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I hope you get re-charged, but understand if you're ready to move on to something else. My feelings are selfish; I've followed you since I found a copy of Gospel Hour in the library at least 40 years ago. Cry Me a River will always be in my Top Ten Books, and I've enjoyed all the rest of your novels. I even recall you reading at The Southern Festival of Books long ago and how good you were. Best wishes whatever path you take!

T. R. All I can say is if this is the end, its been a hell of a ride. I've read all your books, many of them numerous times. I love your ability to create characters without using exact dimensions, colors, etc. Your descriptions make the reader use their imagination to see the characters. Your humor has kept me laughing for decades and it never gets old. Jerusalem Gap has made me shed many a tear but I enjoyed every one that fell. I've loved the Ray Tatum books immensely. I can see a lot of myself in Ray and you could probably say the same.
I can't thank you enough for the friendship you gave my mom. She told me that except for the days her children were born, meeting you was one of the happiest days in her life. Losing her last year was very difficult and your words of sympathy were greatly appreciated.
Take care friend and may whatever comes next in your life be truly fulfilling.
Sincerest best wishes, Mark

Hi Ralph,

I appreciate your long-term support. The Southern Festival of Books . . . that was a while ago.

I'll sure show up here if I get the itch again.

Hi Mark,

Yes, it has been quite a ride. I was thinking of your mom when I wrote that post yesterday. She was lovely, and the pleasure of knowing her was far more mine than hers. Writing books can lead to all sorts of unexpected rewards.

I know it's customary for writers to die and retire simultaneously. I guess I'm just trying to buck the trend.

Be well and stay in touch. Thank you for your years of support.

Congrats on the new book, and a resounding "Well done!" from the old neighborhood. You have made us proud. Like Samuel Clemens, you carved a unique path through American literature, always fresh, dynamic and hilarious. My favorite is still the Christmas pageant in "Short History", with the "neck noises" of Ranchero a close second. I will never forget the Delta's "knee on your neck," or the scene set at the Wright Brothers monument, or the catapult, or Itty Bit... All the best to you and yours, Bev too, from William Etling of 1212 Strathmore Circle, Santa Ynez, Ca.

I’m greatly saddened to think that there might never be a new Pearson or Gavin to discover but I’m so grateful for the many hours of pleasure I’ve experienced spending time with your books. My greatest wish is that your books become available in an audio format. I’ve listened to Ranchero too many times to count. I know that hearing your prose spoken aloud would truly be a joyous event.

Be well and happy, dear friend. You are loved.

This is a bit sad. Ever since A Short History... my answer to the question "who's your favorite author?" has been "my favorite author is Charles Dickens, my favorite living author is T.R. Pearson."

Like most of the others who have commented I do hope you find another spark along the way. Please say hi to Ray Tatum for me. You will be missed.

Hi Bill,

Good to hear from you. Yes, the old neighborhood. My parents both passed in the last two years, and Bev and I sold their house. I think they were the last of the old bunch. Good memories, though.

Thanks for you kind words.

Hi Rene,

Thanks for your support. I have to say the only audio book I've ever listened to was Ranchero, and that's chiefly because actor David Carpenter read it (and read it beautifully). We went to the same high school in Winston-Salem. I only met David much later and was able to steer the job his way. He was magnificent, and I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Who knows? I may surprise you with something in five or ten years.

Hi Jim,

I think I need to work on the "living" part for a little while. I've long found writing novels to be something like having constant homework. Yes, I do enjoy writing them, but they hang over me a bit. I need to do nothing for a while and see how long it takes me to get sick of that.

Charles Dickens is sure great company, but I imagine my name has earned you a lot of blank stares. Thanks for sticking with me. I appreciate it.

I haven't written or published nearly as much as you, but I completely understand. I have a new book coming out in February, which may be my last. I'm dabbling with something new, but mostly because I don't want to say yet that I'm done with writing.

As I'm sure you know, writing is a hard thing to quit, so I'll probably continue to peck away every now and again but not publish. Maybe not even finish books. I can allow myself that these days.

Good luck to you, Clifford, with your new book and thanks very much for checking in.

I hope a break is all you need, but the living part is kind of important. It's hard to imagine no more new novels from you, though - I've been hooked since I read A Short History of a Small Place back in the 80s. More than once! I was just talking about you in my writer's group. I remember you saying somewhere that a whole lot of what you write in your novels gets edited out before the final draft, and apparently I need to learn that skill, lol. I'm very happy to hear there is one more at least, and if that's the last one, I'll just have to reread them all!

Also, you gave a reading at a little bookstore in Boone probably 20 years ago. I was so overcome with awe that I couldn't speak, and my husband had to say "she really loves your books!"

Hi Beth,

I remember that reading in Boone. I drove up from parents' house in Winston-Salem and just barely found the bookstore in time. It's not usually in my wheelhouse to strike anybody mute, so now I know it has happened at least once.

I much appreciate your support and enthusiasm through the years. If I get the itch to publish anything again, I'll make sure you're one of the first to know.

Hi T.R.,

I look forward to reading your new book in September!

Thanks for all that you have given us over the years. Best wishes for happiness and success in whatever form that might take for you.

R.L. Parker

Thanks, R. L. . I very much appreciate your support through the years.

Mr. Pearson, thank you for YEARS of fun reading. I reread A Short History or one of the other Neely books about once a year and have enjoyed your other books as well. You are a treasure and I hope this is really not the end! (I wrote to you many years ago, when we both had real typewriters, and I still have your reply. It's one of my treasured possessions.)

L. Vaughn

Hi Louise,

I still have my real typewriter. My parents gave it to me when I graduated from high school. The White Out days. I remember them well.

Thanks for you good wishes and your continued support. I have a letter from E.B. White hanging on my wall. I'm delighted to hear my letter meant something to you.

Happy reading.

T.R. wrote: "Hi Beth,

I remember that reading in Boone. I drove up from parents' house in Winston-Salem and just barely found the bookstore in time. It's not usually in my wheelhouse to strike anybody mute, so..."

Definitely do!!

Mr. Pearson, I'm so sad to hear that you might be done after *Bone Eye*, which I just pre-ordered, though of course I support you doing (or not doing) what you must. Your books have been a constant source of pleasure and enjoyment ever since I discovered your work in about 1994. I'm always quoting lengthy passages to friends via email and text.

It's been fascinating to see how your writing has changed over time, but I think my favorites are the original Neely trilogy, the Rick Gavin books, Devil Up, and and and ... I've always wanted to tell you how much I savored *The Last of How It Was* in particular, with its Joycean circular structure.

Hi Benjamin,

Many thanks for your kind words, and I'm pleased to hear you have a special connection to the Neely books. I do to. When I decided to write for a living instead of taking a university job for the salary, I had to constantly adjust to the market in order to keep selling books. That's where Rick Gavin came from, Seaworthy, etc.

After the 80s, publishers just wouldn't touch a Last of How It Was, so it was on to Ray Tatum and . . . westerns. I can't say I haven't enjoyed the challenge.

Thanks for sticking with me.

Long term fan - I always tried to post reviews that might build sales for your wonderful work. I hope that after a nice long rest your fingers will start pulling paper from the drawer: you are a writer, and hopefully can’t help it.

Hi Stephen,

I did count on you for reviews and much appreciate you having gone to the trouble, book after book after book.

Yes, I'm guessing the itch to write will come back some time or another, but it's nowhere in sight just now.

Thank you for your long-term support.

I was gifted A Short History in 1985 and have loved it and everything you've written ever since, (especially Polar and Glad News of the Natural World). I eagerly await your new one!
And because I'm a greedy bugger, I hope you'll keep writing into your 100's. But if that's not on the cards, I hope you do whatever way makes you happy. Thank you so much for the humour, insights, and absolute magic you've given over these many, many years.

Hi Mary,

Many thanks for your kind words and your decades-long support. I'm casting around just now for what might make me happy, which is currently rolling out of bed and not typing the day away. I'm sure I'll miss writing in time, but I'm getting by for the moment on coffee and doom scrolling.

Thanks for checking in.

Will Bone Eye be e-book only? And if it's the third western, what are the first two? Also I'd like to echo all the others here that I'm a long-time fan - I own all your books and have read most multiple times (even the really weird one about the cave people). I hope you come back to writing after a well-deserved break!

Hi Linda,

Bone Eye will be available as an e-book and a paperback. That is also true of the other two westerns I wrote, Devil Up and Joy to the Just.

Many thanks for your long-term support and, yes, the cave people book is really weird.

Dear Mr. Pearson,

This is the first fan letter I’ve written in my 75 years, but when I saw that you have a new book out this month, I felt the urge to get in touch.

My husband and I have been reading your books out loud for 40 some years now. We started in the 1980s with “A Short History . . . ," and have never stopped.

You are our absolute favorite author. We love every book, and I do think we have read every one you’ve written.

Several of your phrases have become a standard part of our family repartee: “neck noises�� . . . “finger ends�� . . . "the fat Jeter and the bald Jeter�� . . .

As David has read to me from your novels, I have laughed myself silly, I’ve choked up a bit, I’ve been horrified and surprised, and always engaged and entertained.

We love the western series, and I’m pleased there is another one coming.

I think you live here in NC (we moved here six years ago from CO), but wherever you are, I think of you often and fondly. I was sad to read in your blog that you might give up writing. I can only hope you change your mind, and write at least one book every year, and pass on the year after I do, so I will always have a new TR Pearson book to look forward to.

With great admiration,
Cynthia Hilliard

Hi Cynthia Hilliard. Thanks so much for your kind words, and I'm pleased to know that my books have brought some pleasure to you and your husband through the years.

I'm a little worn out just now, but I may hammer out something in the coming year or two. Who knows?

Thanks for writing. I much appreciate your good opnion.

Since you floated the possibility of not writing again, I felt it necessary to my sanity to go back and re-visit your books. I just finished A Short History of a Small Place and I have to say I have not enjoyed a book like that in a very long time. As a writer myself, I stand in awe at the manner in which you can lead me down a convoluted path. make me laugh out lous numerous times along the way, and then slap me in the face and stop me dead in my tracks with an insight or poetic paragraph. As it has been for thirty-something years, my hat is off to you. You are still my favorite author of all.

Hi Ralph. I'm not sure what I'd make of Short History these days, but I do know I've kind of lost the ability to keep that many balls in the air. That's essentially why I'm backing off. I feel like my brain power is at an ebb. Gumption too probably. I imagine I just need to get good and bored.

Thanks for your kind words and years of support.

Mr. Pearson, I’m calling you just about every vile thing I can think of, and given the voyage I’ve been making through this life, I am primed to go on for a while.

Take that, sir!

Those vile things only mask my grief that I’m not yet ready to process after reading that “Bone Eye�� could be your last gift to the world. Acceptance will undoubtedly come when I tally up the unread books from your catalogue, each of which I will open with the relish of a child on Christmas morning.

Thank you for the past, present (on p. 186 of “Bone Eye��), and future delights.

P.S. - Thank you adding the word “palaver�� to my vocabulary.

Hi Terry,

You're quite welcome for a couple of dozen novels and "palaver." I might come out with something else eventually, but it won't be any time soon.

Happy reading, and call me whatever you like.

Thank you for all the books.

Hi Chris,

It has truly been my pleasure to write and write and write. Thank you for reading them.

Finishing up my second reading of Off to the Sweet Hereafter, Benton and Jane Elizabeth are just as funny/crazy as ever.

I once read the opening sentence per a request in a book store and got winded. Glad it still works for you.

You bet it still works. The last five pages knocked my socks off even when I knew what was coming.

Well, life does have a way of overwhelming. Hope you are finding your homework-free hiatus in OBX (still there?) as restorative as we've found coastal living in Nova Scotia. Frost, that depressed bastard, was right. What sane person wouldn't turn their back on the land and look at the sea all day?

Hi Cynthia. I've taken to doing next to nothing, though I'm no longer on OBX and have made a new home in the mountains of NC. I do miss my walks on the beach, but wandering through the woods has its own charm.

I hope you're well way up yonder.

Mountains, wandering, woods, and walks. Recalls stuffy insurance guys who write decent poems: Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail / Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; / Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; / And, in the isolation of the sky, / At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make / Ambiguous undulations as they sink, / Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

Take good care. Write something now and again to keep us longstanding fans sure you're alive. Glad News is our book club's offering this month. I'll lead that discussion, of course.

Winter is soon upon you folks. Invest in good snow tires. We don't get any of the white stuff down here at the bottom of the province. Cheers.

Sinking downward to darkness -- check.

Do let me know how your book club feels about Glad News. I recall it as more readable than not.

Our book club discussion was interesting. The three women are all 20+ years older than I (I’m 65), so I’m never sure how they’ll respond to my (always) unconventional recommendations. Although the reception was overall positive, they did seem to be baffled when we first sat down, expressing variations on “The writing’s fabulous but where’s the plot?�� (Shoot me now.) I had to do a fair bit of teaching as they’re not the closest, most adventurous readers in the world. They did grasp that it was picaresque from the get-go but found pinning the unreliable narrator down under all the black humour a challenge. Given their ages and life experiences, they’re not terribly charitable when the main character is male unless he’s perfect, so getting them past their sexism is no small task. Felt like I was back at work but in the end (among choruses of “Oh, I missed that!" and "Yes, I see that now!��), they left with a much better appreciation than when they came in and said they thoroughly enjoyed the selection. Happy Festivus!

It sounds like you had to do quite a lot of heavy lifting. As it should be, I guess. Yes, where is the plot?

Thanks for working to win them over. Happy Festivus to you!

It's my goal to break these lovely ladies of their dependence on plot. The one who most "got it" is 91 years old and still carting firewood. The heavy lifting was good exercise for me, though. Keeps my "what the hell is wrong with you???" reflexes under control. Christmas is coming. Enjoy that, too.

T.R.,

A question: I've been reading a ton of books through audible.com these days. Also, I think it's time to revisit one of my all-time favorites, "Short History." Is there any chance you could get this astounding book recorded? Or is that something you've been avoiding/refusing for your work?

Hi Mike,

Unfortunately, I don't own the rights to Short History. They belong to Viking/Penguin who would have to produce the audio book, and they're not about to spend any money on a 30+ year old title.

If the rights were mine, I would certainly produce a proper audio book, but I doubt I'll ever get them back. Rights used to revert to the author once the title was out of print, but now with digital books, nothing ever goes out of print.

Sorry to be so long in responding.

No worries on the response; not so long at all.

I'm sorry the industry treats the producer of the work so poorly. But then, to the publisher, the art of it is hardly the primary consideration. I suppose some houses are better than others. Perhaps V/P isn't one of them. The music business is the same way; maybe even worse. Either way, it's a shame that it's come to this; that such a fine body of work as yours doesn't get the attention it deserves.

I'll forever maintain that the scene in "Short History," where Louis is sent out to rake the last of the leaves and rubbish from under the mock orange bushes is one of the most evocative and gorgeous bit of prose I've ever read.

". . . and I know it isn't autumn anymore."

I hope you're doing well, enjoying the mountains and the woods.