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Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame member A.D. Hopkins was greeted by newspaper friends south and north as he signed his new book, “The Boys Who Woke Up Early,” at events in Las Vegas and Reno last month.
The book is a fictional account of growing up at the end of the Eisenhower era in Virginia from Hopkins, the longtime Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter and feature writer.
Here’s more about the novel:
On the high school front, the cool boys are taking their wardrobe and music cues from hip TV private dick Peter Gunn, and Dobie Gillis is teaching them how to hit on pretty girls. There’s no help for Stony on the horizon, though. Mary Lou Martin is the girl of his dreams, and she hardly knows Stony exists. Adding to his adolescent struggles, Stony can’t seem to stay out of juvenile court and just may end up in reform school. A long, difficult year stretches out in front of him when a new boy arrives in town: likable bullshit artist Jack Newcomb who has Gunn and Gillis – along with his jazz clarinet – down to a tee.
In the photo above, Hopkins reads the opening of the book to a small group at Sundance Books in Reno before talking about the process of writing a novel after years of factual reporting.
“The difference is now I have to prove that it isn’t true,” he said.
Another Hall of Famer, John L. Smith, recently released his new book on Joe Neal, “The Westside Slugger.”