David Baldacci

The pontoon headed at full speed toward the stranded sailor, who was struggling to keep the mast from sinking while attempting to pull the swamped Sunfish back to shore.
“The boat ran right over me, I was actually under it,” recalled the man several years later, still astounded at the events of that morning when abruptly switching winds overturned the small sailboat. “Then he backed up and I asked him to throw me a rope.”
    David Baldacci can laugh now when recalling the scene on Smith Mountain Lake — a scene that could have been lifted right out of one of his best-selling suspense novels. But unlike the protagonist in his thrillers, nobody was on a high-risk mission, nor was there any espionage involved.
    This was neighbor helping neighbor. The Good Samaritan had called out to the sailor in distress, but failed to realize that the man he was trying to help was the prolific author, part-time lake resident and sailing novice.
    It all ended well. And contrary to what typically happens in his riveting stories, nobody died. A clay-covered Baldacci righted the boat and got back to his dock, although he sheepishly confessed that the story of his capsize was one story he has shared sparingly.
    “I was told that everybody has turned over a Sunfish at some time, but it didn’t make me feel any better that day,” he recalled.

Lazy Lake Days
    For Baldacci, most days spent at his SML home aren’t anywhere near that exciting.
    He and wife Michelle travel from their home in northern Virginia to Azalea Point, their refuge on the Bedford side near Smith Mountain Dam, with their two teenage children “off and on all year and at Christmas,” he said. Their six-bedroom home has been remodeled to include a new kitchen (Baldacci is an enthusiastic cook), gym and library/media center with 16-foot rolling book shelves. That room is where the family gathers to watch TV and play games, including euchre, a trick-taking card game similar to bridge that is especially popular in the Midwest, from where Michelle hails.
    But, most of the time, the Baldaccis’ lake lives are centered around the dock.
    “We come down around 10 in the morning and stay until it’s time for cocktails,” said Baldacci. They often entertain friends there, including the author’s publisher, who has a home at Bernard’s Landing.
    The dock is stocked with fishing gear, although Baldacci leaves most of the angling to his father-in-law. The slips around the dock are stocked, too. A 28-foot formula bow rider, a 23-foot Monterey ski boat, two personal watercraft, a paddle boat, three kayaks and a rowing shell reside there.
Baldacci, 50, rates himself an 8 or 9 on a scale of 10 as a water-skier, but not so much when it comes to wakeboarding (a 4 or 5). He said son Collin, 15, is a proficient water-skier, too.
    “He’s the only person I know who got up on a slalom ski the first time,” said Baldacci.

Community Commitments
    The dock is where Baldacci has had to dodge the curious who come by boat to gawk or ask him to read a manuscript or to deliver a request for help with charitable events.
    Once, a man pulled up in front of his dock, and asked Baldacci over the boat’s PA system to join the board of a boating association.
    He declined.
    “That’s not my forte,” said Baldacci. “I prefer to help in other ways.”
    And he does. Baldacci, who practiced law for almost 10 years before turning to writing full time, is well known for his philanthropy. He and Michelle are avid supporters of literacy, which they fund and promote through their Wish You Well Foundation. Baldacci, a self-described “library rat” in his early years, has donated his time and name to fundraisers for, among others, local libraries and SML charitable groups.
    “Millions of kids are doomed because they can’t read,” he said. “You can’t read, then you can’t think. They go hand-in-hand, so kids who can’t articulate end up arguing with their fists or guns instead of arguing with words.”
    Also drawing the author’s support are Smith Mountain Lake businesses. He and his family patronize them whenever they can, he said.
    The Baldaccis enjoy eating at local restaurants; The Landing and Blackwater Cafe are favorites.
    “We go down to Bridgewater [Plaza] to the arcade, or Pizza Pub and to the movies,” he said. “We get our hardware at Capps and our coffee at Bluebird Cafe [now closed]. We’re just like everybody else,” said Baldacci.
    That would be if everybody else went boating in Maine with former president George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara, whom Baldacci met through his literacy campaign, or called Clint Eastwood a personal friend.
    The author and the actor became friendly during the filming of “Absolute Power,” one of the 22 novels Baldacci has written. It was made into a move in 1997.
    “Clint and I got to be pretty good friends,” he recalled. “In the book, the main character dies. But Clint Eastwood told me he couldn’t die and had never died in a movie, so I had to come up with a way to keep his character alive.”
    Baldacci was a substantial investor, on board from the start, in “Lake Effects.” The movie, set and filmed at SML and produced by lake resident Sara Elizabeth Timmins, is expected to be released later this year. Baldacci said he would not be surprised to see more movies filmed in Virginia, in part because it’s a right-to-work state.
    “I think there’s a future in local, independent films,” he said. “Not everything has to come out of California.”
    Baldacci said one thing that makes Smith Mountain Lake appealing as a movie location is its chameleon-like characteristics.
    “It’s beautiful country and can duplicate so many other areas,” he said.
    Does the author see another of his books made into a movie, and perhaps, filmed at the lake in collaboration with Timmins in his future?
    “That’s something we’ll talk about,” he said.

Future Plans
    For now, Baldacci is busy finishing up book No. 23, “Zero Day”; promoting literacy; conducting exhaustive research for his books; and traveling around the country and abroad for speaking engagements. With his schedule, it’s understandable why he needs to retreat to the lake for R & R. What’s not clear is how he has the time to do it.
    When Baldacci does decide to leave the rat race and slow down for good, he won’t settle down at the lake, but in Charlottesville, he said. The University of Virginia law school grad loves the area and paling around with fellow lawyer/author John Grisham, whom he has yet to invite to SML.
    Baldacci will still come to the lake, however. And he’ll still write.
    “It’s such a part of me, it would be like asking me to stop breathing,” said Baldacci. “Why stop something that makes you so happy?”
    The same could be said of his time at SML.

Baldacci the Author

• David Baldacci’s latest book, “Hell’s Corner,” is the fifth in his Camel Club series. It was released in the fall. He’ll sign copies at The Little Gallery at Bridgewater Plaza on Sunday, June 26 from 1 to 3 p.m.

• Baldacci’s next book, “Zero Day,” will be released Nov. 1. Set in West Virginia, it will introduce a new character, John Puller, a Ranger-turned-criminal investigator for the U.S. Army. Baldacci recently returned from Georgia, where he spent time at Fort Benning and at a crime lab in Atlanta researching “Zero Day.”

• In October, Baldacci will appear with fellow authors John Grisham and Jodi Picoult on behalf of the Mark Twain House & Museum in New Haven, Conn. Baldacci currently is reading the first volume of Twain’s autobiography.

• Baldacci said he sees the appeal of e-readers, but prefers reading hardcovers.
“I like to thumb through them,” he said.

• In “Simple Genius,” released in 2007, Baldacci includes a transcript of the Beale Cipher. It was inspired by Bedford County’s Beale Treasure, which the author said he finds fascinating. “I tell anyone who asks not to try to find it because the response likely would be buckshot,” he said.