Joe Palmer's novel that could become a film tells a story of love and redemption as a hurricane threatens a fictional town much like Fernandina Beach.
Joe Palmer grew up in Waycross, Georgia, wishing he was living down on Florida's northern border in Fernandina Beach, a quaint and funky oceanfront town so popular with south Georgians that some called it Waycross-by-the-Sea.
He eventually found a way to make a living there, so it seemed natural that when he set about writing what would be his first published novel, it would be set in Fernandina.is called Morgan's Island, a salty place between the Intracoastal and the Atlantic Ocean, at the most northeastern point in Florida. Palmer's story focuses on Jack Merkel, a 64-year-old sailor and boatyard owner, a one-time merchant seaman and shrimper with a big tragedy in his past. His life changes when a troubled young man and a beautiful divorcee enter it — and then changes some more as a fearsome hurricane wanders restlessly over Florida, headed, eventually, right at Morgan's Island.Palmer, 68, a Navy veteran and one-time private investigator and journalist, has already had more luck than most debut authors. The film rights to"A Mariner's Tale" were recently optioned by Tristan Productions Inc., an independent film company based in New York City. Still, negotiating a contract to make a movie is one thing. Getting it made is another, he knows: Many such projects stagnate, then die. "It's exciting. Knowing it could go there but, being pragmatic about it, you know, it may not go there," Palmer says."So it's nice just being considered."The vague beginnings of"A Mariner's Tale" came to him while he was working on his retirement project: restoring a sailboat, a 1969 Cal 28. It was a complicated and all-consuming task, and at a particularly frustrating point in the job he temporarily gave up, got a Gatorade and put on some music in the boat. That's when he heard Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits fame, singing a song called"Into the Sky" about a tough old sailor who'd sailed the world in a boat he built.And the vagabond wind whispers over the bay/And the songs and the laughter are carried away in the sky. He went home and told his wife Pam:"I've got an idea for a novel." So he went into his office, sat down and wrote four chapters, not really knowing yet where it would take his story. Then it all fell into place.“Writing a novel is kind of like sailing," he says."You know, you’re right here and you know you want to be over there but — a sailboat being a sailboat — most of the time you can’t take a straight line to get there.”Palmer's early years in Waycross weren't easy. His father was cruel and abusive, he says. His family was poor, and he was self-conscious about his poverty and the condition of the house where he lived. "I just didn't feel good about myself while living there," he says."I had to leave, I just couldn't stay in the atmosphere there. My Navy was my ticket out of there."He joined the Navy at 17, then worked as a newspaper reporter in Bradenton and Macon, Ga., before landing a spot at The Florida Times-Union's Fernandina Beach bureau in 1986.He later became public relations director at a local hospital, then started his own private-detective business. He enjoyed the investigative work but discovered he was a lousy businessman. So in 1995 when an opportunity came to become an investigator for the federal Public Defender's Office, he took it, even if it meant moving to Tampa, then Atlanta, then Orlando. Ten years later he was able to get in at the Jacksonville office, where he could live once more in Fernandina. He stayed there until he retired in 2012, after which he spent a decade writing a folksy column — Cup of Joe — for the local News-Leader.Novel by Jacksonville author, daughter of a detective, is inspired by Brenton Butler case Palmer loves his town but worries that it, like so many other desirable places, is changing too quickly and too much. “We’re losing that special vibe this place had for so long," he says."Growth is inevitable, but the growth here is off the charts.” Still, it provided fine inspiration for his fictional Morgan's Island, in geography and feel. Some characters are, he says, "hodgepodges" of Fernandina locals, and one of the main characters, a tough but compassionate judge named J. Harlan Kicklighter, is inspired by Senior U.S. District Judge
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