ADVENTURES WITH JOHN HENRY'S SON

HILLSBOROUGH, Oct 30, 2009 (The Herald-Sun - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
BMS | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Author John Claude Bemis has a bottle tree in his Hillsborough backyard. You would too, after reading "The Nine Pound Hammer," not just because it's colorful and fun to look at but because it might just protect you from evil. That's the original intent of the African-American Southern folk tradition that has become some people's garden art. In Bemis' novel, aimed for ages nine to 12, the use of bottle trees are true to their roots.

The novel title references John Henry's nine pound hammer, the one the steel-driving man of American folklore uses to defeat the steam drill. Bemis takes the story to the next generation, where he imagines John Henry has a son named Conker, and that John Henry was defeating more than just a machine, but an evil man behind it. The villain rises again in "The Nine Pound Hammer," this time for young Conker to fight along with 12 year-old Ray, the central character of the novel.

The story begins on an orphan train, where Ray leaps into the unknown. He finds a cast of quirky peripheral characters, like dandelion-hat-wearing Peter Hobnob and a Pirate Queen whose ship travels the Mississippi. But a train-traveling medicine show cast are the ones who offer Ray a sense of family. "Nine Pound Hammer" is set in the 1890s. The leader of the medicine show, Peg Leg Nel, was born a slave and now leads a group of performers who have no tricks in their impressive acts. Rather, their talents are natural. Strongman Conker is just one of the group in Cornelius T. Carter's Mystifying Medicine Show and Tabernacle of Tachycardial Talent. They must use their talents to battle the nefarious Gog, a bad guy robber baron who uses industrialization for evil. The book is full of action, adventure and mystery and explores folklore that is truly American.

"I liked the idea of an alternate story of John Henry. I wanted to do something different. What if the story of the competition of the steam drill was not the whole story? I wanted to give that to the reader," Bemis said. In his novel, John Henry was part of a group of heroes called the Ramblers that fight the Gog and his machination. Bemis wrote two full versions of the book before settling on the final story. He started over so he could pull in all the elements of American folklore, rather than the fantasy tradition from Great Britain which includes knights, wizards and dragons.

"When we think about the Golden Age of traditional fantasy in Europe, it's the Middle Ages. For me, in America the period between the Civil War and World War I was such a time of tremendous change," he said.

Bemis learned about John Henry through music. Bemis is a musician, playing guitar and violin in a local band called Hooverville. Henry has been mentioned frequently in roots music, his story passed on through song. Bemis said he didn't set out to be a novelist -- he just liked the idea of storytelling.

"The Nine Pound Hammer" is Bemis' first novel. He hasn't had any training in creative writing, but he knows what kids like. He spent 12 years teaching in elementary schools in Durham, Orange and Chatham counties. And his own childhood, in rural Pamlico County, was spent outdoors with his imagination. He wrote a book that he would have loved to read at age 12, Bemis said. He loves trains, too, and his grandfather rode the rails during the Great Depression. You can even hear trains going by from inside Bemis' house. His imagination is always on. "Even as an adult, when I walk in the woods, drive or wash dishes, my imagination wonders, what if?"

He wrote in the afternoons after the school day was over and before his wife came home from work. They now have a 2 year-old daughter. She was born around the same time Bemis received his Random House book contract, so the author is on hiatus from teaching for now.

The adventure will continue in Bemis' next book, "The Wolf Tree," out next summer. A year later, the conclusion of the trilogy will culminate at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, tentatively titled "The Pitch Dark Machine." The Gog's villainous train is called the Pitch Dark Train. The book series is called The Clockwork Dark. Bemis has finished "The Wolf Tree" and is doing final edits on the third book. He also has a contract for another book for Random House in 2012, a science fiction novel about a post-apocalyptic world with animals rather than people he describes as "Watership Down" meets "WALL-E."

The Clockwork Dark characters might not be done with Bemis after the trilogy concludes. He is considering writing about John Henry and the older generation of Ramblers for a prequel to "The Nine Pound Hammer."

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