USA -(Ammoland.com)- Times change, but humanity and family relationships remain the same. In his first novel, “One Season,” Alabama native and longtime magazine publisher Alan White takes readers back to a simpler time and place with his nostalgic tale.
Set in rural southern Alabama in the spring of 1969, the story centers around the relationship between an old-fashioned country grandfather and a boy coming of age.
The main character, Joe Parker, a 67-year-old widower, loves turkey hunting near his home in Monroe County, Ala. Anyone who ever hunted turkeys in the rural South could relate to Joe, a kindly, but concerned grandfather.
Not really a book on how to hunt turkeys, “One Season” does contain many turkey hunting tips as seen through Joe’s eyes. The way White describes hunts puts the reader right there in the middle of the forests reawakening in the spring after a cold winter.
Although turkey hunting weaves throughout the plot, the story is really about the growing relationship between Joe and his 14-year-old grandson, Connor.
Like Joe, who recently lost his wife, Connor also suffered a sudden loss, the death of his father. This shared grieving strengthens the bonds between the two characters. Together, they each learn a little more about each other and life.
After Connor’s father died, he struggles at school and heads down the wrong path. Connor’s mother suggests he go live in the country with Joe for a while to start over in a new school. In the midst of a changing world for both of them, Joe uses hunting as his way to teach the boy about life and how to be a man as young Connor goes through his first love and the many other challenges of growing up.
“One Season, reminded me of my own youth spent under the guiding hand of my father as we explored the outdoors together,” said John N. Felsher, an outdoor writer, photographer and broadcaster. “My father didn’t hunt turkeys, but we enjoyed many other shared outdoors adventures like Joe and Connor. Regardless of the sport, the relationship dynamics remain universal.”
Here are some comments from others.
“‘One Season’ carries you through a south Alabama turkey season that author Alan White has so graphically and eloquently captured and described in his writing,” said James “Big Daddy” Lawler, an outdoors radio show host from Camden, Ala., not far from where most of the action in the novel takes place. “Anyone who grew up in the rural South, hunted turkeys or had a relationship like the one between the Paw-Paw and grandson depicted in the book will not be able to put the book down.”
“A poignant, nostalgic story of learning to hunt turkeys from a beloved grandfather,” said Corky Pugh, executive director of the Hunting Heritage Foundation and former director of the Alabama Wildlife & Freshwater Fisheries Division. “Read it and become a teenager again, complete with holding hands with the girl of your dreams.”
Alan White is available for interviews and public appearances. He can also be reached by email at longbeard396@gmail.com.
The book can be ordered through their website or on AMAZON.
About the Author :
Alan White resides with his wife in his hometown in rural south Alabama. The founder and editor-in-chief of Great Days Outdoors magazine, he is the father of three and grandfather of three. He was named Conservation Communicator of the Year in 2014 in the Alabama Governor’s Conservation Achievement Awards. He is also the founder and chairman of Alabama Hunger Relief, a 501c3 charity that raises money to provide venison to food banks. He is a member of the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association. In his spare time, he enjoys hunting, fishing, vegetable gardening, tanning animal skins, oil painting, wildlife management and writing. One Season is Alan’s first novel.