Books by Doug McGuinn

THE "VIRGINIA CREEPER" is a historically accurate (although the author admits having to use his "poetic license" a few times) novel about the rise and fall of the lumber/railroad town of Elkland (present-day Todd), N.C, the rise and fall of a lumber/passenger train, the Virginia-Carolina (aka the "Virginia Creeper"), and the rise and fall of a lumber company (the Hassinger Lumber Company) and the company town (Konnarock, Va.) the lumber company created.

Writing this book has helped me psychologically. It was, in part, written to help me deal with the death of my eldest son, Jamie, who was killed at the age of 23, on October 5, 2006, the day before my 59th birthday. The seed for this book was planted in my head while I was practicing my kick with a kickboard at the swimming pool at the gym I go to. For some reason, I had this crazy idea of quitting teaching and becoming a lifeguard. The idea of sitting high up there in a lifeguard stand and thinking great thoughts between heroic rescues of saving people from drowning, really appealed to me. This book is sort of a reverse coming-of-age story; maybe a going-of-age story. In it are a series of essays about my growing up and my growing old, as well as an on-going novella based loosely on my swim clinics.

Lonnie-Lew Hensley, a likeable, but sometimes short-on-common sense "good ol' boy" type, ends up marrying Daisy Faith Grogan, a big-breasted vocalist/keyboard player in a four-piece country/Western band, who specializes in performing cheatin' songs. Lonnie-Lew and Daisy Faith's marriage--all two months, twelve days and eight hours of it--is, to say the least, a rocky one. Lonnie-Lew learns the hard way that Daisy Faith regards the lyrics of the cheatin' songs she sings as just make-believe; Daisy Faith makes it clear that "If I ever catch a man of mine cheatin' on me for real, I gar-un-damn-tee you he'll never cheat on me again!" Lonnie-Lew is visited by the ghost of his uncle Norville "Knock 'em Through the Wall" Lewis, a former dirt-track racecar driver, who, in 1961, mysteriously disappeared and was never heard from again.The hilariously funny Sing Me a Cheatin' Song, Daisy Faith, which is set in the North Carolina foothills and the mountains of northwestern North Carolina and northeastern Tennessee during the summer of 1983, is Doug McGuinn's third novel.