started to write poetry, especially, but also tried to write a little bit of fiction.

Couldn't figure out how to write enough to make a book.

But then, moved away, lived in Taiwan for four years, met my wife in Roanoke, teaching, and then ended up going to Ole Miss for my MFA in poetry.

While I was getting my MFA in poetry, I started writing fiction seriously, really wanting to write a novel, but I was sort of urged to stick to poetry.

But fiction... what I love about fiction and novels is that you can fall into a world, you can create a world, and really just get lost in it.

And so, you know, I wrote one book about surfing in Taiwan, which never found representation.

And then, I wrote this one sort of on the rebound.

And initially I was just thinking, you know, I'll write something that'll sell.

But, as I got into it, it became more and more a novel about some of the... about being a Virginian, about so much deeper material, and really, you know, ended up just putting my heart into the book, so.

-And you can tell when you read it.

Now, do you have a family history for this area?

-Yes, I do.

My mother's family has some roots in this area.

Not really recent, but yes, an ancestor named Finley came from Mecklenburg County, and the Carringtons were my mother's family.

And that's a big name around Charlotte County.

So, yes, I've always had, you know, a draw here.

I've come here over the years visiting friends from the area, and hunting and stuff like that.

-[Rose] Hm.

-So... -That's interesting.

Now, your parents, were they, are they writers?

Did they encourage the writing?

Where did the bug come from?

-Well, my father especially is a very literary person.

He used to teach English, high school English.

-That's very literary.

-It is.

And, you know, he, he brought me up reading a lot.

We would read a lot together.

And he exposed me to a lot of southern writers, in particular.

And actually, he gave me a copy of William Faulkner's novella The Bear when I was in high school.

He gave it to me for Christmas, a used copy.

I was sick the day after Christmas, I had no intention of reading it, but I figured, you know, I'll just pick this up and see if I can just tell them that it's a good start, you know?

And I actually ended up not being able to put it down.

And that book, in particular, opened me up not to wanting to be a writer, not really aspiring to be a writer, but to, it drove me to really want to put words on the page.

-And to escape into that world, or to give other people a chance to go into that other world.

How about your family right now?

You have little kids?

-Yes, two very young children.

One's two and a half yesterday, and one is now five months old.

-So just young as you're getting ready to do this.

Can you pinch yourself to think that this is my debut novel and I'm actually... it's put in, put it out in the world, hearing, and there have been great reviews, hearing all about your story.

What does that feel like for you to have this, this story out in the world?

-It's very hard to describe, but I'm a writer, so I should be able to describe it.

It feels dreamlike, certainly.

I never thought this book would be published, which I think is responsible for some of the risks that I took in the novel because I just figured it needed to hold my attention.

You know, so I took some risks there.

But my friend Eli Cranor, who's the author of Don't Know Tough , which did well a couple years ago, he's from Arkansas.

He said, he called me up recently.

He said, "It's good that you got kids.

It'll keep you grounded."

-Mm.

That's wonderful.

That's great advice.

And I think you saying about risk taking, that's important, too, for any aspiring writer or even someone who's in transition to say, I'm going to take some risks.

So, while you're working full time, you're bringing this book to life.

How long did it take?

-Nearly took about four years.

That was four very distracted years, you know, of working full time, writing at night, writing in the morning, occasionally, you know, very early in the morning, but really, you know, focusing on a full-time job, teaching job.

And so, it was four years, but I think that could have been shortened if I were writing full-time.

But about four years from starting to type the story, starting to write the story from scratch, to having a publishable draft.

-So, how did you choose this topic?

You mentioned about surfing, and then this is a totally different book.

How did you come to say, you know, I think this is the location and this is the story I want to tell.

-I think, well, I met Richard Ford a few years ago and in a, in a classroom setting, and I think he thought I was a little bit annoying because I would ask him serious questions.

Everybody else seemed to be intimidated by him.

But I asked him, you know, "What advice would you give to somebody who's aspiring to write a novel?"

And he said, "Don't, don't write a novel."

And then, everybody sort of laughed.

And I said, "Well, no, seriously, what would you say?"

And he gave me some of the best advice I've ever gotten, and he wouldn't remember me, by the way, but he said, "Write about what's most important to you because that'll sustain you."

And... -That's really good.

Let's say that again.

-He said, "Write about what's most important to you because that will sustain you."

-Are you thinking about sending him a book?

-I probably should.

-With that little reminder of what he did?

-Yes, I think I should.

That's a great idea.

Thank you.

But I really took that to heart because it's difficult to stick.

It's difficult, difficult to stick to a topic.

It's difficult to stay with characters unless there's something there that almost becomes an obsession.

You know, you're so dedicated that no matter what happens, you're going to stick with it because there are times in the writing process when you want to quit.

-How did that work for you?

Sticking with the characters because you love them, or outlining and you had to carry them through?

-Yeah, I did.

I think I found something to love in each character, or at least something to pity.

The characters changed for me.

I saw this as an experiment, a study in those characters and trying to get to know them and what motivated them.

And that just became interesting enough.

And seeing what, you know, the deep pain and tragedy that motivates so many of them.

So many of them try to do the right thing, what they see as the right thing, even if we see that it's not.

Try to do the right thing, and you at least can root for them in, you know, trying to survive in this world.

So I think I just cared about the characters enough and the place, and the idea of, you know, this question of, what is home?

Where do you belong?

Which kind of controls a lot of the story as well.

-So, what was the starting point for you?

The characters or that "What is home" place?

-I think the home really is.

This, you know, I love Virginia, I'm a native Virginian.

My family goes back generations here and... but I've always felt a little bit divided myself, you know.

Some of my family are farmers, some of my family, you know, I grew up primarily in Richmond.

And there's always been a bit of a divide, you know.

Where do I belong, more in an urban setting?

Am I from Richmond, or am I from the countryside?

And, you know, I see family on both sides of that who are 100 percent, you know, they just belong where they grew up.

They know everybody from high school.

There's no division there.

But for me, you know, I've felt that inner tension, and I think the book largely came from that.

-Where do you find yourself now?

Still going between those worlds?

-I do.

I do.

-And that's an okay place to be, to go back and forth.

So why did you choose Richmond as the setting of the story?

-Yeah, it's sort of a...

I see it as a secondary setting.

I think I wanted... what interests me about comparing Southside to, having Southside and Richmond as counterpoints to each other.

Richmond is a place that has done pretty well economically over the years.

Although it's had periods of time where crime was rampant and violence and all of that, it's still economically done pretty well for a southern city.

And Southside isn't really that way.

I think there's a thinner veneer in Southside.

You sort of see places like this, they're really a dime a dozen.

And you see, you can see the impact that the loss of the tobacco industry, the diminishment of the tobacco industry, has had on people here.

And so, I think they work well as counterpoints.

-So I'm curious about the promised land, if it means... in my mind, I'm thinking, does it mean the promise that a place holds as far as home or what you remember, and secure and safety, even though it might not be that now?

Or is a promised land something you want to get to by having what's painful left behind you?

-Hm.

That's a good question.

I mean, I think of The Promised Land Plantation, which is the old house that the protagonist lives in, Will Seems.

I think of it as sort of, you know, this notion that at one time, it was seen as kind of idyllic, and it's anything but that now.

Um, it's sort of a defeated version of that.

What should have been the land of promise is now struggling, and it's actually literally boarded up.

-Right.

So I've never heard of Richmond referred to as the Holy City before.

Where did that come from?

-I have heard it over the years.

I think probably quite a few cities could claim some similar nickname.

I know Charleston, South Carolina would like to claim it, but I always heard it in a couple different senses.

You know, Richmond being referred to, almost ironically, as the Holy City.

Like, they think they're better than everybody else or... -Because of the history with the Confederacy... -I think so.

-And that.

okay, notoriety.

-And, but also, some people would sincerely refer to it as the Holy City.

Like, yeah, that's the Confederate Mecca right there.

All of the statues along Monument Avenue.

[Rose] Right.

-And so, I like the fact that I've heard it in a couple different senses because it allows me to, you know, you don't know what it means on the cover of the book.

[Rose] Right.

Well, and I don't know if it's referring to Richmond or if it's referring to, like you said, that struggle to know where we fit.

Is it in the rural?

Is it in the urban?

So is the Holy City a place you go back to, or your promised land, or is it somewhere else?

-Yes.

-So I'm curious about that.

-Absolutely.

I think it's much more than just Richmond.

It's the idea of almost like the Promised Land idea, you know, of holiness, of something that should be perfect, that should be holy, but maybe falls short of that or is corrupted, which has a lot to do with the book as well.

-Well, and that's exactly, that's a great lead in for the story, because... set it up for our viewers and your new readers about, you know, how this story opens, and who the characters are.

-Yeah, this story really is about Will Seems, whose family is from Southside, Virginia.

He grew up, until he was 18, he lived in Southside, Virginia at his homeplace.

You know, his family was in tobacco going back to the '70s.

-In a house very much like this when it wasn't run down and abandoned.

-That's right.

That's right.

And so, he returns after being away for ten years.

His mother dies tragically.

His father moves him away to Richmond as sort of a reaction to that tragedy.

And Will decides he's got every reason to leave Southside behind because it's the place of tragedy for him.

And yet, after ten years, which he calls "ten years in exile," he returns, sort of moves heaven and earth to return to the old family place, which has been for sale for ten years as well as, you know, it's boarded up, it's in disrepair.

And he sets his mind to, you know, not only becoming a deputy sheriff, but to starting life again where it began for him.

-In a way, going home and finding his roots in that place.

Okay, so now we have the fire, and we have a murder, and we have this introduction of these characters.

And I get the feeling like Will constantly doesn't want to look the other way, and he's come back here for a reason.

And now, he has to deal with this cast of characters.

Who are they?

-Yeah, well, Sheriff Mills is his superior, someone, you know, Will Seems disagrees with quite a bit.

-And we might add, he's got a history with some other people in Will's family.

We'll leave it there.

-Yes, absolutely.

So, so, yes.

And part of, part of the benefit, I think, the virtue for the purpose of my book for returning to Southside is that everybody kind of knows everybody, in a way.

-That can be good and bad.

Everybody knows each other's stories, right?

-Yeah.

There's no real, there's no real hiding.

[Rose] Sure.

-People always look at Will and kind of refer to him as "son" or "young man," as if he has returned the same age that he left.

And sort of like, "Oh, you're Bill Seems' boy," instead of, "You're your own person."

-Sure.

-So he's living in the shadow of characters as well.

-So what happens with the murder?

-Well, his friend, an old friend, Tom Janders, is murdered.

At first, it appears to just be a house fire, but it's pretty obvious fairly quickly that he's been murdered, and no one knows why.

Tom is pretty well liked.

You know, former football star, never quite left the county, but should have.

Should have taken a scholarship to play football, but never quite makes it out.

And that seems to be a story of so many people in the book.

You know, they... people who have the opportunity, get out of town, people who don't, kind of stay and suffer.

-And you hit some tough subjects in that same thing about what happens to people who choose to get out and don't get out, or who maybe aren't faced with opportunities, or who are afraid to get the opportunities.

And there's also, you touch on racism, you know, which is prevalent in the book.

So, someone gets arrested for the murder, and Will thinks he's absolutely innocent.

-That's right.

He's convinced.

-[Rose] Yeah.

-But the evidence points to him.

So there's a, there's actually a plausible reason to hold the accused in custody, which is what happens for, you know, I'll leave it there.

But which is what happens.

And Will's gut tells him that this is not right.

And he tries to go about correcting this and finding the real killer.

Along the way, he actually meets another detective, sort of a washed-up detective from Richmond.

She's Black and Will is white, and that is just one of the causes of tension between them.

But she is a private detective, and is very unconventional and eccentric.

In fact, they both are.

-And you give them some very unconventional names.

-Yes.

-And some names to where I'm thinking, were these real people, and how did he come up with the names of these characters?

But they fit.

They fit how you vividly take us into the description of them and the place and the scenes.

-Yeah.

Well, they certainly became real for me.

But, you know, when I hear a good name, I try to... -You write it down for the future?

-Try to remember it.

Yeah.

-Okay, so they're butting heads trying to figure this, figure this case out.

And there's also, the community members are very involved on one side or another, as it would be in a small town where everyone thinks they know everything and knows everybody, and what has happened.

So, how did you balance those perceptions, and keep us wondering about the story and the investigation and what happened, the interactions between them?

-That was difficult, certainly, to try to balance the different opinions surrounding the case, but at the same time, not give anything away.

And also, for a while there, I was exploring, you know, what really did happen.

-[Rose] Sure.

-I sort of...

Some people write with a clear, clear idea of what's going to happen.

I actually write to explore.

-Mm.

So you were letting those characters kind of tell the story.

-I really was.

-So when we had the house, which was kind of a character, the town, then we have that early tragedy that happened come back into play, and Will's dealing with that.

So he's simultaneously dealing with a couple of things that are above board legally, and a couple of things that maybe are borderline for legally, right.

That's a challenge.

-One thing that Will and Bennico, the other detective, have in common is that they are, they are not above taking the law into their own hands, but in just very different ways.

-Would you be willing to read something for us?

-I would, yes.

-What did you choose?

-So I'm going to read... this is a passage where Will is returning, or Will has been asked to go and tell the mother of Tom Janders, his dead friend.

He's got to tell, he's got to report to the mother that her son is dead.

And so, this is a scene that kind of forces him to reflect on where he is and how he feels about it.

"Will stepped out, glad to be away from the office.

"He put on his hat and looked out over the town.

"He could see the back of the statue "commemorating Confederate veterans, "stalwart and dark as a shadow "under the shade of two magnolia trees "in front of the white columned courthouse of Dawn, Virginia, "and out into the baking sun and the pale, cracked sidewalks.

"There was barely anyone on the road, "even approaching the lunch hour.

"52 Walker Court Road.

"He began walking toward it, "thinking the exercise would do him good, "but was sweating through his undershirt "by the time he reached the road adjacent.

"It was met by two streets on either end of the lawn "and paralleled by another, "forming an absurdly grand yet brief town square, "vacant except for the starved library, "open but always empty, "the pharmacy, and Antoinette's restaurant.

"This was the town he'd held in his dreams "those years he'd been in exile.

"All this had shaped his understanding of the world.

"It all started here, "and coming back had been like digging out the dirt, "pinning a coffin in the ground.

"He remembered growing up here "with a vividness he didn't have for this morning.

"He remembered going into town and seeing it "because there was nothing to do.

"Driving the farm-used pickup too young "and getting groceries at the Texaco or Gulf, "and nobody caring.

"The slackness of time he used to feel as a kid, "the bright white, innocent wasting of it, "as if it would always be there, like a great comfort, "the way you take for granted mountains or land of any kind.

"The feeling that the world somehow made sense "if you just let it spin.

"He used to lie in his bed in Richmond, "close his eyes and see it, home.

"The living Piedmont swamps, "and the ugly scalps of new pine growth "after brush fires and logging, "the sounds of wild quail warbling at the edges of fields "in the exploding thickets, "the vague impressions of life "on a series of roads, all looking the same, "the austere plantation silhouettes "alone in their worlds of flowing red horizons, "tobacco barns and smokehouses, "that heavy, resinous fragrance of tobacco "like sweet, profound raisins, "the cotton in the flats to the east "poking out like warm, soft stars.

"He'd attempted to bring back a past, innocent and familiar, "but found himself a stranger to the present, ever guilty.

"Had leaving Richmond been a mistake?

"Had he been running away, "lying to himself and his father "when he claimed he'd come back to make things right, "to face things instead?

"Euphoria County seemed at times to be a tangent, "like an unmaintained road going nowhere.

"Many of the neglected houses "were inhabited by vagrants and users, "those who lived tobacco's tragic legacy.

"And the shops on the square had mostly given way "to a similar vacancy.

"And so, the place that had for so long haunted him, "now appeared itself to be haunted.

"And here he was again, "riding tall pine-lined two-lanes through the boonies, "cresting into hamlets like mistakes, "listening to that angry word of God, since there was nothing else."

-Thank you.

Great story.

Thank you so much for bringing us here to Southside.

My special thanks to Henry Wise, and I want to give a shout-out to Dr. Craig Wilhelms, it's how we found out about Henry and his debut novel, Holy City.

Make sure to check out more of our interview online, and we're going to go behind the scenes with Henry, and tell your friends all about us.

I'm Rose Martin, and I will see you next time Write Around The Corner .

[♪♪♪] -♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ [♪♪♪] -♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ -♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ [Announcer] This program is brought to you by the generous support of The Secular Society, advancing the interests of women and the arts in Virginia and beyond.