Braintree Author To Sign Copies of His New Crime Novel in Hingham

Tom MacDonald has been an athlete, a bartender, has studied sociology, worked as a computer analyst and is now the director of social ministries for a parish in Charlestown.

But possibly MacDonald's most prized moniker these days is what has led him around the Boston area, stopping at bookstores, speaking on the radio and making appearances at public libraries.

MacDonald, a Braintree native, recently published his first book, a crime novel called The Charlestown Connection, which he will be signing at the in Hingham tonight starting at 6 p.m. 

The book, released on Aug. 1 by Florida-based independent Oceanview Publishing, features a former Boston College football player, half-Irish, half-Native American, who uncovers an art forgery ring while investigating the stabbing death of his godfather in a housing project in Charlestown.

A review in the 133-year-old Library Journal called it an "ambitious debut," going on to say that "Brisk pacing and plenty of bad guys keep the pages turning in MacDonald’s art heist tale. The jump into art forgery is a big leap, but Mac­Donald keeps all his plays moving in a winning style. He introduces intriguing, flawed characters and atypical neighborhoods, making for a highly entertaining read."

While MacDonald said in a recent interview that he is proud of his debut, he also stressed that this is just the beginning. "I still have to grow as a writer and get better and refine the craft," he said.

Over the past decade, MacDonald has developed those chops through a series of workshops and a Master of Fine Arts program. Back around 2000, he decided to go back to school and earn his MBA from Boston College. While there, MacDonald would take business concepts and turn them into short stories as a way of teaching himself. A professor urged him to focus on writing.

So MacDonald joined workshops at Grub Street, an esteemed nonprofit writing center in Boston, and also took an advanced fiction class through Harvard University's extension program.

"I realized just how hard it is to write," MacDonald said. "Over the course of time, your skin thickens up a little and you try not to take [criticism] personally."

During that time he also got a job at St. Mary's Parish in Charlestown near the Bunker Hill Housing Project, directing social programs and running the food pantry. The gig would soon become a fruitful source of ideas for his fiction.

Next stop on MacDonald's writing journey, where he focused on pacing, story arc and crafting concisely, was the University of Southern Maine. There he earned an MFA in creative writing, attending for five, 10-day semesters over two and a half years.

"I developed the ability to take what I needed and get rid of the rest," MacDonald said.

That also included other writers' styles – "One of my professors said, 'You've got to kill off Raymond Chandler'" – and bits of environmental inspiration. At the parish, MacDonald said he would take along a notebook every day, jotting down ideas, words and phrases he heard, helping to craft a more realistic story.

"You start to develop an ear for language that is unique to the projects," he said. "There's this whole interaction. It's really a great spot for a writer to work because of the extremes [of class in Charlestown]."

A first pitch to Oceanview drew a helpful letter of response, but no contract. But after submitting a second draft, with more focus on plot and less on some of the character background that he said slowed down the first, MacDonald succeeded.

He said he thinks it helps that Boston is capturing people's imagination for crime stories, with movies out recently like Gone Baby Gone and The Town, along with the capture of Whitey Bulger. Plus, he said, it doesn't hurt that The Charlestown Connection is a real whodunit.

"So far no one has figured out the puzzle until it's over," MacDonald said. "That makes me feel good."

MacDonald will be in Hingham tonight from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. to meet and greet readers at the Barnes & Noble at the Derby Street Shoppes.