Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
When it came time to write his latest book, James Ray Brown knew exactly the setting he was looking for – Marlinton, West Virginia.
Brown, a native of Autaugaville, Alabama, first visited Marlinton back in 2003 when he came to Snowshoe Mountain Resort to ski. He had tried the slopes in Colorado in 2001 and was wanting to find a place a little closer to home, when he hit the road and headed to the Mountain State.
“I had no idea where I was going, but I had the map,” he said. “So, I got to the Top of the World the second day and they said they had nowhere to stay. They sent me to the Old Clark Inn. That was in 2003. I came up here twenty-two times and those trips, the woman I was married to for a year and my experiences on and off the football field and basketball court and in the classroom, is this book.”
The self-published author is also a science teacher and coach, much like his character Sam in his latest book “Sam and Ann.”
Sam is a high school basketball coach when he falls hard for Ann, a well-to-do mountain woman who wants to be with Sam but is also hesitant about the relationship.
The name of the county is fake, but the town the pair live in is Marlinton and the story goes back to the past and into the present, weaving the tale of their ancestors and how it led them to where they are today.
Ann is a widow and her husband, Franklin’s, family goes back generations, including his grandmother Claire Earl, whose story is also in the book. Claire is a near opposite to Ann, a strong mountain woman who was born after World War II and could handle herself in the rough forests of West Virginia.
“When she’s seventeen, she shoots and kills her first and only black bear,” Brown said. “At that point is when Kevin Earl – he’s already interested in her – but after that, that’s it. He is smitten.
It’s ten years before he starts pursuing her because he knows he hasn’t reached a level of maturity that it’s going to take to wrangle this mountain woman.”
Brown came to Marlinton the week of the RoadKill Cook-off and Autumn Harvest Festival to host author talks at McClintic and Hillsboro libraries, as well as set up at the festival to share his book with the public.
During one of the library talks, Brown was asked who his influences were and who he writes like. He said he is heavily influenced by the Holy Bible and is fond of the 50-year-old collection of Encyclopedias he owns – and still reads for fun.
“The book that would have influenced this book directly would have been ‘Our Southern Highlanders,’ by Horace Kephart,” he said. “It was originally published in 1913 and then a second edition in 1922. He was in a mountain community in North Carolina.
“What little I know about mountain people – their folklore, feuding, how they treat foreigners like me, moonshining, stuff like that – is in that big thick book. It covers it all.”
“Sam and Ann” is available at all the libraries in Pocahontas County, as well as for sale at the Greenbrier Grille, Handmade WV Market, Snowshoe Hare and Cass Company Store.
