In the books of Wade Rouse, Michigan is always a character.

The bestselling author writes memoir under his own name and fiction under the pen name Viola Shipman, which he chose to honor his grandmother. Rouse spent years living in Saugatuck and has so far set books in Glen Arbor, Omena, and Traverse City, to name a few. His enduring love for Michigan small towns also permeates his latest novel, called Famous in a Small Town, which officially published yesterday (June 13).

Even in the context of Rouse’s Michigan-centric storytelling tradition, Famous in a Small Town should hit close to home for northern Michigan residents. The book, Rouse says, is based in large part on Leelanau County’s own Cherry Republic – and on Mary Sutherland, the mother of Cherry Republic founder Bob Sutherland.

The first seeds for Famous in a Small Town were planted several years ago, when Rouse found himself wandering Glen Arbor and killing time before an evening book tour event.

“It was a really beautiful summer day, and everybody around me was on vacation enjoying themselves, and I’d been so busy for the last few years that I felt like I’d lost that,” Rouse tells the Leelanau Ticker. “I decided to sit down and have a glass of wine. And then before the book tour events, I wandered over to Cherry Republic. So, there I was, cramming chocolate down my throat, and I then I saw the ‘Olympic size’ cherry pit spitting arena out back. I went outside, and I did the cherry pit spit, and I suddenly got hit by all these funny memories of growing up.”

Rouse was transported back to his summer vacation getaway: “an old log cabin on a creek” in the Ozarks where he spent childhood summers with his grandparents. While there, Rouse would often find himself drawn into competitions with his grandma and grandpa to see who could spit a watermelon seed the farthest.

Talking to Cherry Republic employees after trying his luck at the cherry pit spit, Rouse was told that the arena’s all-time pit spitting distance record had stood for years and years – and still belonged to none other than the proprietor’s mother, Mary Sutherland.

“Soon, all of these ideas came together, and I started thinking of [Mary] and of my grandmother, and about the expectations that society has put on women over time,” Rouse says. “I thought of what it would be like if a woman actually did something like that in a time when she wasn't supposed to do it. And I quickly ended up with this character, based on Bob’s mother and my own grandmother, called Cherry Mary, who illegally enters a Michigan cherry pit spitting contest and wins it at the age of 15.”

Famous in a Small Town follows the life story of that Cherry Mary, a risk-taking, hardworking, trailblazing woman who ends up running a business called the Very Cherry General Store. In the book, the shop is located in the small Emmet County town of Good Hart, not far from the Tunnel of Trees (which also features prominently in the tale). But locals will immediately clock the shop as a stand-in for Cherry Republic, and Rouse is hopeful that northern Michiganders will also recognize shades of Mary Sutherland in the lead character.

Leelanau’s own Cherry Mary died on January 28 of this year, just a few days shy of what would have been her 93rd birthday. Mary Sutherland’s obituary describes her as “lionhearted” and recounts numerous stories of her decades-ahead-of-its-time feminism, her role as head-of-household after her husband passed away, her advocacy for victims of domestic abuse, and her contributions to Cherry Republic when the business first got its start in 1989. 

After reading an early draft of the Famous in a Small Town manuscript, Bob Sutherland penned a letter that will appear in the back of the book. Sutherland praises his mom as someone who “exuded the success and confidence of a champion in every domestic move she made.”

“I lost this great lady in January 2023, but I feel her legacy lives in these pages,” Sutherland’s letter reads. “Because these pages are about family and the values and shared experience that ties us all together. This book is about the value of the super matriarch – that outstanding woman who is so strong that they not only knit a family together, but a community as well.”

For Rouse, who channeled a fair bit of his own grandmother into the Cherry Mary, it’s those types of strong women that inspire him to write under his grandma’s name – and to continue working as one of the few active male authors in the “women’s fiction” space.

“I was raised by women growing up,” Rouse explains. “My entire childhood was spent with my grandmothers, and my mom, and my great aunts. I was in the kitchen with them as they baked. I was in their sewing rooms, where they taught me how to sew. I went to the beauty parlor with them every Saturday to watch them get their hair done. I went to Sunday School with them every single weekend. I was raised by them and with them, and they were incredibly fierce, strong women that didn't have many options in this world. And yet, they protected me so fiercely, and loved me so unconditionally, and knew exactly what was most important in this world.”

Being so close to that world of women, Rouse says he got to be privy to the stories his female relatives usually “didn’t talk about in front of the men folk” – stories about “how they got to be the people they were, or the hardships they'd faced.” Hearing about those experiences, he thinks, shaped his worldview, and are the reason he writes the kinds of books he does. “When I write these characters, I take it very seriously, because I’m hearing the voices of my family come to me,” he says.

Rouse’s book tour will bring him to northern Michigan next week, with events planned for McLean & Eakin Booksellers in Petoskey, a wine reception and lakeside dinner hosted by the Elk Rapids Women’s Club, Horizon Books in Traverse City, and Bay Books in Suttons Bay. But the centerpiece of the visit might be a 4pm event planned for Friday, June 23 at Cherry Republic in Glen Arbor, where Rouse will sit down for a conversation with Bob Sutherland. More information about upcoming events can be found on the official Viola Shipman website.