My Small Towns Are Far Beyond GPS

If you drive south from Washington, D.C. into Virginia's hinterlands, you'll veer close but then not quite reach my small towns. They don't exist except in my fiction's print.

When I started out writing novels, it felt weird to place fictional towns in the actual geographic areas. Now I don't give it a second thought. I've created a string of made-up towns and cities: Pelham, Old Yvor City, New Yvor City, Quiet Anchorage, and finally Umpire, Tennessee found in my new Appalachian noir, Lake Charles.

Credit the great, late Ed McBain for turning me on to the idea. He wrote his 87th Precinct tales set in Isola, a fictionalization of New York City. He once made the valid point of never getting the geographical details wrong and hearing about it from disgruntled readers.

Sometimes I wonder just where the border lies between the real and the imagined. That's how vivid the small towns are established in my mind.

By Ed Lynskey
Twitter: @edlynskey
Author of Lake Charles
"I had a blast."
Ransom Notes: Barnes & Noble Mystery Blog