Paul A. Barra is the author of the new novel Quo Vadis, Deputy?.
Q: What inspired you to write Quo Vadis, Deputy?, and how did you create your character Deputy Sandy Buford?
A: I live in South Carolina and was inspired by the cultural changes I’ve
experienced there over the last 50+ years. In 1969, the state officially banned
racial segregation in schools and government; that critical year was also in
the immediate aftermath of the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin
Luther King, the Tet Offensive, the space race, and Vietnam war riots.
It seemed to me to be a fine time to drop into Horry County a local guy who’d been away, especially since Myrtle Beach (in eastern Horry) was “the bomb” in the ‘80s, which is the time period many of my readers might remember.
I wanted the setting to be rural and Southern for their edification. Since one of the changes in the South in general was the so-called second Northern invasion, when folks from snow states settled here by the thousands beginning in the second half of the 20th century, I wanted to use the Roman Catholic church to exemplify some of the changes locals saw.
1969 was post-Vatican II, but many parishes in smaller dioceses such as Charleston (encompassing all of South Carolina then and now) still said mass in Latin, chanted by a priest who kept his back to the congregation, making the water and wine ceremony seem to be a hidden rite.
Catholics were less than 4 percent of the population of South Carolina, most of them in the city of Charleston then; Catholicism was a mysterious religion. The novel is meant to be a thriller/mystery.
I made up Sandy because his name sounds Southern, and he’s young enough for the action scenes and old enough to be a veteran when many American young men were not. He’s also a local boy with roots in the sandhills of Horry County and an experienced lawman — just the person to react to changes in the South as he struggles to solve a crime.
Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: I wanted some Latin in the title, but a familiar expression, and thought the
book by Henryk Sienkiewicz and the famous ‘50s film by the same name might
pique readers’ interest, especially when they saw it connected to a southern
lawman.
“Quo vadis?” is also the sort of colloquial Latin that a ‘60s priest schooled in the language might use in a casual secular conversation. It means “where dost thou goest?” or “what’s up?”
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did
you make many changes along the way?
A: I knew only that the instigating crime would be the murder of a hip-pocket
lender — and that’s because people outside the South would probably not have
heard of the practice — and that the setting would be the rural reaches of the
Horry County in 1969.
Everything else came to me as I wrote, necessitating many rewrites and not a few debates with my editors at Level Best over plotting, with many thanks to them.
Q: How important is setting to you in your writing?
A: I think readers want to get a vicarious experience when they read fiction,
so I work hard on setting in my novels. I hope Carolinians recognize some
things I go on about and that others are treated to a learning experience
formatted as a mystery.
They should recognize that the crime, its investigation, and its solution may be made up, but that the flavor of the land and its people is authentic. That’s the balance I strive for when I write novels. Setting is often the first idea that occurs to me when I begin brainstorming a new work.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m deep into what I hope will be considered another literary thriller, set
on a sea island off the southern edge of South Carolina. Things happen in a
Gullah-Geechee community to a protagonist who has no reason to be in such a
place except for an unusual skill set that makes him special to someone who's
spent time there. It’s modern-day mystery in a place that time forgot.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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