The Home Place

by Mike Addington

Matt's harsh words and ways permeated the farm, life made bareable only by his wife, the saintly Cora. The 10 children learned hard work and morals, which they would need when they left the safety of the farm in North Georgia in the 1950s. They would need the love and bonding of family when two of the boys left home and moved to town and ended up with a rough crowd. None rougher than Buel Hollins, who controlled the county through bribes and graft and, if that didn't work, through murder. When the Downey boys and Buel Hollins came together, only tragedy could follow.

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2007

About the author

Georgia boy now living the good life in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Love the sun and ocean and stimulating ambience of our little town. Conversing with caring, intelligent friends makes my day.

While in the Air Force, I worked in a classified (since declassified) unit in Italy with eyes on the Soviet Union looking for any hanky-panky that might lead to our demise. Later in life, I thought the experience could be the basis for a novel, so, adding the Red Brigade terrorist group and an unwilling Soviet Air Force colonel who was forced to become an agent, I wrote my first novel (unpublished) "Treviso: The First Terrorist." Title subject to change. After writing the book and hiring a professional editor, who taught me many things, I studied my technique and read other authors with an analytical approach. Feeling ready to write a book of substance, I began The Home Place, the Roman a clef story of the suspicious deaths of two men in 1956. Having sent 200 queries to agents for the first book, I decided to publish The Home Place myself to see how it was received and whether, by the feedback, whether I had any real skill as a writer. The Atlanta PBS/NPR radio station book program "Between the Lines" selected The Home Place for their 2007 Suggested Reading List, which I feel is a real honor. Guests on Between the Lines include Toni Morrison and Jimmy Carter, so to be selected by the producer of a program of that caliber puffed my chest. Well, to be truthful, being an avid reader all my life, I thought I could tell good writing and thought I had done that in The Home Place but one can never really be sure how well they relate what they intend to relate to readers. Readers are the ultimate critics, after all. The Home Place was not written for the casual reader but for those who can insert themselves into the book. I call those people "sophisticated readers." If anyone knows a better description, please feel free to pass it along. I was very fortunate that the Barnes & Noble stores in north metro Atlanta were kind enough to host solo book signings for me and I did very well at those book signing, usually selling out the 20-25 copies each store ordered for the signing. Some outlets asked me back. I did three for the Barnes & Noble at the Mall of Georgia, which is the largest mall in Georgia. After a few book reviews by significant publications, I made a packet and sent queries to about 10 agents and Cynthia Neeseman of CS Literary and I began working together. She sent The Home Place to, the best of my knowledge, four or five editors, with good feedback. Most liked the book but felt it wasn't for them. Well, the trail grew cold as I began writing another novel, again based on a true event, which was the robbery of a rural African-American church by five white men in the mid-60s, in which two of the choir girls were taken hostage. I am currently working on that along with a science fiction book based on altered DNA in which . . . well better not tell too much. I am a professional copy editor for medical research papers, which allows me to work and write according to a schedule I can control, to a degree.

Reviews

[Lawyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I met Mike Addington as a member of http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/6..., where he has been a regular contributor. He's kept his light hidden under the proverbial bushel basket. Because I discovered he's one of our group authors. You may read about him at http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/....

Mike is a born storyteller. He generously sent me a signed copy of his novel, The Home Place. To cut to the chase, it's a Jim Dandy read that brings a by-gone era to life. Road houses, bootleggers, moonshiners, a crooked Assistant District Attorney (named Sullivan--EGAD!), and a cut throat killer named Buel Hollins that will do away with anyone who gets in the way of his illegal liquor business, make this a page turner.

Toss in a bit "Thunder Road," the old Broderick Crawford series "Highway Patrol," and a writing style reminiscent of Run with the Horsemen by Ferrol Sams and you have a taste of what Addington has produced.

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Thunder Road Poster

[image error] Broderick Crawford as State Trooper

Caught in the net of ruthless bootleggers is the Downey family who live on "The Home Place." Matt Downey is an upright citizen of the county, known for his word, reputation, and his willingness to scrape out a living tending a three hundred acre farm. But his farm hands are his children, Franklin, the oldest; Glenn; daugther June, with a mischievous streak, and youngest, Russ. Matt is a stern father, working his kids from can to can't. His sternness is tempered by the gentleness of his wife Cora who attempts to soften the harshness of Matt's treatment of his children. But Matt is not a man inclined to budge on his beliefs.

But Matt's rigid and inflexible, leading to each of his children leaving the home place. Franklin is the first to leave, enlisting in the Marines immediately following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Glenn is the next, working transporting cars from Detroit for Mr. Flynt for resale in Gainesville, Georgia. When Flynt treats Glynn to a steak dinner at Lester's roadhouse, Glynn's offered a job at Lester's. Youngest brother Russ comes to live with Glenn in a trailer behind Lester's club.

June hooks up with furniture store owner Conway Farrell. They live big. They live well.

It's inevitable that Glenn is pulled into Buell Hollins web of running Shine when he is nabbed by Trooper Edwards. Edwards believes that the whiskey Glenn is hauling belongs to Lester. However upon searching Lester's club, there's not a drop on the scene. Glenn is arrested and facing a long stretch in the state pen. Trooper Edwards has also taken Brother Russ into jail as well, unwilling to leave Russ unattended at Lester's.

Buell arranges for Conway to pay a bribe to ADA Sullivan to make Glenn's case go away. However, it's Matt's appearance before Judge Mickle promising to take the boys home to the farm that causes the Judge to take Glenn's guilty plea and immediately grant him three years of probation. Glenn goes straight, marries, and a second generation of Downeys begins to come along.

Russ joins the army, becomes a paratrooper and only returns home after tearing up a knee on a jump. He's no longer fit for army duty. He, too, settles down, marries, and has a long and happy life ahead of him. That is until Buel Hollins evades a roadblock a dumps a load of bonded whiskey in Russ's garage.

It is no spoiler to say that people die in The Home Place. On the book's cover is a page of the Atlanta Daily Times. The headline is: "Body Found in Lake: Companion Sought."

The only question is who and how will the Downey family be affected. To find out, oh reader, well, you'll have to read the book. It is safe to say that Addington builds inevitably to a crescendo of brutal violence leaving the reader crying for justice.

This is a book that deserves a wider reading audience. Mike Addington self published The Home Place. In 2007, Atlanta's NPR Station program "Between the Lines" chose the novel as one of its suggested novels of the year. It was favorably reviewed in "Southern Distinction Magazine." And, yes, this story is based on actual events. Interested in the story of the bodies in the lake? Find it here: http://www.lakelanier.info/content/vi...

4 for plot, 4 for setting, 4 for dialogue, 3.5 for characterization and description
Highly recommended.

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears,
While we all sup sorrow with the poor.
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears
Oh, hard times, come again no more.

Matt Downey has a whole passel of kids, for the reasons most people used to have large families - no birth control, and a need for plenty of farm hands.

But, how are you gonna keep 'em down on the farm once they've seen the Sears & Roebuck catalog?

The kids trickle away, one by one, seeking their fortunes elsewhere through marriage, jobs and the war. Unfortunately, the lure of easy money to be made from moonshining and gambling will prove too strong a temptation for some. Hard times and tragedy will be the reward.

In the end, the Downey family will prove that blood is thicker than water.

'Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,
'Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore.
'Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave,
Oh, hard times, come again no more.



(Lyrics by Stephen Foster)

[Brannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a ride! The Home Place is an incredible story set in Northern Georgia about a poor farming family, the Downeys', that struggle to make ends meet in the 1940's-1960's. It starts out by introducing each character and follows them throughout their lives. Attachment to each character is inevitable.

Matt Downey was the stern, hard headed, unemotional father that everyone around town knew, liked, but didn't want to mess with. His loving wife Cora, was a spiritual, nurturing mother who loved her kids more than anything else. They do a good job of instilling admirable values in their children. Franklin, the oldest son that helps out the most on the farm, was adamant about joining the military after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Martha and June are the two daughters. They worked and lived at the farm until they are grown and married themselves. Glenn and Russ were the other two sons that stayed on the farm as long as they could. After telling their father they were leaving, both at a young age, their relationship became strained.

As the story progresses, the kids become grown and venture out to better themselves. This is when things start to get messy, as is the case when the "real world" takes over. In a series of events involving gamblers, moonshiners, whiskey runners, corruption, theft, and murder, these kids fight to maintain their values and fight for each other.

The story is perfectly paced with conflict and conflict resolution that keeps the reader overly intrigued and needing to know 'What happens next?' Mike Addington has done a great job with this story and I look forward to reading more of his work in the future. I highly recommend this book to anyone!

[Elle Thornton · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Home Place
By Mike Addington

Mike Addington’s The Home Place opens like a wide-angle photograph in grainy black and white reflecting the novel’s homespun Georgia setting and prohibition years of the last century. The scene: a hard-scrabble farm worked by a sprawling goodhearted family, and a hamfisted patriarchal figure, Matt, riding herd on everyone. As the century progresses, the book’s wide-angle focus narrows like a pair of hardened slit eyes. The close-ups involve Matt’s strapping sons and a filthy gambling joint owned by a bootlegging villain. This evocative story of earth’s cyclical cruelty offers readers fast-paced dialogue and gritty details; the fight scenes in this prize-winning novel are especially excellent. I look forward to reading much more of Addington’s work.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Getting to know this family; highs, lows, tragedy, exhilerations, their perserverence spans generations. We are joined to them through a relaxed dialog. You know the kind that real people have. No fancy words just genuine caring. Tensions build and come to a climax during the bottom half of the story. Mr Addington tells a story in a relaxed fashion, sparse of word but stimulating to the imagination. I was particularly stricken with evocative images of the mental hospital. Events keep our interest. The author moves forward in time smoothly and efficiently without confusion. The hero, if in fact there is one, comes from an unforseen corner. Well worth the read, I was sorry to come to the end. I look forward to his next endeavour.

[Jayme · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based loosely on the mysterious deaths of author Mike Addington’s uncles The Home Place tells the compelling story about what happens when local criminal Buel Hollins crosses paths with the Downey family. Headed by a no-nonsense, somewhat tyrannical father the Downey’s try to make a living farming a few hundred acres in rural Georgia. As the father pushes his family harder and harder the children finally push back sending in to motion events that will test and nearly destroy their family.

I really enjoyed this book. If I have one quibble, it’s that it took a third of the book to get to the action. Once Buel Hollins enters the picture the story is a riveting, page-turner. Addington has a promising career as a writer and I look forward to reading his upcoming works.

[S. Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review of the Home Place by S. Wallace

This is indeed a very good read. The Home Place, written by Mike Addington, is a gripping family tragedy set in the South. His characters are compelling, his dialogue authentic, and his story line is well written. This book is paced well as the intensity builds to its shocking ending. The story begins quietly as the members of a farm family living in poverty are introduced. The reader gets to know the family through stories of their relationships with each other, the values they live by, and their struggles to survive and cope with the hardships they face. As the children grow into adulthood and leave the farm, seeking to make better lives for themselves, they are exposed to divergent values, lifestyles, dangers, and temptations as their paths cross with some seedy characters of questionable moral values, placing them in some difficult situations. In an almost inevitable sequence of events, they are exposed to an evil beyond their understanding, in the guise of a despicable antisocial moonshiner whose grip on their town is extensive and whose impact on their lives is deadly. Events crescendo into violence and trauma as their paths intersect with the man who nearly destroys their family, but the family’s loyalty and love for each other sustains them in the end, helping the survivors cope with the horror that transpires. All the characters, from the family members to the judge, the doctor, law enforcement, the moonshiner and town people, are familiar people that we have known of or known in our lives, making it easy to relate to them. Thomas Wolfe wrote a book entitled You Can’t Go Home Again. This is not true of The Home Place, a book you will definitely want to come home to and read again and again. I enjoyed every page of this book and highly recommend it. Mike Addington is a talented Southern writer who spins a fine yarn.

[Joseph Cordaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr. Addington’s writing is so vivid it transports you to another time and place, to the agrarian America most of us city or younger folks know little or nothing about. On a rural Georgia farm in the late 1930’s and 40’s, hard work and sweat is the lot of even the youngest members of the family. This marvelous book tells the story of the children being called away from the farming life, first by WWII, then by the lure of a better easier life.
The writing will so thoroughly take you to this time, and place, that even if you’re a “Yankee” like me, you won’t be able to help yourself from reading the dialogue in a Southern accent.
Opening the front cover of this book is like opening the front door to “The Home Place.”

[Tara Holman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me start by saying I won this book in a Goodreads contest and I was eager to read it & give an honest review in return for the generosity. The author, Mike Addington completely takes the reader back in time and places you in the story. I felt as if I knew these characters personally & could picture each of them sitting next to me at their kitchen table sharing the biscuits Nora served. Gambling, moonshine, segregation & a fathers tough love- this book has it all! Great story, beautifully written, with excellent character building. Kudos Mr. Addington for telling this touching story in such a vivid way- I feel like I just left the movie theater, thank you!

[Howard Bernbaum]

The home place is one of those stories that grabs the reader and doesn't let go until the final word. Mike Addington has taken a seed from the area in which he was raised and grown a mighty tree. This is a story about a tough farmer, Matt Downey, and his family living in rural Georgia from depression days to after the war. As the story progresses, the reader feels as if he is part of the action, meeting the good and the bad along the way. The tragic ending entails Matt's sons and a vicious criminal, Buel Hollins. This book is an emotional read and continues to pique the emotions even after the finish. I rate it five stars and urge everybody to go out and buy a copy.

[Zoe Jussel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written much in the style of Cormac McCarthy with country grit you can almost taste. A family living from day to day, farming working, sons growing up and wanting more out of life, and decisions leading often in the wrong direction. All good people, but an influence in the way of an evil man seems to cross at every turn. A strong, harsh but true living father, a softer influence in the mother, with paths crossing and uncrossing throughout. Despite the negative decisions, you feel empathy at all turns for the children from youth to adult. A rich story that can't help but grip you and doesn't let go.

[Marty Elrod · Rating 4 out of 5]

i loved this book! the writing is great. i have lived in this area all my life and it was interesting to read about places close to me. i love a book that i can relate to the people in it. wonderful read and look forward to reading lots more from Mr. Addington.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

I liked this book because it's a real story. Meaning it's about a real family with real problems and real triumphs.

[Thing Two · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mike Addington is a good writer. He has a clear voice, and tells a story well. This is a fictionalized story of the author's family. He does a good job with character descriptions - there are a number of children in this story, and I had no trouble keep track of who was whom. The story moves quickly.

Unfortunately, the author chose to self-publish this story instead of working his way through the traditional publishing houses. I fully believe this book would have been picked up for traditional publishing; it's a good story, and the issues are still relevant. This book needed the experience of an editor, someone to help the author expand what he was trying to say.

There is a lot of troubling material within the covers of this book - child abuse, racism - and there isn't a voice within the story saying "hey - wait - this is wrong!" I understand the author's desire to present things as accurately as possible -- the book is set in the 1920s-1940s -- but I'm reading this book with 2015 eyes, and I cannot accept the things I've read without wondering who was speaking out against these things. This is where an editor would've helped cull the Atticus Finch character out of the manuscript.

Other than this, I thought the story -- researched -- provides a good look into rural 1920s Georgia life, and like I said earlier, was done well.

[Will Power · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone that I have given this book to read is captivated by the writing style for me it really feels like you are in the moment with all the emotion of the time and place. The Home Place is a jewel of a read a real page turner! Check this link for a radio interview live on Jan 31 2012 at 8 pm EST otherwise the podcast will be available from the event page on this link! https://www.facebook.com/events/40101...

[marvin shults · Rating 5 out of 5]

Home

This is a hard book to read because it is about my growing up days too. The father is a hard man and he's hard on his kids. I wanted to say to him ease up and hug your kids more. We even lived in that area of Georgia for a year. It's a good story but heartbreaking for the family. It's worth reading tho.

[Bonnie Toadvyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good reading

Just good reading...a life goes on book, regardless of the losses...for some anyway. I enjoyed reading this book and. would see the old days when the whole town knew what you were made of

[Frank Roberto]

Great book by a great author.

I picked this book because I had previously read another of Mike Addington's books. This book was definitely not a disappointment. It had believable characters and story plot.

[KayG · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kept me reading!