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By KATIE BETH RYAN
Friday, October 10, 2008 12:49 PM
Staff Writer
With its traditionally sleepy, rural image, the state of Vermont probably doesn't seem like a hotbed of violent crime. But Joe Gunther will tell you differently.
As an officer with the Brattleboro Police Department and the Vermont Bureau of Investigation, Gunther has traveled every corner of the Green Mountain State in pursuit of criminals of all stripes. He has contended with drug runners, murderers and kidnappers everywhere from Bellows Falls to Burlington in his decades on the job, and loyal readers have been following his adventures in 19 novels spanning 20 years.
The 20th Joe Gunther novel, The Catch, will be published this fall by St. Martin's Press. Joe's creator, author Archer Mayor, says he views his works as an experiment in social anthropology. Like his hero, Mayor says he's always questioning why people do the things they do.
"It isn't a plot of whodunits and car chases," Mayor said, speaking from his home in Newfane, Vt. "The thrust of my writing is people. Why do people make the decisions that they make, and how do they sort themselves out when they're in a pickle? That's of more interest to me than figuring out whodunit."With its population of 600,000 citizens, Vermont was an ideal place for Mayor to focus on people.
"If I was going to write a series about people and crisis and social anthropology, then I needed to have a lab small enough to reach all four corners," Mayor said.
"Vermont lent itself wonderfully for that. I can call the governor and have lunch with him. These people are available because it's Vermont. You go to the State House in Montpelier, and all the legislators are there. They don't have offices that they work out of; they work out of their briefcases. It's very accessible; it's very available."
At the center of each story is Joe, whose physical features and life story Mayor leaves vague so that readers can fill in the blanks.
"I don't pay attention to that, and I find that my readers don't care, because he stands for a state of mind, and in many ways I think he's whatever age the readers want him to be," Mayor said. "If there was a real Joe Gunther, one would be astonished by how pleasant he is. He's avuncular, he's considerate, he's a good boss and a good friend...He represents my vision of an ideal in humanity, and that's important when you're writing about dysfunction."
In writing the Joe Gunther series, Mayor has also drawn upon his own experience as a death investigator for the Vermont Chief Medical Examiner's Office and a volunteer firefighter and emergency medical technician. Opportunities such as these have arisen during Mayor's 28 years in Vermont, and he says his side jobs have given him more material for his novels than his previous job in academic publishing.
"The Vermont experience, over that span of a quarter century, is when I acquired all these various jobs," he said. "As the years marched on, I began to tuck more and more experience under my belt. Little by little, in a small state like Vermont, you get to meet a lot of people and they get to know who you are and what you're doing."
As Mayor has met people across the state, he's incorporated their names into his novels, usually as part of a fundraiser.
"Way back when, people would call me up and ask, 'Would you give me a hardback for our auction?'" Mayor recalled. "And I just thought, 'A hardback, what's that going to do for you? $25, $30? Why don't we come up with something more interesting and potentially more valuable?'"
As part of his appearance at the Cornish Colony Museum in Windsor on Aug. 13, Mayor will offer one patron the chance to have their name immortalized in a future Joe Gunther novel--just another testament to the influence of Vermont on Joe Gunther and his chronicler.
"I think the state has got lots of wonderful things to offer, and therefore, why fictionalize it?" Mayor reasoned. "All sorts of terrible things happen in Vermont, just like everywhere else. On the other hand, I think it's interesting to reveal the true humanity of a place like Vermont, and show that it's populated by real human beings just like every place else."
Mayor will discuss his latest novel, The Catch, and other books in the series at a fundraiser for the museum on Aug. 13 at 6 p.m. Tickets are $25. For more information, contact Museum Director Alma Gilbert-Smith at (803) 674-6008.
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