Notes of a Self-Seeker

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.