Jerry Adcock, who grew up on the Wade Mill Village, is coming to the Wadesboro library at noon Feb. 15 to discuss his newly released novel, “The Suns of August: A Tale of Good and Evil Told in Black and White” and to sign copies.
He is am alumni of the old Wadesboro High School and a 1968 graduate of Bowman High. After attending Massy Tech in Jacksonville, Florida, Adcock served four years in the U.S. Air Force before starting a 24-year career in textile supervision and management.
That career included seven years at the Wade Manufacturing Co. where he rose from the position of lab technician to overseer of finishing before leaving for employment elsewhere. He is also a 1977 honor graduate of Wingate and a 1992 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with a bachelor’s in history.
In 1996, along with his wife, Marcia Kathy Adcock, he founded a non-emergency medical transportation company called SureTrans which operated in the Greenville area of South Carolina for many years, until after the Adcocks had sold the company and retired.
Upon retirement from business, Adcock found himself able to return to a manuscript he had been working on as time permitted since about 1985 when he completed the first draft. At that time he contacted his old high school teacher, Betty London, and asked her to evaluate his work.
She asked that a copy be sent to her at her retirement address in Franklin. Adcock waited breathlessly for her verdict. After about three weeks came a terse note saying, “May I keep this for a little while? I wish to make a few notes in the margins.” Of course, permission was granted.
A while grew into 10 long, silent months during which Adcock could not help but worry she might be methodically cutting up each page paragraph by paragraph, word by word, and feeding them to the fire, but one day came a message in the mail. She said simply, “Can you come up here? I want to talk to you.”
Adcock reports that when he stood in her presence once again after so many years, his heart pounded as he awaited judgment. What would it be? Her words can be read among the readers’ comments on the rear cover of the book. She said, “Splendid. Write us another one,” and added, “I made a few corrections.”
A few? She had probably spent 10 full months reading, proofreading, frontward, backward and probably upside down (judging by the angles of the many marks). But she loved the story and had nothing but praise for the writing itself.
Adcock reports that Wadesboro and environs are the physical setting, though not called by that name. Local readers, especially older ones, will recognize certain landmarks, while others are purely fictional. Anyone who ever worked on a local farm or at Wade Manufacturing will know they are home, but the characters are all fictional.
The plot is set in the World War I through the Great Depression era. The characters depicted are of interest to both the black and the white community as many serious issues common to both are dealt with in a serious way.
Advance copies may be obtained by logging onto Amazon.com and searching either by title or by the author’s name. There will also be a limited number of copies on sale at the signing. The work is also downloadable on Kindle.
Adcock said he hopes many of his classmates, especially those he has not seen for many years and people with whom he worked at Wade, will attend. He particularly urges the black students who attended Wadesboro High in 1967, the first year of integration, to come as he would like to greet them and thank them for the courage they showed then. He also hopes to have some of his old teachers in attendance in order to thank them for the impact they had.
Adcock also invites any descendants of Daniel Gatewood who worked at Wade with Adcock in 1968 and again in 1975-81, to attend. He said Gatewood was the inspiration for one of the chief protagonists and, in the author’s opinion, was the noblest character of the bunch.