Author Joe Samuel Starnes visits Rowan B&N

Joe Starnes took a seat at Rowan’s Barnes & Noble to discuss his new book, “Fall Line” last Thursday.

The night focused on the book and its production. Starnes began the session with a reading of three assorted sections from the first half of the book. The story takes place over the course of one day, Dec. 1, 1955. Though the storyline shifts to different perspectives at some points, it mainly focuses on the character Elmer, a former deputy and resident of the little Georgia town in which the story takes place. The conflict centers around a dam being closed that day, which cuts off the Oogasula River.

Starnes said that the inspiration for this story came when he was a news reporter in college. He was assigned to cover earthquakes that were springing up in his home state of Georgia due to man-made lakes.

The characters in the story are not the common archtypes in literature. “My characters are rough around the edges. Publishers usually want lovable characters. I’ve got the dog,” Starnes said about his cast. Many of them were pulled from people Starnes knew from his life in Georgia.

The first section of the story actually takes place from the perspective of Elmer’s dog. Starnes admitted that the dog was the second largest perspective role next to Elmer. It was inspired in part by Jack London’s novel “Call to the Wild” and by his father’s collection of stray dogs.

“The dog ends up being the favorite character, to me. He allows you to see things you normally couldn’t see. He lets you watch the environment change,” said Ron Block, a member of the crowd and a creative writing professor at Rowan.

Much of the crowd was also interested in the process of the book’s publishing. This book is Starnes’ second published novel.

“I thought it would sit in my desk forever,” Starnes noted retrospectively. The novel took roughly four years to finish (2003-2007) and was just released this year. “Sometimes a publisher will call you back in a week, sometimes in a month, sometimes three months. You might get a call and completely forget you sent your manuscript to that company.”
Starnes is confident about his book. “I don’t expect John Grisham to start panicking.” Fans of Southern writing with limited colloquialism in the vein of “Deliverance” will want to check out this book, now available in Barnes & Noble.