CHESTERTOWN –– Ernest Thompson, who won an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay for “On Golden Pond,” will be in town later this week for a talk about his new novel “Out Clause” and a screening of his short film “The Constituent.”
The Bookplate-sponsored author event and screening will take place in Sultana’s Holt Education Center at 6 p.m. Thursday.
“Out Clause,” Thompson’s second novel which officially released today [Tuesday, May 5], imagines that individuals who disappear due to tragedy or unhappiness with their lives find community with one another.
The question of whether one would leave their life behind for the promise of a better one drives the story, Thompson said during a telephone interview Monday on his way to the release event for his novel in New York.
Thompson began writing the novel more than 12 years ago.
While “Out Clause” deals with themes related to struggle and death, Thompson said, “it’s still hopeful by the end of the story” because happy endings are important in a world that is filled with enough darkness.
Tenets of heart, humor and hope drive Thompson’s writing.
“Out Clause” is “probably more plot-driven than anything I’ve ever written, but what people are going to discover when they read it is … it’s really about heart, it’s really about finding that place that’s so special,” Thompson said. “I really believe that all of us have that place in our hearts, our imaginations, either based on nostalgia or just on fantasy of … where we belong.”
Though born in Vermont and now a longtime resident of New Hampshire, Thompson is no stranger to Maryland.
As a junior in high school, the family moved to Westminster in Carroll County where Thompson’s father was a professor at what was then known as Western Maryland College [now McDaniel College].
Subsequently, Thompson attended the University of Maryland at College Park and American University in Washington, D.C.
Before his success as a writer and actor, Thompson was affectionally known as “King Poo” at Camp Wright, the summer camp in Stevensville where he worked as a counselor as a teenager.
While the young people who learn from Thompson these days are called simply students or aspiring writers, the kids who learned from Thompson, a swim instructor back at Camp Wright, were called “Poo’s Porpoises.”
Memories of Camp Wright make the Shore special to Thompson, he said.
Visiting the camp’s former longtime director, the Rev. Allen “Father Al” Spicer, and wife Gwen who now live in Chestertown is a must-do for Thompson’s upcoming visit to Maryland.
Thompson was in Chestertown in 2023 after the release of his first book, “The Book of Maps: A Novel.” He said then that he was delighted to learn that the scoreboards he built for swim meets at Camp Wright many years ago were still in use.
Of the many intersecting plotlines and settings in “Out Clause,” Thompson said there is one chapter set in Baltimore, centered around the “The Block” and featuring a character who becomes an inner-city teacher after disappearing from his life.
One of the characters in Thompson’s novel, a man named Bear Harriman who lives on an Eastern Shore river, is loosely inspired by his longtime Camp Wright friend Johnson “Johnny” Fortenbaugh of Chestertown.
Fortenbaugh said Thompson is a natural teacher, and the enthusiasm and leadership skills that made Thompson a great camp counselor continue to define Thompson’s work as a mentor and writing teacher.
“He’s a keen observer, which gives him lots of material to think about and ultimately to write about,” Fortenbaugh said in an interview Tuesday.
Of Thompson’s work, Fortenbaugh said “it celebrates the good in people” even though his stories will “show you the bad.”
The film Thompson will be screening alongside the conversation about his book follows the story of an older man living in New Hampshire who writes strongly worded letters to his senator in Washington, D.C., who eventually comes to visit him in a reckoning with how friendship can form despite political differences.
The two-man show in “The Constituent” features Thompson and Emmy-winning actor Gordon Clapp.
The Holt Education Center is located at 200 S. Cross St. in downtown Chestertown.
For more information, call The Bookplate at 410-778-4167 or email contact@thebookplate.net. The event is free and open to the public, but reservations are strongly recommended.
Thompson said he hopes readers will write him with their feedback on the novel.
The Bookplate will have copies of the novel for sale.
