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So What's This About Monticello?

When I started putting together ideas for my second book, Surfer Girls, I decided to set it in Monticello, AR.

But since I had some, let us say, unusual characters in mind, and since I didn't really relish the idea of getting sued by half of Monticello, I took some "literary liberties" and renamed it and moved it. So, "Monticello" became "Delta City", and I moved it a little bit south. Delta City ended up a little bit east of Crossett, where Highway 425 and Highway 82 intersect. Of course, if a town the size of Delta City were to exist at that intersection, there wouldn't be any room for Crossett. And while I actually liked Crossett the few times I was there, there just wasn't enough room for it, so bye-bye Crossett, sorry 'bout that.

While Surfer Girls spans the years from 1965 to the present, Delta City is laid out pretty much the way Monticello was in about 1967.

There's what was then a hamburger stand at the corner of what is now Highways 4 and 425 in Monticello, which has always held a special place in my heart. Some of you may remember that I worked there, but few know that it was your humble writer who actually cooked the first hamburger ever sold there. I did change the name in order to pay direct homage to someone who is no longer with us; in Delta City it's "Mike's Restaurant".

The "University Club" was just across the highway to the south of the hamburger stand.

Monticello's square is there, along with a restaurant on the west side which is the center of many events in Surfer Girls. "Delta City Appliance World" is on the south side of the square while "Goth Central Station" is south of the square, on South Main Street across the railroad tracks; I lived in an apartment there.

As far as where the Surfer Girls lived, Nicole's house would be south of Monticello, out South Main Street, Cairn's house would be not too far off the square on North Main Street, while Barbara's house would be out past the Country Club on Highway 35.

There are a lot of cops in Surfer Girls; if you took the names of the cops that were in Monticello in 1967 and threw them in a blender you might end up with the names of some of the cops in Delta City.

A few of the actual people in Monticello have supporting roles in Surfer Girls, although the names have been changed to protect the...well, you know!

As far as the women who are the Surfer Girls go, they are completely and totally fictional, and are really not like any women I knew in Monticello. For better or worse, a lot of women passed through your humble writer's life, and the characters in Surfer Girls are simply composites of some of them.

I don't want to give away the whole story (especially since I'm trying to sell it!), so I'll stop now. But should you choose to pick up Surfer Girls, and if you "know" Monticello, AR as it was in the late 60's, you might find it fun to pick out the people and places in Monticello that became the people and places in the fictional "Delta City".

Have fun!

Bill Denton