Around Town

Buckhead resident writes first novel at 80

JOHN PAULSON

Tim White’s family knew he had a story to tell. They encouraged him to write it down. That led, at age 80, to his first AROUND novel. White, a TOWN Buckhead resident, jokes now that his daughBY JOE EARLE ters probably encouraged him to write because they worried he’d have too much free time on his hands after he retired from a lifetime of practicing law. He headed his own firm in Atlanta for 25 years, so he was used to staying busy.

But his daughters recognized a good tale that needed telling when they heard one. After all, they’re storytellers, too. Both are published novelists. One, Lauren Myracle, writes young adult novels. Her younger half-sister, Susan Rebecca White, tells Southern stories.

“I definitely knew he had a good story to tell,” Susan Rebecca White said. “When you write things down, you might see things differently than the story in your head that you’ve told yourself over and over again.”

His wife, Ruth, also thought White should take a shot at telling his story. She’s a painter herself and saw his talent for writing years ago. “I knew he could write,” she said. “He wrote wonderful letters.”

White grew up writing – he was the son of a small-town newspaperman – so he decided to follow his daughters into writing books. He took creative writing courses at Georgia State and worked on short stories. He could walk to class from his law office, he said.

In the beginning, he focused on writing about the loss of his mother. But as he kept working, the story grew to take in more events from his life. The work eventually led to “Riley & Ben,” a novel that tells the story of a father, son and their family and is subtitled “Life offers second chances.” (The author is listed as “J.T. White” for James Timothy, he said. It was published earlier this year.)

“It’s fiction,” he said. “It’s based on events that occurred in my life, but some are embellished and exaggerated.”

It turns out there was plenty of drama from his life story to work into a novel. For example, his mother died and he was badly injured in a car wreck in 1941. White, a baby less than a year old, was thrown from the car through a window.

He and Ruth attended the same smalltown high school. She “had a big crush on him,” she said recently as they sat in the lightfilled living room of their home in a Buckhead high-rise. But they ended up going their separate ways and married other people.

Years later, they met again.

“There was a recognition we should be together,” White said, and they reunited. They were married in 1974. Between them, they Tim and Ruth White. (Joe Earle)

have six children, thirteen grandchildren and share their home with dogs named Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer.

Now that he’s told a version of his story in his book, does he plan to do another novel? White initially said he has ideas, but then admitted he’s not sure who he feels about tackling another project like this one. “It’s such hard work,” he said. “I’m not sure I want to work that hard again.”

Besides, he said, “I’ve told the story.”

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