Author pens Hanford-focused murder mystery
Jan. 22—The city of Hanford takes a starring role in a new novel.
"Of All the Animals" is a murder mystery released recently by Hanford native Michael O'Neal, who wanted to recreate the Hanford of his youth as the setting for part of the story.
"Hanford plays a decent role in the novel in terms of the setting," O'Neal said.
The book is set in and around the Central Valley in 1978, following the fictional character John Goode, who has set up a camp to help rehabilitate teenage delinquents in the foothills of the Sequoia Mountains. Things begin to unravel at the camp when four deaths occur and Goode is not sure whether they were accidental, suicides or murders.
While the murder mystery is fictional, the story borrows heavily from O'Neal's own life growing up in the Valley.
O'Neal, now based in Seattle, grew up in Hanford but moved to Fresno in 1976 right before turning 20. He ended up back in Hanford for about five years in the early 90s to teach social studies at Hanford High School.
This teaching experience would become the basis for the fictional rehab center, Camp 2020, in the novel.
"The number of knuckleheads I've come across as a teacher has been in the hundreds," O'Neal joked. "But it was very important to me, as a teacher, to be as compassionate as I could be without cutting them any slack."
O'Neal taught the "family life" and "life decisions" class for freshmen, which focused on self-esteem, sex education, addiction and suicide awareness. The program was new at the time, and such curriculum has become more commonplace since the early 90s.
In addition to drawing from O'Neal's experiences to enrich the verisimilitude of the fiction story — the setting of the camp was inspired by O'Neal's youthful experience at a foothills camp near Woodlake — the author also draws from Hanford's rich history.
Many local landmarks, businesses and even people pop up in the book including Superior Dairy, where O'Neal worked for two years, and The Star Restaurant, which has served Hanford for more than 120 years.
"I was so glad to see it's still in operation," O'Neal said of the historic diner.
O'Neal wrote the Star Restaurant scenes according to his own memories of the establishment, saying that every lunch hour was routine with local businessmen at the center table of the restaurant, "winos" sat at the counter and "us blue collar workers in a booth near the back."
While this is O'Neal's first foray into fiction, he has written three previous non-fiction books, "Being in Beijing," "Charmed in Chengdu" and "Stuck in the Sharjah Sandbox," which detail his experience chaperoning his students abroad and his various travels. All four of his books are currently available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other bookstores.
