I think any kind of creative nonfiction or memoir writing produces struggles. In this one, I had to balance what I heard from my family about these three men with what I came to know about them and what I might speculate about them.
Gretchen Cherington – 9 June 2023
The Back Flap
Three powerful men converge on the banks of the Red Cedar River in the early 1900s in southern Minnesota—George Albert Hormel, founder of what will become the $10 billion food conglomerate Hormel Foods; Alpha LaRue Eberhart, the author’s paternal grandfather and Hormel’s Executive Vice President and Corporate Secretary; and Ransome Josiah Thomson, Hormel’s comptroller. Over ten years, Thomson will embezzle $1.2 million from the company’s coffers, nearly bringing the company to its knees.
The Butcher, The Embezzler, and The Fall Guy opens in 1922 as George Hormel calls Eberhart into his office and demands his resignation. Hailed as the true leader of the company he’d helped Hormel build—is Eberhart complicit in the embezzlement? Far worse than losing his job and the great wealth he’d rightfully accumulated is that his beloved young wife, Lena, is dying while their three children grieve alongside. Of course, his story doesn’t end there.
In scale both intimate and grand, Cherington deftly weaves the histories of Hormel, Eberhart, and Thomson within the sweeping landscape of our country’s early industries, along with keen observations about business leaders gleaned from her thirty-five-year career advising top company executives. The Butcher, The Embezzler, and The Fall Guy equally chronicles Cherington’s journey from blind faith in family lore to a nuanced consideration of the three men’s great strengths and flaws—and a multilayered, thoughtful exploration of the ways we all must contend with the mythology of powerful men, our reverence for heroes, and the legacy of a complicated past.
About the book
What is the book about?
It’s about my grandfather, Alpha LaRue Eberhart, who, between 1900 and 1922 helped George Albert Hormel build what is now the multi-billion dollar food conglomerate, Hormel Foods. But in the second decade of their partnership a young, smart, wily bookkeeper named Ransome Josiah Thomson rose to the position of comptroller while embezzling nearly $1.2 Million from the company (about $18 M today) and nearly brought the company to its knees. Rumors suggested my grandfather was complicit and he was forced to resign from the company and give up his Hormel stock. But was he? That’s the question I answer.
When did you start writing the book?
In a way, I started writing this book as a young child sitting beside and listening to my father, Richard Eberhart, a Pulitzer Prize winning poet, tell me epic and mythic stories about these three men. Dad was a great storyteller, often embellishing them with the elan of a poet, so as a young adult I began to wonder how many of them were true. Were the Minnesota snowstorms he described really six feet deep? Would his father’s loss of his incredible wealth and his fall from grace have cast shame on the family? After I started my consulting career and found myself advising hundreds of CEOs I became more enthralled with these three business executives who’d worked side by side in Austin, Minnesota.
In reality, I started writing about this story in about 1995 as I came across four cardboard boxes of my grandfather’s letters and business documents. I made three trips to Austin, Minnesota, where the HQ of Hormel remains, and spent many months and years in conversation with people in Austin about what really happened.
How long did it take you to write it?
The period of the late 1990s and 2000s – about five years in getting the basic facts and story outlined. Then in 2021 I picked it up again and spent eighteen months completing the book.
Where did you get the idea from?
Really, from my father’s stories. But I’ve also read George Hormel’s autobiography, the autobiography of the embezzler (written in jail), the autobiography of Gustavus Swift (a Hormel company competitor) and many others about the time in our history and the southern region of Minnesota. These sources greatly helped me with historical information around which I could craft this memoir.
Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?
I think any kind of creative nonfiction or memoir writing produces struggles. In this one, I had to balance what I heard from my family about these three men with what I came to know about them and what I might speculate about them. I also had to figure out how to handle a story that involves a name brand company. A real struggle was learning more about my grandfather than I’d ever known – most of it wonderful and greatly appreciated – but the vulnerabilities he had as well. So I’ve had to wrestle with and reconcile what I unpacked in telling this story.
What came easily?
My love of southern Minnesota came easily. The southern Minnesota plains are vast and beautiful, the earth as black as ground coffee, cloudless skies with a lot of sun. The people in Austin were, to a one, warm and welcoming. I thoroughly enjoyed my three trips to Austin, the people I met, the ways in which it is so different from New England where I’ve lived most of my life, and so very American in its own way.
Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?
My characters are real. But the book is a mix of memory, research, and my imagination. We can pick up facts but we’ll never know for sure what happened one hundred years ago.
We all know how important it is for writers to read. Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write and, if so, how have they influenced you?
I’m a voracious reader in most genres. I find it critically important to my imagination to see how different kinds of authors in different genres create their worlds. I’m especially loyal to good memoir and great fiction writers, especially current fiction writers and especially (but not all) women. Aside from all the books related to Hormel, the meatpacking industry, and southern Minnesota, I also needed to read others. I loved Eugene Soltes What Makes Them Do It—Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal and had a great phone conversation with him about the embezzler in my story. I was greatly moved by Ted Genoways’ The Chain: Farm, Factory, and the Fate of Our Food which is about modern day meatpacking. And Kerri Arsenault’s fabulous memoir Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains was pivotal instruction on how she constructed a story about her family working in paper mills in Maine through the last hundred years. But also informing voice and word choices were writers as disparate as Diana Spiotta, Julia Armfield, Richard Powers, Julia Otsuka, and Rebecca Makkai.
Do you have a target reader?
I write for all those who love stories about complex families, our reverence for heroes, the mythology of powerful men, and women who try to get at their own truth.
About Writing
Do you have a writing process? If so can you please describe it?
This varies by what period I’m in with a book, but in general I try to write 3-4 days a week, preferably in the morning and/or late afternoon. A view of water helps! If later in the afternoon, a glass of wine!
Do you outline? If so, do you do so extensively or just chapter headings and a couple of sentences?
With my first book, I had no outline. For this one I did. But the outline was flexible and it got changed as I kept writing. It helped me not go down too many rabbit holes which is endlessly possible while doing internet research. For my third book I am definitely using an outline. I do believe it saves time though it’s not my natural way to create. That would be with a blank screen, a full day, and moving wherever my keyboard takes me.
Do you edit as you go or wait until you’ve finished?
I try not to edit too much for the first draft, but I do love revising, and revise obsessively until far later than my publisher would like!
Did you hire a professional editor?
Yes, I always have a professional editor. I work with my critique group first, but circle later drafts through my developmental editor who is always right on about what to keep, what to toss, how to restructure things for the sake of arc and theme. I couldn’t write the way I want without her. And I am blessed to have a copyeditor and several proofreaders from the publisher as well. Writing is a team sport.
Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?
I’ve been listening to 1900s jazz by Jimmy Dorsey, Lawrence Welk, and Count Basie because those bands played at the chicken farm/amusement park the embezzler built with his money. His dance hall was the largest at the time west of Chicago.
Generally, though I enjoy writing in quiet. This may have to do with Ménières Disease which affects my hearing and vestibular system and too many inputs can cause me to have attacks.
About Publishing
Did you submit your work to Agents?
I did on my first book – and two agents couldn’t sell the book. But it was very raw back then, I shouldn’t have pitched it yet. I have foregone that route for this book as my publisher was very happy to have me back, no agent needed.
What made you decide to go Indie, whether self-publishing or with an indie publisher? Was it a particular event or a gradual process?
Certainly the speed of finished book to publication – far faster than finding the right agent who then sells to a traditional publisher which together can take 4 years. At my age, I just don’t have that time. I’d love to go traditional at some point, but for me the indie route has been wonderful. I found the right fit with She Writes Press in part because of its remarkable publisher Brooke Warner. Her insights about structure and voice have been pitch perfect through two books. And the SWP community is knock-down generous in every way—it’s quite a community and I doubt I’d have that with a trad.
Did you get your book cover professionally done or did you do it yourself?
All SWP covers are professionally done and I’m more than honored to have had the fabulous Julie Metz do both my covers.
Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?
I do. I worked with Sue Campbell at Pages and Platforms to create the marketing plan with me and I meet with her monthly to stay on track and on task. She’s such fun to work with and really knows book marketing. In addition I have a publicity plan with BookSparks and am really enjoying working with Tabitha Bailey and Crystal Patriarche and the team there.
Any advice that you would like to give to other newbies considering becoming Indie authors?
There is an incredible community of indie published authors. I think this is often understated and not promoted as much as it could be. Indie authors tend to be very generous to fellow indie authors and good literary citizens. It’s really important to find the right fit as it’ll take at least a year or eighteen months to produce the book and there will be a lot of communication in those months. Many of my very favorite books are published by indie publishers—they really search for quality works and curate their lists. No shame in going indie.
About You
Where did you grow up?
I grew up all over as my father chased tenure from university campus to university campus—Boston, Seattle, Wheaton MA, Storrs, CT, Princeton, NJ, Hanover NH. Then a quick two years in Washington DC where he was U.S. poet laureate under President Eisenhower and Kenney, back to Hanover for middle school, and a year in Lausanne, Switzerland for boarding school. I think these places gave me a great understanding of different places and local cultures as well as the acumen to navigate wherever I am.
Where do you live now?
I’ve just moved to Portland, Maine (the “other” Portland!) and split my time between here and a saltwater cottage in Brooksville, Maine. I feel especially lucky and blessed to have made my way back to my summer home state. Maine is not only gorgeous at all times of year but so full of creatives; it’s truly been the best decision my husband and I have made.
What would you like readers to know about you?
I’m someone who spends a lot of time outdoors. It’s how I replenish the creative juices I expend in my writing. I love being with my kids and grandkids and am blessed with many friends close by and far away. I’ve long been seen as a leader in my communities but that is shifting in my seventh decade as I try to offer what I can to new, younger leaders who are way smarter, more energetic, and bring more passion to their own leadership.
What are you working on now?
My third book is a novel—it’s a love story between the niece of a 1970s Weatherwoman and the grandson of a Mexican revolutionary who grew up in Chiapas. It explores power and change in entirely new ways for me. I’m excited to see if I can pull it off!
End of Interview:
For more from Gretchen Cherington visit her website and follow her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Get your copy of The Butcher, The Embezzler, and the Fall Guy from Amazon US or Amazon UK.
