“Dreams are Forever” shares adventures in southern Illinois

William Hayes grew up in small-town Illinois and worked his way to Houston, where he worked in partnership with NASA to help put a man on the moon.

His love for small towns never left him though, as evidenced in his new novel, in which he revisits the town he grew up in.

Hayes, of Friendswood, Tex., is returning to Carbondale on May 9 for a book signing at Barnes and Noble. His novel, “Dreams are Forever,” is a historical fiction set in his hometown of Shawneetown, about 60 miles east of Carbondale.

He said the book is set in 1956, the year he graduated from high school, and centers around a high school senior who is unraveling a mystery about a mansion at the edge of town.

It is the first novel for Hayes, who graduated from SIU with a double major in physics and mathematics. After getting his masters in physics at Northwestern University in Chicago, he said he was assigned to work with NASA on discovering a way to perform a rendezvous in space.

When Hayes attended SIU, he said he lived in the corner room on the third floor of Anthony Hall and remembers going to a gathering in Delyte Morris’s backyard.

He said Morris, then president of SIU, invited the entire freshman class to his home for watermelon and a chance to meet one another. Morris shook hands with everybody present, a group that numbered around 4,000 students, Hayes said.

“There was a lot of watermelon and a lot of handshaking,” he said.

The closeness and familiarity of previous decades is shown in his book as things are much more personal in small towns, he said.

Hayes said the novel could be difficult to write if he was not in the correct frame of mind and that it required a different kind of thinking from what was required at NASA.

“In the space program, you tend to be very rational and very logical,” he said. “The novel isn’t about that. It’s about emotion.”

Hayes said it took him a year and a half to write “Dreams are Forever,” and he was inspired to write it because of his own experience growing up in Shawneetown. The town is the oldest town in the state, and he said he has always been fascinated with its rich history.

One of his memories of the town includes the fear the town had every winter that the levee would break and the nearby Ohio River would flood. Hayes said many events of his boyhood appear in the novel.

“I just wanted to share the experience of being raised there, and some of the adventures I had,” he said.

Hayes said “Dreams are Forever” was selected by Morris Library for its special collection, which includes some books written by alumni but specializes in works written by faculty of SIU.

“Southern Illinois history is an area we’re trying to strengthen right now,” said Leah Broaddus, a university archivist.

Hayes will be signing copies of his book from 1 to 3 p.m. on May 9 at Barnes and Noble bookstore.

Cindy Marks, assistant manager at Barnes and Noble, said Carbondale has many local authors, and the bookstore enjoys booking them for signings. She said customers take particular interest if a book is about local history.

“People don’t realize how many local authors we have,” she said.