The Goatman is the debut novel of Georgia native and retired general/thoracic surgeon, Dr. Wallace Martin. Influenced by literary greats like Harper Lee, Mark Twain, and Flannery O’Connor, the seeds for The Goatman were planted in the author’s mind when he was a child and witnessed the mysterious Goat Man, an itinerant from Iowa often seen wandering in Georgia with a wooden cart heaped high with pots and pans and pulled by goats. Tales of the disheveled, bearded man’s arrival often frightened young children, but seven-year-old Wallace was intrigued. As he put it, “I had never seen anything like him and began creating my own story for him as he remained a progressively distant memory. A mystery.”For this story, the author wove fiction with fact, integrating colorful characters from his childhood, including his father, a general surgeon who practiced in Lawrenceville, GA for almost forty years. “Boredom was the greatest challenge of childhood in the 1960's. Mysteries were everywhere. Like my other seven siblings, I had observed my father, Dan Martin MD, ‘Doc’, performing surgeries since I was around four years old, and the concentration and intensity of focus drew me in. In the small North Georgia community, all Doc’s children were different from other children (or at least felt they were). Not in an elitist sense and not all good, but there were expectations to the point I felt I was being watched through the classroom speakers. I wanted to explore that mental aspect in a fictionalized reality. What drove that sense of being watched? The Goatman became the hidden watcher. Was it imagined or perceptively real? And are those the same? So I included those aspects that linked together – some humorous, some horrifying- facilitating that exploration.”Read more about this authorRead less about this author