By Morgan Burkett
The Greenville Advocate

Ernest Hemingway said “good writing is true writing.”

Clifton K. Meador shares that philosophy.

That’s why all the stories in his new book “Sketches of a Small Town … Circa 1940” are absolutely true.

“Every story in the book is true,” said Meador.

Meador’s book is a collection of stories from his time growing up in Greenville during the 1930s and 1940s.

Meador, who said he is proud to call Greenville his hometown, was full of life and comical people.

“I’ve always kept the stories in my head, and realized in the 1990s that this would make a great story to write,” said Meador.

Harold Chambliss, a freelance writer and humorist, gave the book a glowing review.

“What we have here is a poignant, very funny, yet respectful look back at small-town life and characters in the Deep South in the 1930s and 1940s, pre-prosperity, before it was a recognized condition. Meador is a Mark Twain without the river and a Garrison Keillor without the snow … and Baptists instead of Lutherans. I loved this book,” Chambliss said.

Meador, who moved from Greenville when he was 14 years old, went on to graduate from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. After graduating from there in 1955, Meador served in the US Army Medical Corps for two years. After completing his medical training, he returned to his birthplace of Selma, Alabama, to practice medicine. Meador has served the director of the National Institutes of Health Clinical Research Center at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, dean of the university’s school of medicine, a professor of medicine at Vanderbilt and a chief medical officer of Saint Thomas Hospital. Meador retired in 2012 and is now a full time writer.

With “Sketches of a Small Town … Circa 1940,” Meador has now written 14 books, including his best-selling “Fascinomas: Fascinating Medical Mysteries and True Medical Detective Stories.”

Meador will attend a book signing at Greenville’s High Horse Gallery Oct. 16.

“Sketches of a Small Town … Circa 1940,” is available for purchase on Amazon.com for $10-$12.