Homespun Yarn

"The Plunder Room," by John Jeter (Thomas Dunne Books, $25)

For former Tampa resident John Jeter, the seventh time was the charm.

He wrote six novels and got nowhere with them. Then two years ago, undaunted by his previous lack of success and "thousands of rejections slips," he churned out another - this one inspired by his late Southern gentleman grandfather - and scored a publishing deal with St. Martin's Press.

"And I still don't have a literary agent," says Jeter, author of "The Plunder Room," published in January. "This business is pretty funny. You don't know what will happen."

The story gets better. Jeter, 48, wrote the book in three months. He credits that pace to his previous career in newspapers, where he worked as a reporter and copy editor for the Chicago Sun-Times, the San Antonio Express-News and the St. Petersburg Times.

"It's that whole deadline thing. You think fast and write faster," he says. "And you do a lot of it in the shower and driving down the road."

These days, he and his wife, Kathy, also a former newspaper editor, run The Handlebar in Greenville, S.C., a 500-seat concert venue known for intimate rock 'n' roll shows. When he isn't booking acts like John Mayer, Joan Baez, Tower of Power and David Sanborn, he's writing. He can't help himself. It's in his blood.

"I started at 6 and haven't stopped," he says.

Jeter admits it was "pure insanity" when he and his wife bolted from the Tampa Bay area in 1994 and moved to Greenville to open the music club with his brother.

"We had no money, no experience, no clue. And three weeks after we moved in to a 100-year-old textile building to set up the club, my brother walked away from it," he says with a laugh.

But Jeter stuck with it. And now The Handlebar is in its 15th year, its second location and business is booming. The economic downturn hasn't seemed to hurt, either.

"Tickets are cheaper and musicians like the intimate setting," he says. "And people like the smaller setting. It's all good."

That same stick-to-it attitude has paid off in his long-time quest to get a book published. He describes "The Plunder Room" as a Southern allegory about honor, chronicling a family from the Greatest Generation and its values of honor, honest and personal responsibility to the downslide of Generation Y, "where we're dealing with dopey, tattooed kids with no work ethic and a strong sense of entitlement."

Jeter says he borrowed a Chinese proverb about an orchard to set the stage for his novel.

"The first generation plants the orchard, the second one enjoys the shade, the third one comes in and chops it all down," he says. "You could say that's what is happening in our country right now. This is the time we need to start thinking about replanting for the future."

The story takes place in fictional New Cumbria, S.C., loosely based on Jeter's hometown of Union, S.C. It's told through the voice of a paraplegic music critic named Randol Duncan, whose dying war-hero grandfather has given him a mandate to salvage his family's legacy of honor, which has seriously eroded over several generations.

It comes in the form of a key to a locked room - something that Jeter experienced with his own grandfather, who kept a treasure trove of memorabilia from this 30-year military career in a secret room.

Jeter shares something of a bond with his disabled narrator: He's endured 18 surgeries, including a kidney transplant (donated by his brother in 1984) and three hip replacements.

"But that's where the similarities stop," Jeter says. "I'm not nearly as smart or as funny as Randol."

BOOK SIGNING

WHAT: John Jeter will discuss, read and sign copies of "The Plunder Room"

WHEN: 7 p.m. Thursday

WHERE: Inkwood Books, 216 S. Armenia Ave., Tampa

INFORMATION: Call (813) 253-2638. To learn more about the book, go to theplunderroom.blogspot.com.