{"id":46274,"date":"2021-10-19T08:28:06","date_gmt":"2021-10-19T12:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/?p=46274"},"modified":"2021-10-19T08:28:06","modified_gmt":"2021-10-19T12:28:06","slug":"book-feature-if-trees-could-testify","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/arts\/book-feature-if-trees-could-testify\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Feature: <em>If Trees Could Testify\u2026<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>William D. Auman, Author<\/h2>\n<p>As an attorney, William Auman has handled around 70 murder cases, but he calls the Madison County double homicide that occurred in 1983 \u201cperhaps the most haunting\u201d of them. Decades after an elderly brother and sister in the Big Laurel community were murdered, the case has inspired Auman\u2019s debut novel,<em> If Trees Could Testify\u2026.<\/em> \u201cIt was a classic \u2018who-done-it\u2019 cold-case mystery that to some degree continues to captivate the local community,\u201d says Auman. \u201cI felt it proper to change names to protect the innocent as well as the potentially guilty, together with confidentiality concerns on the part of the ongoing investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-46271\" src=\"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Book-Feature-2-If-Trees.jpg-none-needed-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"390\" \/>Auman\u2019s fictionalized account of the case\u2014in which arrests were made and charges brought 18 years after the murder\u2014includes biker gangs, organized crime and colorful characters like the draft-dodging son of a snake-handling minister.<\/p>\n<p>Auman practices law in Asheville and lives on the French Broad River in Madison County where he and his wife moved in 1989. His first published work was a historical guidebook titled Pioneer Paddling Colonial Carolina. \u201cWriting this book,\u201d he says of the novel, \u201cwas fun in the sense that I was free to be creative, although living the life behind the book was quite stressful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If Trees Could Testify\u2026<em>, June, 2021, novel, hardcover $16.95, e-book $8.95, by William D. Auman, and published by BookLocker Publishing, Inc., St. Petersburg, FL. Find the book at regional retail outlets including Penland &amp; Sons Department Store in Marshall, Malaprop\u2019s Bookstore\/Caf\u00e9 in Asheville and the Mars Hill University bookstore in Mars Hill. To learn more, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/IfTreesCouldTestify.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">IfTreesCouldTestify.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As an attorney, William Auman has handled around 70 murder cases, but he calls the Madison County double homicide that occurred in 1983 \u201cperhaps the most haunting\u201d of them. Decades after an elderly brother and sister in the Big Laurel community were murdered, the case has inspired Auman\u2019s debut novel, &#8220;If Trees Could Testify\u2026.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":46271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-literature"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Book Feature: If Trees Could Testify\u2026 - The Laurel of Asheville<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As an attorney, William Auman has handled around 70 murder cases, but he calls the Madison County double homicide that occurred in 1983 \u201cperhaps the most haunting\u201d of them. Decades after an elderly brother and sister in the Big Laurel community were murdered, the case has inspired Auman\u2019s debut novel, &quot;If Trees Could Testify\u2026.&quot;\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/arts\/book-feature-if-trees-could-testify\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Book Feature: If Trees Could Testify\u2026 - The Laurel of Asheville\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As an attorney, William Auman has handled around 70 murder cases, but he calls the Madison County double homicide that occurred in 1983 \u201cperhaps the most haunting\u201d of them. 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