John Saunders is working on a sequel to his latest novel, The Last Spartan.
March 4, 2009
by Ogi Overman - Editor
If John F. Saunders has a guiding precept for his novels it is that his characters always stay in character. As he says, “You are who you are. Right or wrong, you have a certain skill set that you always revert to.”
Yet, it could be argued that Saunders himself does not stay in character. After all, how many dentists are also prolific novelists? How many dentists are well versed in Greek mythology? How many dentists had as a grandfather a well-respected major league second baseman? How many dentists were first-team all-ACC fencing champions? (Yep, fencing!)
Then again, perhaps Saunders is a modern-day Renaissance Man, in which case there is no contradiction.
But regardless of all his interests and passions and how he makes his livelihood, once one curls up with his latest novel, The Last Spartan, it becomes apparent that Saunders is also a craftsman of the highest order, a word merchant who deserves
a Conroy-esque, Grisham-ish audience.
The Last Spartan is the story of outlaw biker Frank Kane, trying to live the life of retired enforcer for the Spartans. If the Spartans were the baddest of the motorcycle gangs, as their enforcer, he was the baddest of the bad. The novel begins with Frank seemingly getting killed, but his life is saved by a good Samaritan couple. Their granddaughter gets lured to Atlanta under the promise of becoming a model but the scam is actually a prostitution ring for the Ambassador to Kuwait. Along the way Frank kills a few bad guys and saves a few good guys, breaks a few knuckles, almost gets killed a few times himself and, in the end, finds the granddaughter in the nick of time.
And while there is resolution on the one hand, there is a cliffhanger ending on the other, because Saunders plans a sequel, titled The Spartan Negotiator.
“I'm about 80 or 90 percent done with the sequel,” said the author. “The Spartan way of negotiating is to kill everyone in your way and let the gods sort it out.”
While this is not exactly your basic lighthearted romp, nor is the hero/antihero your modern metrasexual. Yet, as intimidating as he is, Saunders does give him a very believable spark of humanity.
“You can be an honorable person yet have these demons that you're fighting,” he explained. “The Spartan way, both in mythology and among bikers, is to try to will yourself away from it, but the temptations always come back. Frank is a good friend to have but a bad enemy.”
The Spartan theme, woven throughout, actually was what gave Saunders the seed for the story.
“I grew up loving Greek history and lore and mythology,” he said. “I've been told so much to write what you know and, hey, I knew about the Greeks. I didn't really want to do a historical novel, but one day it dawned on me, ‘What if I had a motorcycle gang named the Spartans?'”
Unlike his past works, Saunders decided not to plot this one out in minute detail, but to figure it out as we went along.
“I've been rather anal retentive in the past, plotting and outlining down to the last detail, and this one was so much more fun,” he smiled. “Since I didn't have an agent for this one, I wrote it the way I wanted to. I knew where to start and how it was going to end, but the kinds of mischief he was going to get into in the middle, I had no idea.”
Saunders said it took six to eight months to write the novel, and about that long to edit it.
“It was really bloated at first and I cut out a whole bunch of it,” he said. “My goal was to get it published the way I wanted it, so rather than let an editor hack it up, I did it myself.”
If the name John Saunders seems familiar to local citizens, there is a reason. His mother, Millie Saunders, was an active and much loved civic, church and PTA volunteer around Jamestown. She passed away in late 2008. His late father, Bill, was also a dentist.
But it was his maternal grandfather who was best known around Jamestown. He was Pep Young, a 10-year major leaguer, primarily as a second baseman with the Pittsburgh Pirates. After his playing career ended in 1945, Young retired to his native Jamestown and worked at Oakdale Cotton Mills until his death at age 55. Last year he was posthumously inducted into the Guilford County Sports Hall of Fame.
“I was about 9 when he died,” said Saunders, now 53. “Boy, the stories he could tell, not just about playing ball but catching crawdads by the rocks by the river at the mill, or playing in the industrial leagues around here. And my mom used to tell stories too, about how Babe Ruth's wife always wore a big lilly on her jacket.
Perhaps that explains how Saunders became such a master storyteller himself.
The novelist/dentist lives in Sedgefield and practices in Greensboro. He and wife Lynn are both UNC Chapel Hill grads, but their two sons went east and west to college. John is a student at Western Carolina, while Jake is a biology major at East Carolina.
“Jake said he liked ECU better than Carolina,” he said. “He says he wants to be a dentist, too.”
Saunders has appeared on “Murphy in the Morning” radio show, done some local TV appearances, and the requisite book signings at most of the area retailers. His novel is available at Barnes & Nobles and on amazon.com.
“It's selling remarkably well, especially for an unknown author,” he noted. “My publisher, Savage Press, out of Wisconsin, is quite pleased.”
Saunders is contemplating adapting his novel into a screenplay, but plans on finishing the sequel before deciding on his next project.
“While you're writing you always visualize what it would look like on the screen,” he said. “I don't want to get ahead of myself, but, sure, I'd love to see it made into a movie.”
In the meantime, however, he'll follow some other good advice: “Don't give up your day job.”
“I'd hate to think I had to pay the bills by writing,” he said. “You about have to get in Oprah's Book Club to make any real money. Fortunately, I love my day job and I love writing on the side. I feel like I've been really blessed.”
