If Bricks Could Talk

By: University of Michigan Press | Date: August 5, 2009
If Bricks Could Talk

by Mardi Link, author of the forthcoming Isadore's Secret and bestseller When Evil Came to Good Hart

files/2009/08/mills_house.jpg

On Wednesday, July 29, the "Murder Takes a Road Trip" book tour made a stop in Benzonia at the Mills Community House, a stately and historic Northern Michigan landmark celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.

What a setting in which to discuss our state's literary history and our own contributions to it!

For a complete schedule of Mardi's upcoming events, visit the UMP Author Events page.

When I walked up to the podium, it was impossible not to be humbled, knowing that I was standing in the same spot Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Michigan native Bruce Catton (Waiting for the Morning Train) had stood. As a boy, Catton lived in the building in the early 1900's when it was The Benzonia Academy and his father was headmaster. Even today, if you look up at the high ceilings, you can still see the circular marks left by the basketball games played here by the high school team in the 1920s. In 1972 it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places and today there's an ongoing effort to rennovate the brick building to its former grandeur.

It was within these building bricks of history that we three road-trippers told the stories behind our books, and it struck me that while every book tells a story, they also create one, separate from what's inside the pages, a birth story of sorts all about where the book began, how the details were found, and even what happened after the book was published.

For example, just last month I met an amateur historian and postcard collector who shared with me a series of pamphlets written in the 1920s by a Polish journalist who covered the murder, investigation, and trial in my forthcoming book, Isadore's Secret. I had heard of these works, but could never locate copies until now.

Stories, fiction and non-fiction, are fluid, living things, just like historic buildings are, and don't completely end when the book is published or the building renovated. They go on, and make for new stories to share, and newly restored places to share them.

The Road Trip will next be sharing our stories at the Elk Rapids District Library on Saturday, August 8 for a lunchtime program beginning at 11 a.m. All are welcome; the event is free and open to the public.

This entry was originally posted on Mardi Link's blog at: www.mardilink.typepad.com/