NOTES OF A SELF-SEEKER: A Novel

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Notes of a Self-Seeker is a novel about a divided country, the role of journalism in society, and the most tumultuous year in modern American history--no, not 2020, but 1968. Told from the perspective of a southern reporter who travels north in January to take a job on a Vermont newspaper, each of the thirteen chapters chronicles the events of one day in a year like no other. If you thought 2020 was a rocky ride, reacquaint yourself with the news of 1968. Reporting, writing, drinking, the cycle of a daily newspaper is the rhythm of Bud Willis’s life, an unhealthy progression from job to job that lands him in a frigid Yankee backwater. He’s an outsider and an insider, a reporter writing about events but also turning them into the record that history will remember, a southerner getting the inside scoop in a northern state, and before long he’s caught between a scary police chief, an ambitious state’s attorney and an unfolding story he can’t quite wrap his head around. To make matters worse, Sy, the managing editor he has come to admire, is in a war to prevent his newsroom from unionizing. Sy’s scarf was draped loosely around his neck and he yanked it off with his right hand. He ignored Willis and Fletcher, shouting past them, “Hey, Connie, you’ve got to cover a press conference this afternoon.”“I can’t.” She sat down at her own desk and looked up at Sy but did not say anything more.“Why not?” He looked at her out of the tops of his eyes. “In the first place, I have to go somewhere else. In the second place, I don’t start work until four.”Sy looked around the newsroom again and was about to say something when Connie raised her arm and pointed at Willis. “Why don’t you send the hotshot over there?”Sy looked over at Willis and Fletcher, who had stopped talking and were both watching them. “What are you working on, Willis?”“Who’s having a press conference?” Willis answered.“There’s a religious commune of some kind up in Moretown. They’re complaining about harassment and they’ve called a press conference for this afternoon.”“Moretown? Christ, that’s thirty miles away, isn’t it? Is it worth it?”“Yes, it’s worth it,” Sy said with some irritation. “Take the news car. And you better hurry if you’ve never been up that way.”“Wait a minute,” Fletcher said. “Maybe it’s not worth it. Won’t the AP cover a press conference?”Sy ignored him. “Get a map from Alice’s desk,” he said to Willis. “It’ll take you about forty-five minutes to get there.”Willis nodded, but said, “How about Harry? Why can’t he go?”“Who?”“Harry? No, I mean Hank—you know, the kid. Harry, Hank, Henry, whatever his name is.” Connie snickered from the background.“Wait a minute,” Fletcher said again, moving slightly closer to Sy. “Are we going to cover every group that wants to whine about something? Whoever goes up there to Moretown is going to end up on overtime, right?”Sy had started turning toward Connie, but he whirled around toward Fletcher, his face reddening. “We’re going to cover every goddam group that I say we’re going to cover. And I say we’re going to cover the goddam press conference.”He turned to face Willis directly, the blood now pulsating in the tips of his fingers, in his toes, and most obviously in his pointed ears, which glowed like warning lights when his blood pressure soared. “And you’re going to cover it, Willis. So get moving. Now.”Sy wheeled around to aim his hawkish glare at Connie. “And if you’re not working, what in the hell are you doing in here? From now on, Connie, if you’re in the newsroom, I’ll assume you’re working. Or rather, you assume that you’re working because if I tell you to go cover a story and you don’t do it, you can assume that you’re fired.”