Photo: Chris Emeott
Debut novel explores an exciting discovery and the tumult that follows.
Timothy Duff remembers it well.
“November 2010, a couple days before Thanksgiving,” says Duff. “I had this vivid dream, and when I woke up, I wrote down as much as I could remember.”
That dream was so clear, that Duff, whose pen name is T.D. Duff, spent the day pondering character development and scripting. The result is his debut novel, The Find.
The story follows a character named David Chisholm, the manager at Oliver Mining operations, who stumbles upon a precious metal discovery. The year is 1934, and the deposit is located in a remote, unknown section of Oliver Mines. Chisholm goes on to convince U.S. Steel to sell the parcel for $10,000. The deal, however, comes with the stipulation that operations on the purchased area can’t begin for 50 years. Chisolm shares his secret with his youngest daughter, Mary. He tells no one else.
Needless to say, lots can happen in 50 years. Some of it good, and some of it evil-to-the-core bad. “The ploy in this is that they discovered it, but it was taken away,” Duff says.
Is that how it ends? “I’m not going to give it away,” says the author.
The Ties That Bind
The love of the Iron Range and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area are in Duff’s blood. “My mother was born and raised in Ely,” he says. “I can remember my uncle talking about a discovery. It was either gold or nickel. Claims like that were actually quite common and were often made after a few cocktails at a bar someplace.”
“I’ve seen the horrors, and I’ve seen the ugliness of money making,” says Duff, who spent part of his career on Wall Street.
On how this relates to The Find, Duff writes in his book, “The meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights.”
Quick Start
The book was published by Olympia Publishers in April. Fifteen thousand copies were sold over the first six weeks. “They’ve all been four and five-star reviews,” Duff says.
As for his favorite review, Duff’s agent gave him a phone number to call, yet he wouldn’t say who would answer. “I called the number, and the guy who answered said his brother wanted him to call,” he says. “His last name was Zimmerman.”
Zimmerman as in David Zimmerman, Bob Dylan’s younger brother. He lives at Dylan’s property along the river in Hanover. “Bob Dylan is from the Iron Range,” he says. “He not only liked the book, but really liked the ‘irony of iron ore’ line.”
Next Chapter
The Find found Duff while he was in the middle of writing another novel, called The Surf. “It’s a 70-year chronology that coincides with the famous Surf Ballroom located in Clear Lake, Iowa,” he says. “Chapter headers are lines from Don McLean’s [American Pie].”
Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and JP “The Big Bopper” Richardson gave their last performances at the Surf before dying in a plane crash. “The book is kind of a history for baby boomers,” Duff says.
Duff spent his formative years in Mason City, Iowa. His family moved to Edina and lived on Lake Cornelia. After graduating from Edina High School, Duff moved to Boston before moving back to Minnesota. Today, Duff calls Tonka Bay his home.
