Writing Franklin: A Walking Tour of the Novel

Most of the places Michael Sawyer ends up in are real, and you can walk to nearly all of them in an afternoon. Landmark Booksellers is real. Merridee’s Breadbasket is real. Gray’s on Main is real. Timberland Park, the Williamson County Animal Center, and Leiper’s Fork are real. The Author’s Note says it plainly: this is a work of fiction, but Franklin, Tennessee, is real—and so are many of the places Michael finds there.

This is the walking tour. Addresses, hours, and what each place is doing in the book.

One rule before we start

I am not going to tell you what happens in any of them.

Jetson’s Journey comes out September 15, and I would rather you meet the turns in the book than in a blog post. So every entry below tells you what the place is and why it earned its way into the novel, then stops. A few stop rather abruptly. That is deliberate, and it is the same treatment for all of them, so please do not read anything into which ones go quiet.

Comments here are moderated for the same reason. If you have already finished the book—thank you, and please keep the good parts to yourself on this page.

Landmark Booksellers · 114 East Main Street

Two stories of Greek Revival wedged between a gift shop and an antique store, a columned façade rising past the awning, the columns cut from solid poplar trunks. The sign above the door is elegantly scripted. The window display mixes popular titles with obscure finds, and there is a second sign taped to the glass, letters simple and cheerful: Dogs Welcome. The bell over the door gives a pleasant chime. Inside it is cool against a Tennessee July and smells faintly of paper and cinnamon, as though pages and scones have mingled too long and cannot quite separate anymore. Southern history along one wall. Local and regional authors along another. The rare and out-of-print tucked deeper in.

It is in the novel with the gracious permission of Joel and Carol Tomlin, and it is where Michael goes to a writing seminar he does not want to attend. Open every day, nine to seven, closed only Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Downtown parking is not free, but the store credits five dollars back against a purchase, which is the single most Franklin detail in this entire post. It is also where I will be on the evening of Tuesday, September 22.

Main Street

Part postcard, part surprise. An eclectic mix of historic brick buildings and polished boutiques, every storefront telling its own story, the sun laying a golden hue over brick sidewalks and wrought-iron railings. Victorians stand shoulder to shoulder with sleek glass displays selling clothing and candles, leather goods and vinyl records. A town that respects its past while staying curious about what is next.

Michael knows these blocks by heart long before he ever goes into the bookstore—which crosswalk is quicker, which one is better for watching people, where the brick road tilts just enough to catch rain in a shallow groove, when the church bells will surprise him even if he thinks he is listening. On a July morning the sun comes over Main Street like someone tipped a bucket of light.

Merridee’s Breadbasket · 110 4th Avenue South

A bakery and a Franklin institution, a block and a half off Main. Closed Sundays. Named in the Author’s Note as one of the places that make this town what it is.

There is a scene at Merridee’s. A paper bag with the logo on it does a specific job in it. That is all you get.

Gray’s on Main · 332 Main Street

An old pharmacy made over into a restaurant, with live music on the floor above. Opens at eleven, closed Mondays. It appears in the novel with the gracious permission of Joni and Mike Cole, who opened it in 2013 and held it through the years this book was written; Johnny Weber took the keys from them as the manuscript went to press and is carrying the place forward.

There is a scene at Gray’s too, and it matters. Same answer.

And on the night of September 22, once the reading at Landmark wraps, this is where we’re headed—8:00, everyone welcome.

Williamson County Animal Center · 1006 Grigsby Hayes Court

The county shelter, about twelve minutes from downtown. Michael signs the volunteer form roughly a year before we catch up with him, stands in a hallway that smells like bleach and damp fur, says he can come mornings, and gets a schedule and a clipboard: laundry, walks, litter boxes. He talks to the animals without planning to. The work is simple and necessary, which is exactly what he needs.

If you are local and this post makes you want to do something more useful than pre-order a novel, the Animal Center takes volunteers, and the laundry genuinely never ends.

Timberland Park · Natchez Trace, mile marker 437.2

Twenty-five minutes out of town and the best half hour in the book’s geography. Cedar and damp leaves, the hills folding into each other to the horizon. There is an overlook where Tennessee rolls away in green waves, the valley below, farmhouse lights just visible in the distance, the horizon wide enough to make everything else feel small. Michael takes Jetson there and lets him run, and Jetson does the thing that still surprises him—flips his head and lobs the ball back.

Practical notes, because I have watched people get this wrong. Dogs are welcome on leash on the shorter trails; the longer loops cross private land and are not dog-friendly. And the gate closes at six. The gate closing at six is not a suggestion.

And Leiper’s Fork

Southwest of town, out past Timberland: a village of galleries, a general store, live music, and roads that photograph better than they have any right to. The Author’s Note names it as real, alongside the others. It is in the book twice. That is genuinely all I am going to say. Walk it in an afternoon: start at Landmark, work Main Street on foot, cut down to Merridee’s, come back up past Gray’s. Then drive—the Animal Center one way, Timberland the other, and Leiper’s Fork past that if the light is good.

The Author’s Note calls Franklin a small Tennessee place where people remember your face the second time you walk in the door. Test it. Walk into Landmark twice.

There is also a map. I built an interactive one that traces every mile Michael and Jetson drove, Peninsula to Franklin, stop by stop: the journey map. Franklin is the last stretch of it, and the part you can walk.

Two practical notes. Merridee’s and the Animal Center both close on Sundays, so a Sunday tour loses two stops; Gray’s closes Mondays. And if you only have two hours, do Landmark and Main Street on foot and skip the drive—the walkable half is where most of the book lives anyway.

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