October 07, 2007
Alison Winfree Pickrell finds story within
By O.C. Stonestreet
Someone once said that there is a novel in each of us just waiting to be written.
This may not be true for each of us, but it certainly is true for a few of us. Case in point: Alison Winfree Pickrell, whose “Unto the Least of These” was published by Capstone Fiction of Waterford, Va., last June.
The title of the novel comes from Matthew 25:40: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these ... ye have done it unto me.”
What makes this murder mystery novel unusual is that it is a “Christian murder mystery.” Better let me explain that one.
Pickrell, who lives on Alexander Street in Statesville, is a religious person and when she began to write a murder mystery, her central character, Priscilla Perle, a woman private investigator, turned out to share many of the same beliefs as the author.
Pickrell admits that while Perle the gumshoe is not her, she does share some similarities. While they both hate pantyhose, she says she is a bit more open-minded than her alter ego (should that be altar ego?) protagonist.
The town in which Perle and her accountant husband live with 10 cats is named Anchor. “Yes, I guess Statesville is my Anchor. I’ve been here 30 years now. It’s home.”
Pickrell, while she loves cats, doesn’t own any. She and her husband, Brian, who operates a towing service, own, or are owned, by two dogs, Molly and Kimber.
Private Investigator Perle is ready to begin a career in detection: she’s got her S-10 Chevy pickup — Pickrell had one — and has a framed declaration that she has finished the 12 lesson correspondence class through the Whitfield Career Development Institute, and earned an “A” on each of the chapter tests, thank you very much.
Pickrell, who grew up in Winston-Salem and graduated from Guilford College, until recently was a special education teacher with the Iredell-Statesville Schools.
She earned her master’s at the University of Arizona, Tucson, but has no formal training in creative writing. Her entire 30-year career as an educator has been in the I-SS system, her last 10 years spent at East Iredell Elementary School.
It was out of her experiences as a teacher and worker with the severely handicapped that provided an unusual twist to the 136-page novel: The murder is committed in front of Jody, a victim of cerebral palsy, who cannot communicate what he saw.
Pickrell is quick to point out that the characters in her book are drawn from various people she has known, and that Jody, the witness to the murder, though fictional, was based on several children she worked with.
The plot of the novel originated with a black-and-white photo of her husband’s family, an extended family that serves as the basis for the Lindler family in the novel. Pickrell explained how she made an enlargement of the family photo and then cut out photos of the individuals and made a chart with the photos and with new names, personalities and relationships.
She admits she was also influenced to some extent by some of her favorite authors, including Barbara Kingsolver, Amy Tan and Jan Karon. Karon, who lives in Blowing Rock, has been very successful with her Mitford series of Christian-centered fiction revolving around an Episcopal priest named Father Tim.
While Pickrell said that she loved her job as a teacher, she always wanted to be a writer as well.
“Unto the Least of These,” her sixth book, was written in 2004, although it was the first to be published.
“I guess the Lord just wasn’t ready for me to be a writer until I retired,” she said. She has completed five other novels and has one in the process of being published, also with Capstone. This work is also a novel, “As Eagles,” in which her character Priscilla Perle does not appear.
Asked whether Perle the P. I. will appear again, Pickrell was evasive. “I’ve got several ideas about a sequel with her in them, but nothing written in stone as yet.
“There could be another book or maybe a dozen.
“You’d think I’d have all kinds of time to write, now that I’m retired,” she confided, “but finding time to write is the hardest part of writing.”
“Unto the Least of These” can be purchased online through Books-A-Million, Barnes and Noble or from Amazon.com.
