What is your book all about?

“Merryman” is an all-ages historical fiction story about a 16-year-old boy named Jess Picaro who is trying to escape from a painful past. It’s a novella of 120 pages. I wanted the story to be have the feel of a movie, so the story is very condensed and moves quickly so the reader can finish it in a few hours.

The main character, Jess, is a very energetic, curious young man with a compulsion to seek out new experiences and to test his courage by putting himself in potentially dangerous situations. Unfortunately these traits put him at odds with those who see his energy and curiosity as a nuisance or, worse, as a threat. When the reader meets him, Jess is determined to start a new life and manipulates a situation to get aboard a train heading to what he calls “the Wild West.” He and a little girl he has befriended end up in Buckner, Kansas, which is a small farming community not far from Dodge City in western Kansas.

What inspired you to write the book?

There are several personal things that contributed to the story, but the main one will explain the title of the book. I have always had a love of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas. In 1888, W. S. Gilbert and A. S. Sullivan produced their only “serious” operetta, “The Yeomen of the Guard.” In that play, there is a minor character named Jack Point who is a professional jester, or a “merryman.” Gilbert and Sullivan plays are very enjoyable, but because the purpose of the plays was light entertainment for a broad audience, the characters and plots are not particularly profound or complex. Although Jack Point was not written to have any kind of character growth or arc, he always struck me as the type of character who must have a backstory and deeper motives for the tragic choices he makes in the play. I always wondered what made him who he was. So this story is my retelling of “The Yeomen of the Guard” with Jess Picaro filling in as a reimagined Jack Point.

Another important inspiration is the town of Buckner itself, which was and still is a real place. The actual town is named Jetmore, which was where I spent my grade school years during the 1970s. At the time of this story in 1890, the town’s name had already been changed from Buckner to Jetmore, but I kept the original name for my story. My family has a long history of farming and working in supporting industries in western Kansas and northern Oklahoma, so I was able to draw on many family memories as I described the setting and the unique social and cultural makeup of the region.

What is your target audience for the book?

I think anyone who enjoys classic coming-of-age stories such as “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” or “Anne of Green Gables” would enjoy this book.

Of course, hard-core Gilbert & Sullivan fans will probably catch on to inside jokes and references to the operettas and their contribution to theater and later media, such as radio and movies. But catching these little bits isn’t necessary to follow the story and understand the characters.

The setting of the story is 1890s Kansas, so anyone interested in the history of farming in the Midwest of the United States might recognize this time period as an important turning point in farming technology and enjoy the descriptions of Jess’s experience as a farmhand and a member of a threshing crew whose responsibility it was to separate the kernels, straw, and chaff in a farmer’s harvested wheat.

What do you hope readers could get out from your book?

My main hope is that they will become very attached to the characters and want to find out what happens to them. But I also hope they will identify with Jess’s dilemma as he “threshes” himself, or tries to figure out his own worth.

What are your future goals/plans for the book?

The reader will quickly realize that when Jess arrives in Buckner, Kansas, he has “crashed” a story already in progress. In the Epilogue of “Merryman,” Jess provides an over-simplified version of what happens over the next few years in the characters’ lives. My next project is to tell the bigger story from the points-of-view of two characters the reader has already met, including what they see happen to Jess as he continues his journey to find a meaning for his life.

I have just completed approval of an audiobook version of “Merryman.” The narrator’s name is James Burke, and he not only perfectly captured Jess’s affable charm, but also captured the spirit of the Gilbert and Sullivan songs and their meaning to the characters in his recitations and singing. It was so wonderful to have a vocal artist who clearly understood and appreciated the music’s impact on the story.

And something more about yourself.

I am a technical writer and software administrator professionally. At the moment, I’m living in Northwest Arkansas to be close to family I have in the area.

Anyone who is interested, I can be found on Twitter at @merryman1890.

My author page on GoodReads is at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/22450616.Vanessa_Sperling.

I would like to thank Author’s Lounge for giving me the opportunity to share my story with everyone!