Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview.
Today’s guest for the WHAT is Gretchen Cherington, author of The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry
Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?
The origin for my new memoir came from listening to my father’s stories of growing up in Austin, Minnesota in the early 1900s. His father, Alpha LaRue Eberhart, the “fall guy” in my story, was recruited by George Hormel, the “butcher”, to help build what is now the multi-billion dollar conglomerate Hormel Foods. Hormel hired the “embezzler,” quickly promoted him to comptroller of the company, and through a ten year stretch from about 1912-1921, stole almost $1.2 Million from the company coffers and nearly brought it to its knees.
My father described these events from his childhood in nearly mythological terms and these three men were regularly displayed as full-fledged characters on our family stage. Rumors circulated that my grandfather was “in cahoots” with the embezzler. My father cast George Hormel as the villain of the story since he’d forced my grandfather’s resignation after the embezzlement was discovered. But I’d spent my career advising CEOs and senior executives and knew men in power were rarely so easily construed. In my early fifties I picked up the story and began to write.
Five years ago, as I was finishing my first memoir Poetic License, I’d embedded about 10,000 words of this story in the book. Brooke Warner, my developmental editor, however strongly suggested they didn’t belong there. No, she said, this is your second book. From fall 2020 to fall 2022, I freshened the research I’d done twenty years before, and entirely rewrote a new book which comes out on June 6.
So in one sense this story has been on my mind for many decades, but in another way it didn’t really turn into a book until Covid kept me inside!
Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?
This book required a lot of research. Not only was I trying to uncover the truth of what happened, but I was writing about a brand name company. I wanted to be as diligent and careful as I could be with the information I was gathering. I made three trips to Austin. MN (pre-Covid) to interview people who’d known about these men, get a feel for the place, the soft plains of southern Minnesota, and the culture of the small Midwestern city. I spent hours poring over historical documents about the three men involved, as well as reading records of US history, early nation builders, and economic and political swings of the early 1900s. And I was fortunate that my father had kept four cardboard boxes filled with my grandfather’s business letters and documents from that time.
It wasn’t until I had a thorough understanding of all the characters and the period that I began to build the plot. Intuitively I thought a braided story of these three men, the embezzlement, and the near default of the Hormel company, coupled with my own story of awakening to my family’s history and the myths would be the way to go. But I also had to consider how to unveil the crime story, how to build tension through the narrative, and how to deal with some last minute information that came as a surprise (no spoilers here!). All this plotting work was done during the developmental editing phase. After that, it was about polishing and sharpening the words, getting rid of extraneous graphs and scenes, and trying to come to final conclusions about what I think happened. It was like puzzling together a mass of facts, memories, and speculations, along with plot points to come up with a readable whole. I had great fun writing this book! I don’t mean it was easy because it wasn’t, with many considerations about conveying three characters I’d never met, but coalescing the evidence into a coherent story was a space I’m very drawn to.
Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?
Yes! My starting narrative was that my grandfather had done no wrong; rather, George Hormel had wronged him; and the embezzler was a wily, pointy-eyed megalomaniac. But from my career working with CEOs, I knew that was too simple a conclusion. The story is really about the myths we hold about people in power and reconciling with our complicated legacies. Late in the process, I happened upon critical information that required a partial rewrite. And then there was a poem of my father’s written about these events that I wanted to include—but where to put it and how to frontload it to make sense were pieces of the puzzle that stymied me for weeks. Finishing the last four chapters took many revisions!
Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?
I find fresh, book-length material, hard to come by. A writing friend recently spent days on Cape Cod and plotted an entire new historical novel on her flight back to Seattle. How I wish stories came to me like that. I think my talent is best served by taking true stories and shaping them into books that readers can become engrossed in, examining their own history while finding their own insights.
My third book (in the works) is a novel, involving another true crime and very complicated family legacies, but it won’t be about my family! I’ve mined that quarry for now.
How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?
I have another nonfiction book percolating but I’m not feeling the obsession to pounce on it right away. Perhaps it needs more percolating. My two memoirs and the novel have all captured my intense interest since I began to think about them. That seems to be the way I work best. To be so obsessed by something I’m willing to devote whatever number of years it requires. While still a “new” author, I’m thankfully getting smarter and more efficient in the process of writing itself.
I have 6 cats and a Dalmatian (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?
Sometimes I wish I had a dog or cat sitting at my feet but the birds and critters outside my windows keep me company. I love seeing wild beings pass by on foot or under wing. They inspire me with their color, their sounds, and their daily routines like nest building and searching for food. What a wonder the world is!
Other than that, I’m best served with a view of the ocean or a deep forest, the aroma of my husband’s spectacular sourdough bread baking in the kitchen, or urgent plans to get outside for a hike or bike. But wait, I have to finish this chapter! Overall I like few auditory distractions while generating pages. I can handle more when I’m revising. This may in part be due to having Ménières Disease through which I’ve lost about half of my hearing. This makes listening to conversation, music, ambient noise, etc., requires about 30% added effort than for those with good hearing. Quiet is as much a balm for my imagination as it is for constant stimulation.
Still, a cuddly puppy or kitten is immensely joyous!
Gretchen Cherington’s first view of powerful men was informed at the feet of her father, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Richard Eberhart, and his eclectic and fascinating writer friends, from Robert Frost to Allen Ginsberg to James Dickey. As an executive management consultant, she figured out what made powerful men tick by working alongside nearly three hundred of them in their corner suites during her 35 year career. Her first memoir, Poetic License, has won multiple awards; her writing has appeared in Crack the Spine, Bloodroot Literary Magazine, Women Writers/Women’s Books, MS. Girl, Yankee and more; and she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her essay “Maine Roustabout” in 2012. Gretchen and her husband split their time between Portland, ME, and a saltwater cottage on Penobscot Bay.