Longtime Memphis magazine managing editor Frank Murtaugh will be signing copies of his debut novel, Trey’s Company, at Burke’s Book Store (936 S. Cooper) on July 19th. Published by Sartoris Literary Group (Jackson, Mississippi), it’s the story of a transformative summer for 13-year-old Trey Milligan and three special friends in east Tennessee. Murtaugh’s characters experience doses of love, death, and crime in an otherwise sleepy community.
“Most of us remember a particular summer — that summer — when things changed,” says Murtaugh. “And the transformation typically has more to do with the people we knew than the particular place, be it a beach, camp, or grandparent’s house. Trey grows up faster than he’d like in the summer of 1982, but he secures relationships and memories that last the rest of his life.”
An excerpt:
Memories may blur, but not from the summer of 1982. Every summer was great, but the memories of that one summer at Gran’s seem to tickle my thoughts more than others. Mom and Dad were 2,000 miles away, which may as well have been the moon to a thirteen-year-old’s sense of proportion. My sister was there, too. She was old enough to know when to leave me alone, but young enough to get in the way.
Didn’t matter. It was the best summer ever. I played baseball — by myself but in front of millions. I fell in love . . . at least what I thought love was. And I very nearly burned down an entire subdivision of new homes. But that didn’t matter either.
It was the best summer ever. In many ways, it was my last summer.
Signing at Burke’s Book Store (936 S. Cooper) on July 19th, 5:30 p.m. (reading at 6:00)
