This is a story that I came back to time and time again. I grew up in close proximity to the Tri-State Crematorium, and probably would never have known it had it not been for the discovery of hundreds of corpses on the property in the early 2000s. Then everyone knew about it. Everyone. But strangely enough, after the media spectacle died down — and remember this was before the internet took over — the story just kinda went away. Not for the families of course, but it just kinda moved into the shadows. And because we were not all enraptured by true crime then, it really never got revisited with the exception of a couple of auto-biographical books and an independent film. (Of course a month before I finished the manuscript a best-selling podcast came out about this topic, but that’s another story all together. It’s good by the way. It’s called Noble, the title of my book at the time.)
My account is a product of my imagination based on the facts of the case that were readily available. To write it as non-fiction seemed redundant to the coverage already dedicated to the topic, so I tried to come up with motivations and characters who could be involved in something as insane as this all was. I’m pretty happy with the way things turned out, and because the actual family who perpetrated the crimes never gave a motive, I think I’ve come up with one that makes as much sense as anything else.
I got the idea for this book at a rest stop on Monteagle Mountain which is half-way between Nashville and Chattanooga. A dingy little rest stop in the rain, and BAM, the idea came to me as if a bolt of lightning had come out of the cloud cover enveloping the mountain and rattled my car, idling in the vacant parking lot. I started writing that night, and a few thousand words later, I knew I had something worth pursuing.
The novel is multi-generational, following the path of two brothers who are running from something terrible that they don’t understand, but is relentless in its malevolent purpose. There is some personal aspects in here, but for the most part it’s horror fiction, tinged with what I hope is literary merit. I tried hard to get into the head of these men and women, seeking an understanding for why these people acted the way that they did, and the more I wrote, the more they spoke to me, urging me on with their need for violence and vindication, counterbalanced with their need for redemption and enlightenment. It’s both vast and singular in its scope, but I also tried to balance it by making the story move quickly to keep the reader’s attention. I think I succeeded in doing that, but you judge for yourself. I’ve been told that reading All Is Set Anew in the daylight is a better choice than late in the evening when things lurking beyond the porch light are hidden and glaring back.
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In many ways, I wrote my first novel to make way for One Black Day. I say that because I don’t think I had the writing maturity for this novel were it to be my first.
This is a story about young men, and their struggles to become adults. They are flawed boys who began as all children do — decent in their view of the world around them, but easily dismayed at the turns that life throws them, whether that be the adults in their lives, or the circumstances that they stumble their way into, sometimes to there demise and sometimes to their recovery.
In addition, this novel deals with some personal things that occurred as I was growing up. Particularly as it relates to the Charlie Winter character. I mention this because it returns me back to my earlier point about maturity as a novel writer. It took me a long time to come to grips with some of these themes, and now that I have committed myself to paper, I feel that I have said what I needed to say on matters of great importance to me. I hope you enjoy the journey.