Are you ready for an old school, rollicking, western adventure ride? Addison True, a 1,000-page historical novel split into two volumes for Audible, is an attempt at a sweeping, epic American saga. I have been contemplating the story for 30 years and spent four writing it full-time. It will likely be labeled a western, but it is meant to be much more than that. It follows the title character, a quintessential American hero, through ten roughly 100-page chapters (five for each volume), from Addy’s arrival in Gold Rush San Francisco in 1849, age 18, to guiding a winter-trapped wagon train down the back side of the Sierra, pioneering a stagecoach route through Apache territory, getting caught in the 1855 Plains war, serving as sheriff of Leavenworth during “bloody Kansas” days, Pony Express stationmaster in Nebraska territory, two chapters in the Civil War—a spy for Grant at Vicksburg, and he and a slave he met earlier escape north from Mississippi to Ohio—and a final chapter back on the plains. The research is based on the reading of 152 books, journals, and personal memoirs.The novel is “ambitious,” as they say. It attempts to capture the prototypical American character in Addison, and Addison True, the book, attempts to evoke the American spirit itself. The story is told entirely in vernacular, a style that tries to find the sweet spot between the written word and oral storytelling. I stumbled on the narrative voice while writing a non-fiction book about cowboys and ranchers. I could spend pages explaining it’s importance to the story, but suffice it to say the voice is critical in terms of authenticity. A byproduct of the style is diminished description and an emphasis on anecdotal storytelling. Forgive the comparison but that is the strength of Huckleberry Finn—one adventure after another. Addison is an adult Huck and Addison True is Huckleberry Finn in lengthier form and on a broader stage, but with the same continuous flow of action and adventure. If you take a moment to think about it, the style I was trying to perfect for print is uniquely adapted for an audiobook. The book’s 3-page introduction explains the vernacular conceit and sets the backstory: Addy’s best friend in the novel writes down Addison’s tales years later when they are old men, but the manuscript in lost for a century. Addy was born in Vermont, orphaned, ran away to Boston, then shipped out of Nantucket on a whaler for the Pacific and heard about gold while in port in Honolulu. Chapter one is the gold rush. Chapter two sees Addison leading a winter-stranded wagon train down the east side of the Sierra and safely over a desert pass. The story shifts back to vigilante San Francisco where Addy ensures the man who “done his partner wrong” in chapter one is “justiced.” In chapter four Addison pioneers a stagecoach route from Los Angeles to Saint Joseph, Missouri through dangerous Apache country. In chapter five he joins an expedition up the Missouri River but ends up crossing Nebraska territory and both tangles with and makes friends with Indians that resurface in two later chapters. In addition to the just described “outer” story, a rocky romance runs throughout the book. Emma is the daughter of an unscrupulous Saint Joseph, Missouri merchant who joins the last wagon train of the 1849 season, intent on opening a store in San Francisco. Addison meets her at the start of chapter two. In chapter four her ever-entrepreneurial father has busted in San Francisco and proposes sending a stagecoach across the dangerous southwest to prove the feasibility of regular service. With his wife returned home and ill in Missouri, he sends Emma on the coach, the trip is led by Addison, and their love blossoms. She is stunned at the start of chapter 5 when Addison immediately leaves on another adventure instead of proposing marriage. His rash move threatens their relationship.The story is sweeping, swashbuckling, and just plain fun.
