ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 15, 1996 TAG: 9608150018
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
What would you do if you suddenly found yourself inhabiting the body of Frankenstein's monster?
In a way, that's the question Charles West asks in his newly published first novel, "The Tenant" (Write Way Publishing, $21.95).
In the story, the brain of a fatally injured young doctor is secretly but successfully transplanted into the body of a dying killer, disfigured and monstrous in size. When the physician who managed the transplant experiment is killed in an accident, the recovering doctor finds himself on the run.
Not even the doctor's wife believes that her husband's mind survives in the killer's body. Only a detective nearing retirement thinks the fugitive's story might be true, and tracks him across the country as the doctor tries to come to terms with his unprecedented problem.
West, who moved to Blacksburg last October with his wife, Rhonda, has been writing for a long time.
"For years, I was a poor but honest printer. Now I'm a poor but honest writer," he said.
The 6-foot-6 West is a North Carolina native, but spent most of his early years in Atlanta. He attended Georgia Tech on a football scholarship, served in the Army for two years, worked for a pharmaceutical company progressing from sales representative in Atlanta to a field management position in Richmond, became a regional manager with GTE Sylvania in its Atlanta-based hospital communication division, and started his own commercial printing company in 1973. That company was successful enough to allow West to take early retirement and concentrate on his writing.
He began with humorous articles solicited by an editor at the Orlando Sentinel, progressed to short stories and finally novels. "This was the first novel I wrote. I wrote it and put it aside," he said, about 10 years ago.
Since then, he has completed eight more novels including a historical Western series, a mystery spoof featuring a wanna-be detective, a humorous novel based on some zany characters he met during a week spent with mill hands at a hotel, and another novel in the science fiction genre like the one just published. Somewhere along the line, he got out that first novel and began revising it.
He placed it with Write Way Publishing, started in 1993 and publishing about four books a year, although that number is accelerating. "They give you a lot more attention than a big publisher," West has found.
He and Rhonda, a portrait artist with oils and charcoals who also works with various crafts, are completing the remodeling of their new Blacksburg home. That takes away time from his writing.
"We had to get away from Atlanta for me to do it because, as long as I stayed there where the business was, they weren't going to leave me alone," he said. "We liked it OK but we missed seeing the seasons. ... We knew we wanted to be near the mountains but not in the mountains."
The couple moved to Elkin, N.C., where they built a house and lived in it eight months. But it was located on 16 acres, half of which was in pasture and had to be maintained. "It was taking too much of both our time. We couldn't do what we wanted to do," West said.
They sold it, and the people who bought it insisted on purchasing Rhonda West's artwork with the house. "They wanted everything in it," she said.
They came back to Blacksburg, which they had visited before when they were looking for a place to settle. This time, they stayed. "It offers so much," Rhonda West said.
The couple has five grown children and four grandchildren. One of their daughters runs a bookstore in Atlanta, and is demanding that her father come there for a book-signing.
West's first novel sets a fast pace as his hero keeps one step ahead of the law and those who want revenge for past acts by the hunted killer whose body he inhabits.
"I'm not so much into super-heroes as I am into you and me. How would we react if something like this happened to us?" West said. "I really write to tell a story, to interest the reader. I'm not trying to convey any messages."
Rhonda West has read all his manuscripts. "She is also my first editor, and she is relentless," he said. "She doesn't miss a thing."
"I think he has the easiest time writing humor, because he's kind of a nut," she said.
"You've got to be a little bit crazy to quit your job and try to make it as a writer," he agreed.
"I've always had a bent toward writing - especially humor, I guess," he said. "I always thought that anybody had at least one good book in them, if they'd sit down and write it."
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: PAUL DELLINGER/Staff. Charles West has just publishedby CNBhis first novel, "The Tennant."