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riental serves as the setting for best-selling author Nicholas Sparks’ latest novel which came out in October. “The Best of Me” is the 17th book for the New Bern-based author.

New book in town, Nicholas Sparks’ “The Best of Me” as seen here on Oriental’s Town Dock. The book is set in Oriental and mentions the coffeehouse in the background, The Bean, by name, but otherwise doesn’t draw heavily from details of village living. (Village dogs are not mentioned, though one decided he had to be in this photo shoot.)

As in many Sparks’ books, the book is centered around two people, a couple — she’s Amanda, he’s Dawson – who had been boyfriend and girlfriend when they lived in Oriental and attended Pamlico High in the mid-1980’s. As fate, and the plot, would have it, they went their separate ways. They both left town and had no contact for a quarter century. Then, in the present day, when they are in their early 40’s, they meet again, back in Oriental.

Since Oriental doesn’t get mentioned in many books, TownDock.net bought a copy of “The Best of Me” — $27.75 with tax — the day it came out. This purchase was made at the New Bern Mall, steps away from where hundreds of Sparks fans — women mainly — were lined up to meet Sparks and get a moment, a book signing and a photo with the author. The line stretched hundreds of feet down the mall.

A Sparks book can draw a crowd.

Nicholas Sparks signed thousands of books at New Bern Mall.

We did not wait in line, as our interest was more in looking up the Oriental references in “The Best of Me” to see how they stacked up with actual life here in the village.

Mr. Sparks, of course, can take writer’s license and adapt the town and its setting to fit in to his tale. Mainly, he uses that license to paint in broad strokes. He tells instead of shows; he tells us that Oriental is quaint, he tells us that it is quirky. But he doesn’t give details to show how it is so.

In sum, Oriental is merely the lightly-painted stage-set for his protagonists. The descriptions might be those of a rural town anywhere, even someplace inland.

This is not to say there aren’t some descriptions – just that they are not finely drawn.

We won’t spoil the ending — or the middle — or even much of the beginning. Rather, we present here a guide to “The Oriental in ‘The Best of Me.’” It’s for residents and regular visitors who grasp Oriental’s sense of place here on the river.

It’s also for those, who’ve never been here, who may visit in hopes of sampling the 20 flavors of Bean coffee while capturing the rapt attention of the young baristas…

The Oriental in “The Best of Me”

W

e start eight pages in as one of the main characters prepares to visit Oriental after being away for a quarter century.

Page 8: The Oriental he knew was nothing like the cheery image advertised by the area Visitors’ Bureau. For most people who spent an afternoon there, Oriental came across as a quirky little town, popular with artists and poets and retirees who wanted nothing more than to spend their twilight years sailing on the Neuse River.

There’s the first Q word, which appears often in real magazine articles about Oriental. And here, a sentence later, comes the second Q word:

“It had the requisite quaint downtown, complete with antiques stores, art galleries, and coffee shops, and the place had more weekly festivals than seemed possible for a town of fewer than a thousand people.”

In reality, Oriental doesn’t have multiple antique stores. There is a consignment store that can count as one though. There are two art galleries. It is true that Oriental does seem to have a lot of events given the small population – circa 900 last census — within the town limits.

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“Page 8… the real Oriental, the one he’d known as a child and young man, was the one inhabited by families with ancestors who had resided in the area since colonial times. People like Judge McCall and Sheriff Harris, Eugenia Wilcox, and the Collier and Bennett families. They were the ones who’d always owned the land and farmed the crops and sold the timber and established the businesses; they were the powerful, invisible undercurrent in a town that had always been theirs. And they kept it the way they wanted.”

Some real history: 400 years ago Farnifold Green plopped down along the shores of what’s now Green’s Creek. African slaves and descendents of French Hugenots, among others, followed. In the late 1800’s some Outer Banks families came and laid out the present-day town of Oriental and named it after an Outer Banks shipwreck.

The timber industry thrived for a decade or two … but that was about a hundred years ago. Farming and fishing then became the mainstay of Oriental’s economy. In the 1960’s the prevailing winds drew sailors from Raleigh and Greensboro and eventually, sailors from out of state. That fueled the real estate market – and tourism — and brought in the retirees Sparks references.

Putting aside the fishing fleets and that industry, most of the shops and businesses in Oriental are owned and run by people who aren’t part of any old families here — they are, to use the local nomenclature, “came heres” rather than “born heres.” That “powerful, invisible undercurrent” Sparks writes about, does from time to time make itself felt in matters of turf — literal and otherwise. The book that tackles that issue head-on has yet to be written.

“The Best of Me” has an older character reminiscing about a long-time — but now gone — hamburger joint:

Page 30: “ …. he revealed that every now and then he used to take her dancing at Red Lee’s Grill.”

Red Lee’s closed in the past decade. Red’s daughter, Georgie Powell still operates her hair salon right next door to where the grill once turned out 25 cent hamburgers. The sign from Red Lee’s can be seen in Oriental’s History Museum just on the other side of Broad Street. (The museum has the grill’s jukebox, too.)

Page 40: “Turning toward the Neuse, he recalled that it was the widest river in the United States by the time it reached Pamlico Sound, a fact that few people knew. He’d won more than a few bets on that piece of trivia…. “

A lovely factoid. Maybe now, with a bestselling author behind it, this curiosity of geography will become more widely known. (Bets now may be harder to win…)

Page 71 “The bed and breakfast was about what he’d expected: four bedrooms upstairs with a kitchen, dining room and seating area downstairs. The owners, unsurprisingly, favored a sailing theme; miniature wooden sailboats adorned the end tables, and paintings of schooners hung on the walls. Above the fireplace was an ancient boat wheel, and tacked to the door was a map of the river, marking the channels.”

Page 72: “The road was quiet as he entered Oriental’s small downtown. He passed two antiques stores, a hardware store, and a few real estate offices; on the opposite side of the street, Irvin’s Diner was already open for business, with a handful of cars parked out front.”

The mention of real estate is a realistic touch; it is one of the most-represented industries in town, with at least five realty offices inside the town limits, and a sixth just outside.

In real life, the closest to the diner experience would be Brantley’s Village Restaurant.

Our hero continues his morning run in “The Best of Me”‘s Oriental…

“Page 72 … the fog on the river had begun to lift, and breathing deeply, he caught the living scent of salt and pine. …. Near the marina, he passed a bustling coffee shop. ….. he jogged past a rustic bait shop. He passed the First Baptist Church, marveling at the stained-glass windows and trying to recall whether he’d even noticed them as a child….”

We do get fog on the Neuse River, sometimes spectacularly. But the smell of salt water and pine comes through only after hurricanes or severe nor’easters have cracked a few trunks and pushed water ashore. On a non-storm day, one would have to breathe very, very deeply – even when out in a boat on our brackish water – in order to soak that up that smell. As shorefront towns go, we’re a low-sodium brackish water experience.

There is no bait shop, rustic or otherwise.

Page 81 “.. the Tidewater, a hole-in-the-wall just outside town that was almost the only place nearby that offered any kind of nightlife. He’d drink some beer, play some pool…”

Just a mile or two outside of town is an establishment with the name Tidewater on a sign out front. It’s a real estate office.

The pool tables aren’t outside of town anymore. In October, pool tables came much closer to the center of Oriental, at the corner of Hodges and Broad. The owner of the Steamer restaurant, which was flooded by Hurricane Irene (and before that, Isabel) has turned that space in to a pool hall.

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Page 82: “Too many people glorified small-town America, making it seem like a Norman Rockwell painting, but the reality was something else entirely. With the exception of doctors and lawyers or people who owned their own businesses, there were no high-paying jobs in Oriental, or in any other small town for that matter. And while it was in many ways an ideal place to raise young children, there was little for young adults to aspire to. There weren’t nor would there ever be, middle management positions in small towns, nor was there much to do on the weekends, or even new people to meet.”

In this passage, Sparks does put his finger on a challenge in Pamlico County when it comes to well-paid work. He does not elaborate further, but here on the ground, some “grass is greener” dynamic is at play. The pace of life in Oriental that might bore the tears out of a 16- or 24-year-old makes it alluring as a weekend or vacation get-away for executives with busy lives in Raleigh or beyond.

Page 93 “When Dawson returned from his run, several other guests were sipping coffee in the parlour, reading free copies of USA Today.”

We were met with laughter when we asked innkeepers Johnny and Margaret Reiswig if they provided Cartwright House B&B guests with copies of USA Today. Margaret asked if the daily were even available — in paper form — in town, while Johnny noted that Cartwright guests can read the paper on line from the wireless signal routed through the building.

While USA Today’s hard copy is not an option, you can feed quarters in to the newspaper machines around town to get either the News and Observer from Raleigh or the New Bern Sun Journal. The Bean sells the New York Times on Sunday.

And speaking of The Bean…. (cue the aromas of many, many coffees)

Page 95: “Amanda stood at the counter of the Bean, adding cream and sugar to a cup of Ethiopian coffee. The Bean, once a small home that overlooked the harbor, offered about twenty different kinds of coffee along with delicious pastries. Along with Irvin’s, it was a place where locals congregated to catch up on whatever was happening in town. Behind her, she could hear the murmurs of conversation. The twenty-something-year-old behind the counter hadn’t stopped moving since Amanda had walked in.”

The four coffees offered daily at The Bean. From left to right, Decaf, Unblended, Blended and Flavored. Outside the window is the Duck Pond.

Before the Bean was founded about a decade ago, the building was home to a real estate office, a video store, a headhunter’s office. It’s not a large structure — maybe 600 square feet or so. If this passage meant to suggest the Bean offered 20 kinds of coffee at one time, the counter would have to extend out the side window, over the handicapped ramp and stretch towards the Duck Pond.

As regulars to The Bean can tell you, there are in a given day, four types of coffee in the self-serve carafes – decaf on the left, flavored coffee on the right and unblended and blended in the middle. If Amanda were getting her caffeine fix on a weekday morning, the peripatetic barrista, June Durham would smile at being described as a twenty-year-old (as well as hearing no mention of singed bagels.) On weekend mornings, the staff’s average age hovers closer to 17.

Meanwhile, on page 97, we read that the other protaganist, “has set his sights on the coffee shop” and then waits “in the shade of a magnolia tree” until Amanda comes out of The Bean.

Perhaps the sights he is setting are in his telephoto lens. To be standing in shade, he may have been watching Amanda from quite a distance. There are no shade trees, much less magnolias, on any public sidewalks or rights of way near The Bean.

Shortly afterward, Dawson goes in to the coffeehouse with Amanda.

Page 98-99 “Amanda noted the way the pretty twenty-something cashier tried not to stare at him as he walked toward the refrigerator case. When Dawson neared the back of the store, the clerk checked her appearance in the mirror behind the counter, then greeted him with a friendly smile at the register.”

The Bean has not had a mirror behind the counter. It will occasionally have some customers capable of turning heads. (In the real world of Oriental, demographically speaking, a 42 year old man would stand out. As being young.)

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A page later, our two main characters reminisce about the first ice cream he bought her in the mid-1980’s.

Page 100 “You took me to the drugstore, the one with the old-fashioned fountain and the long counter, and we both had hot fudge sundaes. They made the ice cream there…. I can’t believe they ended up tearing the place down… Maybe 6 or 7 years ago?”

There was a drugstore on Broad Street, across from Village Veterinary Hospital, and some remember that it had a fountain in the 1930’s. When our protagonists were in high school, in the 80’s, there was no drugstore. Oriental, in fact, has not had a drugstore for decades, until one opened earlier this month near the Post Office.

(For scoopable ice cream in Oriental these days one either goes to The Bean, or to the freezer section of Town-n-Country where there’s virtually always some on sale.)

Page 110 “On the way over, Dawson had picked up sandwiches from Brantlee’s Village Restaurant, along with some bottles of water.”

However you spell it, Brantleys.

Earlier in the book, a local reader might’ve thought that Irvin’s Diner was the stand-in for Brantley’s Village Restaurant. This reference is closer, though one is more likely to come away from Brantley’s with sweet tea. (Incidentally, if they were a couple who could be seen together in public, and it were a Thursday, they might’ve gone to Brantley’s for the fried chicken buffet at lunch time. But again, that’s in real life…)

Page 194 “One of the star-crossed lovers is confronted about the affair, ‘Have you ever noticed how small Oriental is? There are only so many places to stay in town.’”

It is a small town. As for places to stay, there are at the moment, three B&Bs and two condotels and various short-term lodging arrangements.

Page 206 “She really needed to stop the Internet shopping. … The cappuccino maker from Williams-Sonoma for instance, but in Oriental she’d needed it, if only to feel like she wasn’t living completely in the sticks. A little touch of the city, so to speak”.

Oriental is out here at the end of a peninsula. It is remote and so, in two months after Hurricane Irene, when the Bean has been closed, a cappuccino maker may’ve come in handy. But it’s not Internet shopping that makes the difference for many, as much as the internet itself. In recent years, the ability to go online — and Netflix — provides some real connectivity while living so far away from a large population center.

Page 217: “Reaching the main street that ran through Oriental, Amanda stopped at the intersection. A left turn would bring her past the marina and eventually to Tuck’s . A right turn would lead her out of town, eventually becoming the rural highway she’d follow on her way back home. Straight ahead, beyond a wrought-iron fence, was the cemetery. It was the largest in Oriental …. The gates to the cemetery were open. She scanned the half-dozen cars and trucks in the parking lot….”

Small, old, family cemeteries can be found around Oriental. But they don’t have fences around them, much less gates.

In Oriental, there are no gated communities for the dead or for the living — unless you count Ed Bryant’s storage units on Broad Street where some RV’s have parked for a while. Speaking of parking, there are no cemeteries so big they’d have a parking lot. In Oriental, six cars near a cemetery means a funeral.

Page 245 “The spire of the First Baptist Church, illuminated by floodlights, seemed to hover above the business district.”

Here’s the church, but where’s the spire?

In reality, the church on Broad Street does not have a “spire”, much less a floodlit one. The church sits across the street across from Oriental’s’ Town Hall and next to the Old Theater.

Page 277 “Though he wasn’t native to Oriental, he had become attuned to the rhythms of the town. He’d learned over time that if he listened carefully at Irvin’s, it was possible to learn a great deal about the history of this part of the world, and the people who lived here. Of course, in a place like Irvin’s, any information had to be taken with a grain of salt. Rumors, gossip, and innuendo were as common as actual truth.”

This may be said of a number of places in town – Brantleys, The Bean to name just two. Also, of course, the three hair salons. (The quintessential comment about small town gossip was overheard at an Oriental hair parlour few years ago. The subject under discussion was a man in town and his affair with a woman not his wife. “It i’n‘t gossip,” said the stylist, as she relayed that news, “because he told me himself.” )

Bestseller List, Then The Big Screen

A half dozen of Mr. Sparks’ books have been made in to movies, and Mr. Sparks’ assistant Stephanie Yeager says that Warner Brothers plans to turn “The Best of Me” in to a film as well. Production is to start next year. Asked if the filming might happen in Oriental, Yeager said it was studio that would decide that, though she added that Wilmington might be where it is filmed because of the studios there.

She also confirmed that Mr. Sparks has no plans to take his book tour to the town in which the story is set. That book tour, which kicked off in October at the New Bern Mall, included a whirlwind of stops in Greenville, Charlotte, Cary Fayetteville, Philadelphia, Boston and New York. Australia and the Philippines were also part of the book tour. That would have brought the New Bern author closer to what was once called the Orient perhaps, but not Oriental.

At this writing “The Best Of Me” is selling well, at #2 on the New York Times Combined Print & E-Book Fiction bestseller list.

Posted Monday November 7, 2011 by Melinda Penkava