YORKTOWN− Greg Dorchak, who graduated from Tabb High School in the eighties, decided to take a trip down memory lane recalling his time in high school for his eighth book.
“They Ain’t Gonna Get Any Deader” is described as a collection of humorous personal essays drawn from the author’s high school and college years. The book is also his second collection of essays, the first focusing on his childhood.
“When you start writing, at least when I do, ‘memoiresque’ essays you get on a path and it just kind of takes on a life of its own,” Dorchak explained. “You start writing one story and then you’re like oh yeah I remember that other thing I was over there with Allen, so then you end up focusing more because the memories start flooding in.”
“Between my junior and senior year, I worked at Busch Gardens. It was just a great summer and everything told and the feeling you have when you’re on your own and for me it was my first job, my first paid job. That was one of the best times I had,” Dorchak recalled.
Dorchak was born in Portsmouth and returned to the Tidewater Region with his mother in 1979 after his parents divorced. For the next three years, he attended Tabb High School, where he wrestled on the varsity team and was crowned Class Clown. It was in high school that he started on a path that led him into the world of humor. Heading west after graduation, he stopped in Las Vegas, where he says his college years greatly influenced the rest of his life and career.
Dorchak hopes the story will make readers laugh and feel a sense of nostalgia for the time.
“I hope folks will go into [the book] with the mindset of just seeing what things were like, now 40-something years earlier and maybe say, ‘oh man I did the same thing,’ or, ‘oh so it wasn’t just me everyone pretty much had that kind of experience.’ Or, ‘I remembered I screwed up my first date or when I messed up and got fired from a job,'” Dorchak said. “(I hope readers) will just see something of themselves in the stories that I’m telling and maybe take it a little easy on themselves for some of the stuff they did in the past.”
Plans are for a release in late 2024 with a possible soft launch at the Texas Book Festival in November. The book will be available both at brick-and-mortar retailers and online on release.
