Author’s short story collection nominated for National Book Award

SAUGUS – A local author has been nominated for a National Book Award for his collection of short stories depicting life in America’s West.Tom Sheehan’s latest book, “The Westering,” is a collection of 21 short stories that, according to a press release, tell of the “pioneering of those who came from many countries, many customs, many cultures, and brought much of that mix with them to create the American West as we now know it.””It’s all Western and all about the people who came from all over the world during that century of the expansion of the country,” said Sheehan, 84, in a phone interview Tuesday. “We had people from Scandinavia, England, Ireland, up from Mexico and down from Canada. They made the mix that’s America. That whole mix is what moved the country.”Sheehan, who has lived in Saugus for 77 years, said he was nominated by his publisher, Milspeak Books, a nonprofit e-book publisher that specializes in works written by veterans.”It’s fiction, but there’s a great deal of research that you have to do,” said Sheehan. “You can’t have a gun the year before it was invented. You really hear about that. You can’t have the wrong military outfit in the Civil War in the wrong area.”The first story in the book, “Alias the Cook,” is about a young Italian man in Boston who dreams of nothing but becoming a cowboy.”He comes to America and he happens to be a great cook,” said Sheehan, who spent the last four-and-a-half years writing the book. “He makes a meal for a man who runs a railroad and winds up taking a job as a chef on the train heading west. He bides his time and he becomes a cowboy.”It was on a troop train on his way out to the Korean War in 1951 that Sheehan said he got his first taste of the West.”I was probably 12 days on the train looking out the window studying the land and the landscape like the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi,” said Sheehan.Sheehan grew up during the Great Depression, and aside from “always being hungry for food,” he said he also had a hunger for words and was an “avaricious” reader.”One of the things that drove me was the pulp magazines,” said Sheehan. “I read anything and everything. ‘Doc Savage,’ ‘G-8 and His Battle Aces,’ ‘The Shadow’ and cowboy books. I read everything I could get my hands on. I read on the rooftops with the pigeons and in the cellars, and in vacant hallways so I could be alone and do my reading. I pay homage to that time with these stories.”Sheehan said he’s been writing since he was 5 years old and thanked his grandfather for reading William Butler Yeats to him when he was little.”He said, ‘Listen, Tom, there’s music in words. Listen. Don’t slack away from it. Read and listen,'” said Sheehan. “And I got it.””The Westering” isn’t Sheehan’s first book. Sheehan said he’s had three novels published along with three books of poetry and two books about Saugus that he edited.”This is probably my 14th book and there are nine more in the queue,” said Sheehan, whose first book was published in 1975. “There’s a big business right now in e-books. A lot of people still want to have a hard copy in their hands and a lot of people don’t a have a computer. But those that do find it a lot easier.”Sheehan has been retired from Raytheon for 21 years and has spent most of his free time since then writing. Even after losing his wife nearly two years ago, Sheehan said he doesn’t plan on slowing down any time soon.”She was a great lady and said, ‘Don’t stop what you’re doing. Don’t chase after me in a hurry,'” said Sheehan. “And here I am.”Sheehan’s e-book “The Westering” is available on barnesandnoble.com and milspeak.org.Matt Tempesta can be reached at [email protected].