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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.

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Posted Monday November 7, 2011 by Melinda Penkava