By BILL ARCHER
People who read these columns often comment on my experiences as a trucker. During a brief five-year period of my life, I drove a tractor-trailer, but I’ve written about my experiences as a trucker for more than a decade. Some readers may not enjoy my laborious recollections of my tenure as a knight of the highway, but others seem to like them. For good or ill, I owe my penchant for writing about my trucking experiences to the late William Hoffman, a noted author from Charleston, who had more recently lived at Charlotte Court House, Va.
Mr. Hoffman was the husband of Alice Sue Richardson Hoffman, of one of the region’s most prominent and civic-minded families. Eddie Steele was a huge fan of William Hoffman, and was proud to own each of his novels. Eddie had his entire collection of Hoffman books in a shelf by themselves. I met him when Peter and Patricia Richardson hosted a reception for Alice Sue and William Hoffman.
I had already reviewed his (then) latest book, “Tidewater Blood,” and was excited to meet him. Although I couldn’t get away from work until late in the evening, the Richardsons cleared a path for the two of us to spend a few moments together. Patty introduced me as a great writer too, but I didn’t deserve that accolade — especially in the presence of a true master of the written word. William Hoffman was the kind of author that writers enjoy reading — never condescending, and always thought provoking.
That was in the fall of 1998. I had been trying so hard to find a publisher for a work of fact-based fiction I completed more than a year earlier. My English professors at West Virginia University constantly encouraged me to write from personal experience, and the latest manuscript I was sending out to publishers was a book about one particular trucking experience, loosely based on a round I made to Chicago and back on the eve of the truckers shut-down of January 1974.
That was the second book-length manuscript I had written in the 1990s when I was dreaming of becoming a great writer. I had finished the first one on Oct. 12, 1994. I remember the date because it was the same morning I heard that Bluefield native, Dr. John Forbes Nash Jr., had been awarded a one-third share of the Nobel Prize in economics. The manuscript was a memoir of an early college experience, but I later abandoned that project.
However, the second manuscript that I was trying to get published, “Ain’t No Easy Load,” had some interesting elements about the ugly underbelly of trucking and life on the road — things I don’t write about in these columns. When you have a full-time job and an even fuller-time commitment to community service and family, it’s hard to find enough time to focus on a longer work of fact or fiction. Besides, newspaper writing is all in the moment with an immediacy of action and a constant deadline on the horizon of each new day. Writing a book takes patience.
William Hoffman thanked me for my review of “Tidewater Blood.” It is a great piece of writing with a compelling component of familiar scenery. The world he described so well was the world I saw every day. His characters were complete, real and believable, and I still find myself wandering around the grounds of the LeBlanc family mansion in my dreams. I really can’t shake it.
During our conversation at the Richardson home, I told Mr. Hoffman that I was shopping a manuscript and asked if he would help. Really, I just wanted him to hand it to his agent who would give it to a publisher so I could sit back and collect royalties as I waited for it to hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Instead, he did me a much greater favor. He read the manuscript.
Within a couple of weeks, I received a thorough letter detailing what I should do to improve the manuscript, as well as his annotations on the manuscript itself. It shattered my dreams, of course, but the one recommendation that he made that settled in my soul was: “With your first-hand knowledge of driving tractor-trailer, why don’t you write a book in first-person narrative style?”
Since then, I have been working to perfect that style in these columns for more than a decade, trying to get it right. Mr. Hoffman died on Sunday, Sept. 13, at the age of 84. To his wife, Alice Sue, his children, grandchildren, extended family, friends and all those who were touched by his delicate, beautiful prose, I offer my heart-felt sympathy. He was a great writer, a great teacher and a great friend of all who cherish the written word.
Bill Archer is a senior editor for the Daily Telegraph. Contact him at barcher@bdtonline.com.
