SKANEATELES — From an early age, local attorney Linus Ward Walton Sr.’s life was influenced by Skaneateles Lake.
“I was born in Skaneateles Falls but at age seven going on eight my family moved to Mandana, on the west side of the lake,” Walton said. “There were 11 kids in our family, plus parents David and Aurelle. The house was a circa 1820 farmhouse, situated on a Revolutionary War tract originally extending an incomprehensible distance along the shore, toward the village. Growing up in Mandana was a fairly meager time for us in monetary terms but richly immersed in family, fun– and the presence of the lake. In between school, church and our part time jobs, it was a time of rowboats, small sailing craft, fishing, idling on the shore, even being read to by older siblings, and trudging magnificent ravines and upper fields. In all, though, I don’t think we took the lake for granted. We had a not quite conscious knowledge the lake was special.”
It is a mixture of memories, personal stories, fictional scenarios and contemporary thoughts that all combined and inspired Walton to write and publish his first book, “Mandana Dreams.”
When describing the work, Walton describes the book as a work of fiction.
He said it is a collection of loosely connected stories, a short novel, and a five-page poem.
“It is the product of an unassuming hobby of writing I’ve had for decades while I continue my day job of small-town lawyer,” he said. “I hope these vignettes and simple tales, enjoyable to write, strike a common chord.”
While he hasn’t previously published any other work, aside from some pieces in the college literary magazine, Walton said writing has been something of a constant hobby in his life.
“Writing has been a hobby since as far back as late high school, then more so in college, then continued sporadically to the ’90s, when in about 1994 I started writing more regularly, to the present,” Walton said. “But actually it was more a matter of being persistent than in devoting huge amounts of time, 15 or 20 minutes snatched here and there for writing. But I kept at it, week after week, not getting far away from writing. We all have so much time, so just a little, persistently devoted whenever possible, adds up.”
In college Walton majored in English at LeMoyne. He said this served as an influential time on his writing.
“Like millions of other people in those decades I admired F. Scott Fitzgerald and the English poets, Keats, etc., and the novelists, Thomas Hardy, Emily and Charlotte Bronte, American novelists, and of course there are Tolstoy, and Pushkin, and lots others I am forgetting,” Walton said. “Then later more diverse authors from modern and other perspectives. Throughout, I’ve been a steady reader, outside of my day job.”
After LeMoyne Walton went on to study law in Brooklyn, but as Walton likes to say, the lake has a way of drawing people back.
“My wife and I in 1982 moved to a town 50 miles to the east of Skaneateles,” Walton said. “In 1999 we moved back with our five children. But this time it was to the east shore, near Ten Mile Point, diagonally down from Mandana. As those who grow up close to a body of water know, the lake has a way of drawing you back.”
As Walton said, with his profession as a lawyer and his obligation to his family, he still made a point to find time to write and over the years he amassed an archive of material that would become parts of his first book.
“These were pieces all written at least nine and up to 22 years ago, and I had revised and revised them,” Walton said. “Then I had put them away, and went on to writing other things. But looking at them earlier this year I discovered I didn’t hate them, actually liked something about each, noticed they have a common theme in a way – Mandana – and so revised them more, and decided why not put them together in one book?”
In a description on Amazon, the book is described as being about an engineering student, returning from a semester in Germany to his family’s home in a lake region in New York, discovers his mother is gravely ill.
Without hesitation, he puts his ambitious schedule on hold. Soon his days are filled with selfless attention, seemingly mundane companionship and talk, simple giving of time, even inexplicable moments of joy.
Gradually, as the reader witnesses the day to day healing for each, the question is apparent, who reaps the greatest rewards for service? And then, following the jarring outcome of this initially unassuming story, who feels the greatest impact of this legacy?
The six stories and poem also accompanying this novella chronicle the student’s parents and four siblings as they relocate to the stunning lake country of the father’s youth, adjust to its upscale competitiveness, but seek to retain balance in face of ambition for college and career.
“Inescapably, the writing takes its imagery from the lake, the backdrop, always there,” Walton said. “To this extent it may appear as non-fiction, as there are familiarly named roads, settlements and locales. Against the lake, we live through our ups and downs, and confront stresses and occasional losses. Fortunately, none of the tragic incidents detailed in ‘Mandana Dreams,’ the fictional part, actually happened to our family, but we all know of the rare instances when they regrettably have. We live, after all, in a small town having in common this wondrous natural jewel.”
Walton said in putting the book together he was fortunate to have a good experience working with Amazon to help with design and formatting.
He said this, in his experience and opinion, opens up a world of opportunity for authors to get their work out into the hands of readers.
He also said as he assembled the pieces while he found a common thread in each, they are not necessarily interconnected directly.
“They are, it should be noted, actually unrelated stories in the sense that the characters don’t necessarily keep the same name, and yes, here the character may not survive or is the victim of fate, but in the next is alive and faring well,” Walton said. “They were not written to be contained in one ongoing narrative but I nevertheless thought they hung together thematically, especially in terms of mood. I grew up in Mandana and these stories re-created an atmosphere, and the experience of living, or wanting to return to live, near the lake.”
Walton said those who have read the work have been complimentary and he hopes to hear more from other readers in the future.
“All of us are extremely busy and it’s hard to find time to read, I know,” he said. “So feedback is precious and understandably limited. Plus it’s a very busy time of year. In the little bit of feedback so far, people like the shorter, simpler, more direct stories; the novel takes a bit of time but is likely worth the effort. Plus writing is extremely subjective and personal. I am sure that there are people from whom I hear nothing that the book is not to their liking, and their silence is good manners. I totally understand. Still, I like feedback, positive or negative. It helps writers immensely.”
The book’s front cover art work is taken from a piece created by Walton’s brother, Bart, who Walton dedicated the book to.
“I have received positive comments from people about the cover, a painting by my late brother Bart Walton, looking out a window of the Mandana homestead house,” Walton said. “Bart, a fellow wanderer in the fields above the lake, to whom the book is dedicated.”
With years of writing amassed, Walton said he has more material, but hasn’t started to think about his next book just yet.
“I have lots of other material lying around, he said. “Remember the most recent of these stories is from 2012 or 2013, and I’ve kept writing since. But I haven’t yet focused on what I’ll do with it. Also, I keep working full-time, and writing is just a hobby, much loved, but a hobby.”
“Mandana Dreams” can be found on Amazon and is available in print as well as Kindle.
