What or who inspired this small-town Jack-of-all-trades? Have you known folks like Eb?

In Beach Town, Eb Thibadeaux is the mayor, town engineer, and owner of the grocery store, motel, and boat yard. But the largest portion of the book got written at our Tybee Island vacation home, Ebbtide, which is named after a beach house in an earlier novel, Summer Rental. I find “embedding” myself in the inspiration setting helps put me in the world of the book when I’m writing. The second time when I came back I rented a tiny cottage overlooking the Gulf. I actually ran away to Cedar Key, FL! The first time I stayed in a tiny tourist motel somewhat like a mini version of the fictional Silver Sands Motel in the book. Just as Greer does in Beach Town I started looking for my setting in the Panhandle, in Panama City Beach, and then worked my way down the coast until I discovered Cedar Key.ĭid you run away from home again when writing this novel? Where did you go this time? Most of the East Coast is so heavily developed, I thought the Florida Gulf Coast was virtually the last frontier.

I wanted a sleepy, virtually untouched town for the setting of the book-which the fictional movie producer Bryce Levy describes as “a cross between the town in Jaws and Body Heat. How did you settle on the FL Gulf Coast as the setting for Beach Town? I fictionalized the town heavily in the book which is why I didn’t call it Cedar Key. Is Cypress Key a real place? If not, is it based on any place particular?Ĭypress Key is based on the real, charming Florida town of Cedar Key. I interviewed three location managers and the hair and make-up artist who became the inspiration for CeeJay in the book. I took the Paramount Studio tour, visited a movie costume house, and shadowed a film location scout during a shoot in Atlanta. to research the places where Greer lived and worked. What research did you do into the movie business and the various roles on a movie set when writing Beach Town? Also, my daughter Katie issues filming permits for some of the dozens and dozens of film, television and advertising shoots that take place every year in our town. I’ve always been a big movie buff-and I’m always as intrigued by the real settings of films as I am with the film itself. I’m the nerd still sitting in a darkened theatre waiting for the location credits to roll at the end of every movie. What made you choose to write about Hollywood and the movie business? The main character in Beach Town, Greer Hennessey, is a movie location scout.

Beach town by mary kay andrews