Harper College writing teacher's debut novel a hit
He's lived in Mount Prospect for years, but there's something about his home state of West Virginia that sticks with Glenn Taylor.
The state is featured prominently in Taylor's debut novel, "The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart," a National Book Critics Award finalist that HarperCollins just rereleased in paperback. It also will be the setting for his next book, "The Marrowbone Marble Company," due out next year.
"It's a cliché to say that West Virginia is the land that time forgot, but the reason I write about it is to recall those old ways. Right now, more than ever ... you kind of long for simpler times," Taylor said. "I think West Virginia's past is very unique and proud, and kind of upsetting as well, for what the railroad and coal companies did to the state and the people."
Literary success came quickly and unexpectedly for Taylor, 34, a married father of two who teaches freshman composition and fiction writing at Harper College in Palatine.
He researched the state's history for a few years, and then the novel starting coming together in 2004. It took him about two years to finish it.
The story takes place in the early 20th century, during historic events such as the coal miners strike. But the lead character, Trenchmouth Taggart, is fictional. Taylor jokes that he became so immersed in the story and character that he sometimes felt like Taggart was a real person.
"I dreamed about him," Taylor said.
The story centers on an orphan who is taught to fend for himself by a local mountain woman and ends up an outlaw in the middle of the West Virginia coal wars.
"When I sit down to write, it seems to come out in the voice of a much more older man, who's seen a lot more than I have, and isn't as much of a mama's boy as I am," Taylor said, laughing.
The book was published by the University of West Virginia Press, but didn't garner much attention until it was chosen as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection for Fall 2008. Suddenly, it was on the shelves of every Barnes & Noble store in the country.
On a whim, Taylor entered the book into the prestigious National Book Critics Circle Awards. Then, in January 2009, he checked online to see who had been chosen as finalists.
"You always think in your mind, 'Could it be? Could it be?' But you know ... you're not going to win. But there it was," he said. "That kind of changed everything. The book started going out nationally and internationally. I felt very out of my league, but very fortunate as well."
"The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart" has since been picked up and reprinted by Ecco, a branch of HarperCollins, and is being shopped around Hollywood as a potential movie. Even though Taylor recognizes the odds are slim that Hollywood will bite, he's beaten the odds before.
This summer, Taylor's working on his follow-up novel, which takes place in the post-World War II era. It follows the story of a young man who enlists in the Marines after Pearl Harbor and delves into the civil rights and poverty issues of that time.
While he writes, Taylor plans to continue teaching.
"I'm not about to quit my day job," he said. "Now, it's about being able to balance teaching, being a father ... and putting aside three days a week to write this next book."