Adam Dread new Book

Easy with a quip, Adam Dread comes through the telephone with the speech patterns of a radio host, the ace-in-the-hole humor of a stand-up comic and the rhetorical mannerisms of a politician. A quick check of biography reveals that he is, or was, all of those, as well as being a licensed attorney, television producer, corporate spokesman, columnist and author.

The 42 year old Tennessean, who has been visiting Nantucket since his college days at Vanderbilt, has recently self-published “You’ve Obviously Spent Time on Nantucket If… ACK’T 2,” the markedly more sardonic sequel to the first volume brought out in 2000.

“The first book was comprised of neat thoughts about the island and my memories of it,” said Dread. “It was kind of warm and fuzzy with a little edge to it. The second is not warm and fuzzy. It’s more politically incorrect.”

For example? “You’ve obviously spent time on Nantucket if…you’ve gotten baked before going to the Nantucket Bake Shop.” (page 108)

Another? “You’ve obviously spent time on Nantucket if…you come back to the island to Retox.” (page 13)

Dread insists that volume two is for island insiders and even goes so far as to include a warning to that end on the back cover of the book. He recommends that first-time visitors steer away from his book – the insiderinformation content, he said, is not for them – but offers that the book is a must-have for the “Townie” and “island regular” alike.

“It’s not designed for someone who’s come on a short vacation,” he said. “That person might buy it and get some of it, but if you’re new or haven’t spent a lot of time here, you’re better off buying a tee shirt.”

However, for a professed insider writing for fellow in-the-know islanders, Dread makes a series of blatant errors, misspelling personal names like Sheriff “Bretschnieder” and Bill “Ferrell” in his acknowledgments and place names like “Downy Flake” and “Stop-N-Shop” in the body of the book — all of which are mistakes his intended audience would note, while the novelty-gift crowd would fail to detect.

Given Dread’s marketing strategy – he delivers books in person to a limited number of island outlets – Nantucket neophytes can conveniently drop the book and grab that tee shirt instead. As of Saturday, Dread had delivered a portion of the 2,000 copies to five merchants, with Brant Point Books the only strictly literary establishment. The book is available at Island Variety, the Hub, Four Winds Gift Shop and Triple 8 Vodka Distillery.

Dread, who grew up in Pittsburgh, Pa. and West Palm Beach, Fla., does not own property on the island. He visits Nantucket frequently, having been “grandfathered” into a number of houses on the island. When not on Nantucket, Dread keeps abreast of the island’s doings though a network of friends and acquaintances that he has stockpiled since his first venture to the island while in college.

“I talk with folks here several times a week,” he said. “I’m in pretty constant contact with the island.”

The disposable time Dread has to maintain ties to the island is not, however, to suggest that the writer is some loafing Southern dandy. Dread is a divorce attorney in Nashville and also has the power to marry couples – “I’m the only lawyer in Nashville with the guarantee that if your first marriage doesn’t work out, I’ll remarry you for free,” he jokes.

He is as well a councilman at-large for the city, “the Dougie Bennett of Nashville,” in his own words. Each of the 35 districts in Nashville has a single councilman, with five councilmen at-large elected city-wide. The term-limited position means that, as of 2007, Dread will have to look elsewhere for what he calls “community tithing” – essentially unpaid public service – with a run at the Governor’s Mansion in his future.

Now in his second term as councilman at-large, Dread passed the first law in the country that requires all taxicab drivers to speak English. The law included provisions such as outlawing smoking and personal cell phone use for drivers.

“When you think about it, it sounds harsh, but it’s really common sense,” he said.

That common sense approach is reflected in Dread’s latest venture. He said that at present he is working on a provision that would make the taking of a CPR course mandatory for all students receiving diplomas from Davidson County (Tenn.) public high schools. The requirement is part of Dread’s efforts to make Nashville the safest city in America.

Dread said that he has also considered running for the city’s School Board in order to institute “real discipline” in the classrooms. Pan-Nashville pushes for uniforms in public schools and the return of paddling, he said, would be among his foci. For uniforms – khaki pants, white or blue shirt, individual school tie – Dread cited the 100 percent literacy rate in Bermudian schools where such uniforms exist and the end of competitive spending on clothing among students and their families as major components of the drive.

Paddling, he said, can work as a deterrent without ever having to be used. His “paddles not pills” campaign would seek to buck the trend of medicating students who cannot behave in class.

“We’re calling everything ADD and giving kids pills,” he said. “The irony about paddling is that you don’t actually have to do it for it to work.”

Irony is something that Dread seems to deal in effortlessly. As he shifts topics from comedy to politics to reminiscences about bygone Nantucket, Dread perseveres in his radioman voice in frankness that vacillates between brusque and good humored. This measure of candid discussion makes it easy to understand why the citizens of Nashville have voted him the most loved and the most loved-to-hate politician in the city, a place he does not intend to leave no matter how great his affinity with Nantucket may be.

“People in Nashville say, ‘If you love Nantucket so much, why don’t you just move there?’ If I did that, I wouldn’t have Nantucket to escape to. It’s something for me to look forward to.”

With volume two five years in the making, Nantucketers – Townies, frequent guests and tee shirt-touting tyros – may have to wait just as long in looking forward to Dread’s ACK’T Three.

By Chris Edmonds, Independent Writer

From The Nantucket Independent