At one time in Steve Thayer’s first novel, Saint Mudd, Grover Mudd, a dying newspaperman and the book’s protagonist, mentions that he might write a book. His friend responds, “Who’d want to read a book about St. Paul?” It’s a question Steve Thayer must have asked himself a million or so times when, after more than four years of research and writing, no one would publish his manuscript. Now Viking, one of the largest publishing houses in the country, is betting that plenty of people will want to read Thayer’s account of Depression-era St. Paul.
After receiving more than 40 rejections from publishers and literary agents, Thayer decided to publish the novel himself. He checked out how-to books from the library, found a printer, and borrowed enough money to print 1,000 hardcover copies, the first of which he sold at work as a parking lot attendant in downtown Minneapolis. When he brought the book out in paperback in 1990, the first printing of 10,000 sold out in three months, primarily through word-of-mouth recommendations. First novel sales of 10,000 are considered impressive when they’re accomplished by a major publisher who has national distribution and an advertising budget. This book was doing it on its own, and New York publishers started to take notice, with Viking winning out because it agreed to buy Thayer’s second novel as well. Al Silverman, Thayer’s editor at Viking, said the price tag for the two books was “in the respectable six-figure range.”
Saint Mudd is being reissued nationally as a hardcover in June, with a stylish new cover and a few changes to the story. With the help of his editor, Thayer wrote two new scenes to develop supporting characters further, and reinstated racy parts that the original printer refused to print.
Set in St. Paul during the 1930’s, Saint Mudd is a raucous tale of gangsters, newspapermen, corrupt police, and the FBI, an upstart organization working on a shoestring budget. Thayer mixes fact and fiction, with such legends of crime as John Dillinger and Alvin Karpis walking the same streets as characters of his own creation. Though it’s fiction about the underbelly of society, it’s also a love song to the city and a fascinating introduction to its history.
Thayer, meanwhile, is working on his second novel, with the working title “The Weatherman,” about a television weatherman caught up in a murder. It too is set in St. Paul.
—Dallas Crow
Minnesota Monthly, 1992