DYNAMIC DUO
Local mother, son writing team publish fourth book in series
Every reader knows there is nothing like getting your hands on a good book and settling into a favorite place to read — blocking out the world and losing yourself in the pages of the story. Thank goodness for the people who write the books.
Chickamauga mother and son writing team, Lamar and Mary Agnes Fine, have just published the fourth in a series of novels that explore the highs and lows of life and the relationships that make it up.
“Yesterday’s Child” is the latest book in the series that includes “Yesterday’s Gone,” “Yesterday’s Tomorrow” and “Yesterday’s Secrets.”
The series follows the same set of characters throughout their lives, as they grow and change and draw new people into their lives.
The first book, “Yesterday’s Gone,” covers a span of about 20 years in the main characters’ lives. Each subsequent book covers about a year.
“Yesterday’s Child,” says Lamar, has the same depth, passion, realness, fierce independence, love and devotion its predecessors do. “You will laugh, you will cry, but mostly you will be touched to your very core.”
The Fines have also written
“Discovering Girls and Other Alien Experiences” and worked together on Lamar’s “I Remember.”
So, how did a mother and son come to be writing deeply emotional love and life stories as a team?
The two were accustomed to working together on something very different — taxes. Lamar joined the family tax preparation business and worked with his mother for 20 years. When they decided to retire the business, Lamar put his newly
freed time to book writing. Then he bumped up against a passage he could not fashion to his satisfaction and consulted his mother.
“Mom looked it over,” says Lamar, “and spotted the problem pretty quickly. I was trying to write a woman’s emotions from a male perspective. It wasn’t working.”
Thus was born the idea of mother and son working together. It turned out to be smooth sailing during the writing process, with each writing different parts of the book. The editing process, says Lamar, can sometimes get a little intense and loud, but it always works out in the end.
The first book sold well and a second book was only natural. Mother and son settled into a good routine.
“We sit down and have little jam sessions when we start a new book,” says Lamar, “then more throughout. We edit each other’s work so much sometimes we can’t remember who wrote what. We come to know our characters so well it’s like we’re just following them around and writing down what they do.”
There was a long interval between the third and fourth books. Lamar’s dad came down with Parkinson’s Disease and he and his mother decided to put the series aside to care for his dad, who passed away in 2021.
“Yesterday’s Child” had been started shortly before Mr. Fine fell ill. Picking it back up, says Lamar, seemed natural. “We finished the last two-thirds of it in three months.”
Lamar says the books are set in north Georgia and Chattanooga and people will recognize many of the places they have been. “People will relate to the characters, too, because the characters go through things we all go through. They feel the same happiness and sadness, the same joy and grief, the same pride and embarrassments.”
The Fines take their commitment to local flavor to a higher level than most. They self-publish their books in both paperback and e-book form and sell them at their online store or directly, by phone.
They publish their books themselves. The books are printed locally and sold by the Fines on their own website, in print and as e-books, as well as some local stores.
The Fines bring different strengths and interests to the writing table. Lamar says that what grabs his reading interest is song lyrics. When he’s not writing or immersed in music, he can be found playing baseball or softball or out riding his bike.
Mary Agnes, says Lamar, is an avid reader and a big Braves fan, and a learner who has mastered the art of research online.
Lamar and Mary Agnes speak to a lot of groups: church, civic, professional groups, any group that needs a speaker. They provide a fun, entertaining program about their books and how a mother and son came to write together. “We don’t make a charge,” says Lamar, “but we do make our books available for purchase at the program.”
Two more books are already in the planning stages: “Yesterday’s Revealing” and “Yesterday’s Regrets.”
“we come to know our characters so well it’s like we’re just following them around and writing down what they do.”
Lamar Fine