RG alum takes ‘garbage’ route

Paul Neville, a former reporter and editor at The Register-Guard, has written a first novel, “The Garbage Brothers,” that is drawing early praise and was released March 27 by IFD Publications.

Neville retired from The Register-Guard in 2016 after a 37-year career that ended with a 15-year stint as a member of the newspaper’s award-winning editorial board. He also worked for many years as a reporter and editor in The RG’s newsroom.

After leaving The RG, Neville worked for three years as a department head for the St. Vincent de Paul Society of Lane County, where he oversaw development and funding of an innovative residential facility that houses homeless high school girls. After his “second retirement” in 2019, Neville focused on his long-time interest in writing fiction and last year completed “The Garbage Brothers,” a book he began while working at The Register-Guard.

“I grew up wanting to be a writer and am blessed to have spent most of my professional life writing for what was for many decades one of the finest newspapers on the West Coast,” Neville said. “Retirement gave me the opportunity to apply those skills and experiences in a very different and challenging way — writing novels.”

Set in Chicago’s suburbs in the summer of 1969, “The Garbage Brothers” is a poignant and comical novel that tells the story of 18-year-old Jesse Wheeler, whose comfortable existence crumbles after his father dies, leaving his naive son adrift and without prospects. Jesse finds a summer job collecting garbage for Willard Sanitation Service with a crew of felons — Pickles, Zeus, Grits and their foreman Billy Bart — in the flyspeck blue-collar town of Freedom.

Neville’s gritty coming-of-age story has drawn positive early reviews. “Neville has created a crazy, wonderful cast of characters in this funny, poignant and satisfying story — a story for the ages,” writes Elizabeth Engstrom, author of 18 novels, including “Lizzie Borden” and “When Darkness Loves Us.”

Bob Welch, a fellow RG newsroom alumnus who has authored more than two dozen books, calls Neville’s first novel “a delightful debut.”

“Garbage Brothers is rich, raw, funny, and gritty. Like the coffee at the Greasy Wrench Café, Neville constantly tops off the humor cup and imbues his coming-of-age story with just enough grace to give us hope that humankind’s ‘bottom-quartile’ can rise from anywhere, even the daily grind of garbage collecting,” Welch says.

A book signing and reading by the author will be hosted from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 15, at Tsunami Books, 2585 Willamette St., in Eugene. The book will soon be available at local bookstores and through Amazon. “The Garbage Brothers” will also be available through www.paulnevilleauthor.com.