Scott Gould, an Upstate-based novelist and retired teacher, will promote his new novel “Beneath a Fallen Sky” with a stop in Fountain Inn.
Gould found inspiration for his first historical fiction novel from family stories, specifically ones set around the time of Halley’s Comet.
Set in the mountains of Northeast Alabama in May 1910, as Halley’s Comet hurtles toward Earth, panic grips the population. Experts predict the end of all life, and in Fort Payne, four townsfolk face their final days. Charlie McCracken continues his mail route up Sand Mountain, caring for an elderly Cherokee woman who escaped the Trail of Tears. His aunt Zona baptizes terrified townsfolk for a quarter each, preaching her improvised scripture. Sheriff Tyus Wetley struggles to hold his anxious town — and his marriage — together, while brothel madam Elva Shugart seeks redemption as the heavens prepare to fall. Over four harrowing days, their paths collide in unexpected and sometimes violent ways.
“I had a lot of family stories that coalesced around this event in 1910 when Halley’s Comet was due to strike,” said Gould. “I had a grandfather (Charlie Scott), who delivered mail on a mule in Sand Mountain, Alabama. There was a brothel in town that was doing a really good business in the weeks before the comet hit.”…