In the Alabama parking lot that changed his life forever, the author Sonny Brewer turned toward me in his driver’s seat, called his dog, Bobby, into his lap, and told me the serendipitous tale of how his first novel came to be. We were sitting in Fairhope, the little city perched on Mobile Bay along the Gulf of Mexico where people come to eat, drink, and unwind. It’s also a place where pretty much everyone has a story to tell.
Forty years ago, Sonny was “a carpenter with a creative writing degree,” building a carport for William E. Butterworth III, a best-selling author of military novels under the pen name W. E. B. Griffin. One day, Sonny’s saw blade buzzed through a board and grazed his pants. He didn’t bleed, but it was what academics might call “an inciting incident.” Sonny scrambled down the scaffolding, banged on his client’s door, and declared he was through with carpentry. He would be a writer. Butterworth promised to help—once the carport was done.
After driving in the final nail, Sonny was on his way to a real estate course (Butterworth’s” A concrete dome with knee-high windows, built at the foot of a gnarled live oak, it looked to him “like a hobbit house or something from a movie set.” What was this non sequitur in the middle of an office parking lot? That question set him on an almost twenty-year journey that resulted in his first book, a beloved tome of Fairhope historical fiction called.
