So I had the setting, a small farming town in Missouri. And I had the basis for the cold case that Thomas would need to investigate. But I still needed IT. That big thing that brought it all together.
I had recently watched the movie Spotlight and I was enthralled by the slow burn of bringing down this corrupt institution of the archdiocese. I wanted to write something similar. At first, I planned on just having the “grocery-store murders” tied to small-town corruption. But this seemed boring. Overdone.
(Though, while searching “small town corruption” on the internet, I did stumble across an article about Rita Crundwell who, as appointed comptroller of the town of Dixon, Illinois, embezzled $53 million from the town budget to help finance her quarter horse breeding program. She would become the basis for Victoria Page.)
For a couple days, I kept waiting for that “magic” moment that happens when you are coming up with a great book idea. For Gray Matter, it was when I read about all the anti-wolf legislation that was out there. For The Afrikaans, it was the AIDS epidemic still plaguing the small villages of South Africa.
Then it happened.
And it was so obvious.
It needed to have something to do with farming!
From there, the logical next step was GMOs.
And when you think GMOs, the first word that comes to mind is…Monsanto.
And here is where the magic comes in. I had already figured out where the farm that Thomas inherits would be located. From Gray Matter, I’d established that it was somewhere in Missouri. And while sitting sick in my hotel room, I’d narrowed it down to an exact county. Audrain County, located in north-central Missouri.
On a whim, I searched, “Monsanto headquarters.”
And wouldn’t you know it?
Monsanto headquarters was located just on the outskirts of St. Louis, about a hundred miles from where I’d decided my fictitious town would be.
Even on my deathbed, I remember letting out a little “whoop, whoop!”
A few days later, I finally made it back to South Lake Tahoe. (I’d lost close to ten pounds.)
But there was one last thing: the book needed a title.
I’m not sure where I first saw it, but the moment I read that Missouri was the Show-Me state, I knew I had it. (I mean, the golden rule in writing is to show not tell.)
And Show Me was born.
Show Me is a work of fiction.
I took MANY MANY creative liberties in regards to small towns, farming, piglets, weight gain, weight loss, Missouri as a whole, embezzlement, horse breeding, hot air balloons, not to mention a hundred other things, as well as everything that has to do with Big Biotech.
But if I had just read this book, I would want to know what was actually true. So here we go. (Some of this stuff I’ve taken from Wikipedia.)
Tarrin
Tarrin is a fictitious farming town located in Audrain County, Missouri. Tarrin is loosely based on a number of different small towns all over Missouri as well as my experiences visiting small towns throughout my life. The county seat of Audrain is, in fact, named Mexico, which has a population of right around 16,000.
Lunhill
Lunhill is a fictitious corporation based on a number of different Big Biotech firms. Though the location of its headquarters and some of its history are based loosely on Monsanto, Lunhill is equally based on DuPont (US), Bayer Crop Science (Germany), Syngenta (Switzerland), Groupe Limagrain (France), and the Delta and Pine Land Company (US), among several others.
rBGH
Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH), also known as Bovine somatotropin, is a peptide hormone produced by cows' pituitary glands. Four large pharmaceutical companies, Monsanto, American Cyanamid, Eli Lilly, and Upjohn, developed commercial rBGH products and submitted them to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approval. Monsanto was the first firm to receive approval in 1993.
The FDA, World Health Organization, and National Institutes of Health have each independently stated that dairy products and meat from rBGH-treated cows are safe for human consumption.
In the United States, public opinion led some manufacturers and retailers to market only milk that is rBGH-free.
A European Union report on the animal welfare effects of rBGH states that its use often results in "severe and unnecessary pain, suffering and distress" for cows,” including “serious mastitis, foot disorders and some reproductive problems."
Glyphosate (Spectrum-H)
Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide. It is used to kill weeds, especially annual broadleaf weeds and grasses that compete with crops. It was discovered to be an herbicide by Monsanto chemist John E. Franz in 1970. Monsanto brought it to market in 1974 under the trade name Roundup.
Farmers quickly adopted glyphosate, especially after Monsanto introduced glyphosate-resistant Roundup Ready crops, enabling farmers to kill weeds without killing their crops. In 2007, glyphosate was the most used herbicide in the United States' agricultural sector and the second-most used in home and garden, government and industry, and commerce.
An increasing number of crops have been genetically engineered to be tolerant of glyphosate (e.g. Roundup Ready soybean, the first Roundup Ready crop, also created by Monsanto) which allows farmers to use glyphosate as an herbicide against weeds. The development of glyphosate resistance in weed species is emerging as a costly problem. While glyphosate and formulations such as Roundup have been approved by regulatory bodies worldwide, concerns about their effects on humans and the environment persist.
Many regulatory agencies and scholarly reviews have evaluated the relative toxicity of glyphosate as an herbicide. The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment toxicology review in 2013 found that "the available data is contradictory and far from being convincing" with regard to correlations between exposure to glyphosate formulations and risk of various cancers, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
In March 2015, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic in humans" based on epidemiological studies, animal studies, and in-vitro studies.
In November 2015, the European Food Safety Authority published an updated assessment report on glyphosate, concluding that "the
