The world of Nick Sibelius, the protagonist in TOXIC RELATIONSHIP and the upcoming DIRTY WATER (look for it June 2013) is Central Texas. He lives in an Airstream trailer on a piece of land east of Pflugerville, a bedroom community northeast of Austin. I first moved to Austin in 1968. Back then, Pflugerville was a little town outside of Austin I recall visiting for BBQ. The town, named after German immigrant Henry Pfluger in 1860, consisted of a post office and a general store. The Pflugers farmed and raised cattle on the edge of the Blackland Prairie. When the railroad arrived in 1904 the town expanded quickly. Soon cotton farmers, taking advantage of the fertile soil of the prairie, brought loads of cotton to town to be processed in the new cotton gin. I actually lived in Pflugerville from 1991 to 2009. In that time the population exploded from just over 4000 to over 50,000.
So while Nick may still live in a place with the remnants of small town life, the community feels the pressures of urbanization from development to crime. I have to admit the town doesn’t have quite as much murder and mayhem as Nick encounters, but it’s certainly ripe for the possibility. Fortunately with fiction, I make my own reality. Unfortunately for Nick, he has to live in it.
