Episode 542: Earl Swift and the Battle to Get the Reader to the Last Word

"Our our first job, job one, for anybody writing a book, for anybody writing a story of any kind, any length, is to get the reader to that last word. If you don't do that, it doesn't matter what pretty words you drop in the middle of the story. Doesn't matter how brilliantly conceived it is. The story has failed because you have failed to get the reader to the end," says Earl Swift, author of Up on Cove Mountain.

It’s Earl Swift with his tenth book. He’s the New York Times bestselling author of Chesapeake Requiem, and he makes his fourth trip to the podcast to talk about Up on Cove Mountain: Adventure, Tragedy, and a Quest for Meaning on the Appalachian Trail. It’s published by Mariner Books, and what a book it is as it recounts Earl’s first hiking of the AT in 1990 and the happenstance, devoid-of-reason tragedy that befell two fellow southbound hikers in Molly LaRue and Geoff Hood. In that quest for meaning, Earl, now in his 60s, hikes the trail again to ponder the meaning of reason, luck, chance, and the enduring allure of the trail.

What a joy to welcome Earl back to the show. This was a toe-tappin’ good time. The toes were tapping. We start the conversation with:

• How to handle a book advance
• What drove Earl to return to the AT
• How Flip flopping the trail reflected the structure
• Making the AT chronicle feel fresh
• Trail angels
• Narrative wormholes
• The people he relies on for story help
• Luck
• How hiking the AT is like reading and writing
• Hiking your hike
• How he kept track of things on the trail
• Proportionality
• Getting the reader to the last word
• And how nonfiction is a construct

You can learn more about Earl at earlswift.com and follow him on IG @earl.swift.