The Greenbrier becomes ‘epitome of elegance' in novel
This marks first time a novelwas set completely at resort

Therese Smith
Daily Mail Staff

Monday September 13, 2004

Writer Brewster Milton Robertson has seized the day -- and the plush ambiance of The Greenbrier -- in his third novel.

"A Posturing of Fools" is almost entirely staged at the West Virginia resort during a fictitious state medical association research congress.

"For me, in all the world there is no place like The Greenbrier," the insatiable protagonist H. Logan Baird laments.

A pharmaceutical salesman from Roanoke, he is driving his bumbling, cavalier boss, Rush Donald, past white brick columns and through a leafy tunnel before sighting the "majestic Greek temple."

"There is an absence of tiresome ostentation, no gauche posturing of wealth," Baird thinks to himself. "The place is entirely devoid of phoniness or pretension; the over-powering essence of old money hangs in the air like the smell of old leather."

And, thus, Robertson begins ushering his readers through 406 pages of steamy sex, golf strategy on the Old White, capricious relationships and alcohol in many forms.

Indeed, the Roanoke native writes as though he knows the resort as well as any of its neatly uniformed guards.

And he does draw from personal experience.

"Over the years, I have visited The Greenbrier many, many times," said Robertson, who read from his book during the West Virginia State Medical Association's annual summit there in late August.

"For a period of time I had the pleasure of lunching with Sam Snead's wife when she would visit a mutual friend in Roanoke. I actually met Sam on several occasions and was witness to certain events such as the day that Sam, Ben Hogan and Peter Thomson all shot 66 on the Old White."

Robertson said he first saw the resort as an "epitome of elegance" when he was an adolescent. So when he decided to write a novel examining the true meaning of class, The Greenbrier seemed the perfect setting.

Ironically, Robertson also visited White Sulphur Springs for two state medical association conferences in the late 1950s as a drug salesman.

"The novel is inspired by actual characters and incidents that occurred during my trips," he said. "I merely moved the setting forward to time present."

And he weaves autobiographical elements, observed reality and composites of real people into the text.

For instance, the hard-drinking Baird talks about the Greenbrier Clinic, the railway station, the Draper Cafe and Top Notch, a swanky guesthouse on the grounds.

The character is struggling in a marriage to an "unsmiling common house frau," the memory of a Bosnian War buddy who leaves Baird a fortune to start a literary foundation and Baird's nearly defunct dream of writing the perfect book.
John Paul Silver, unlike Baird, had written his magnum opus, called "Carpe Diem." The theme circulates through Baird's subconscious throughout the book.

While other novelists -- such as Mary Lee Settle, Tom Clancy and Richard Adams -- have obliquely referred to The Greenbrier, this is the first in 75 years completely set at the resort, said Greenbrier historian Robert Conte.

And "Too Many Cooks," a 1930s book written by Rex Stout as part of his gourmet sleuth Nero Wolfe series, named the resort the Kanawha Spa, Conte said.

Robertson said he hopes The Greenbrier staff appreciates his deep regard for the resort.

Conte, for one, said he is pleased, though he hasn't yet read "A Posturing of Fools."

Published by River City of Montgomery, Ala., this is Robertson's third novel, after "Rainy Days and Sundays" and "The Grail Mystique." His love of the written word was born in the stacks of the Roanoke County Library, which his Aunt Blanche Brewster Pedneau founded.