The Story Behind Lone Star Cafe

One thing people always ask me about writing books is where the inspirations for the stories come from-how much of what I write is inspired by real life. It was a real event that inspired LONE STAR CAFÉ. A few years ago, my husband and I looked at a piece of land that had an old, abandoned crossroads store on the far corner. When we started asking around the community, we realized that, while the store looked like a decaying relic to us, area residents considered it a valued landmark.

Like so many old roadside stores now slowly surrendering to the weather and the weeds on the back roads of Texas, the Crossroads Grocery was once a gathering place for people who lived nearby on farms. Customers stopped in to buy milk and bread, to get a flat tire plugged or pick up a plate of barbeque. Kids from the nearby rural school rode their bikes to the store to buy penny candy or a soda pop before going to the swimming hole. Old men sat under the portico by the gas pumps and drank coffee and told stories. When people in the community looked at the old store, they didn't see a decaying building, they saw everything the store used to be. They saw a reminder of a bygone time that was better in a lot of ways-when the people in the local businesses knew your name and cared enough to ask about your day.

One day after a particularly harried trip to my local super-mega-store, I started thinking that a lot of today's stressed super-commuters might be better off if, instead of zipping off to the nearest super-mega-center, they could, instead, drift into an old crossroads store for some from-scratch cooking and down-home conversation. That thought grew into the story of the old Lone Star Café, in which Virginia-based magazine editor, Laura Draper finds herself at a crossroads in her life and in her morning commute. Just when her career should be taking off, she's catapulted off the fast track and into the slow lane, but oddly enough, she finds that she likes it there.