Bypassing shoppers at the front checkout, PW zigzags through a crowd of early Christmas browsers in the Borders bookstore across from Southpark Mall in Charlotte, N.C., before finally spotting novelist/screenwriter Robert Inman waving in happy recognition from a café table in the back.

Inman has every reason to be happy. Due out the first week in January, his fourth novel, Captain Saturday (Forecasts, Nov. 19), is Little, Brown's "Reps Recommend" choice to hand-sell to independent booksellers and the top Book Sense 76 fiction pick for January-February. Set in Raleigh, the bustling cornerstone of North Carolina's urbane Research Triangle techno-mecca, it marks an abrupt departure from the nostalgic small-town settings that have been Inman's bread and butter thus far, and if it does as well as predicted, it will be the writer's long-overdue breakout novel.

The book's protagonist, the eponymous Captain, is a celebrity TV weatherman turned lawn care entrepreneur, and it's easy to imagine Inman--himself a former TV newsman, today dressed in faded plaid shirt, work-worn jeans and well-traveled boat mocs worn without socks--as model for the role. Inman was born in 1943 in Elba, Ala., a small town south of Montgomery near the Florida Panhandle, and his earliest memories are of his mother reading from storybooks. He officially "got ink in his veins" working for the hometown newspaper while still in junior high. By the time he entered high school, young Bob was already reporting local news. He was hired as a reporter by WSFA-TV in Montgomery in 1965, after graduating from the University of Alabama with a B.S. in radio-television.

"In 1969, I left WSFA-TV to become press secretary to Alabama Governor Albert Brewer. After Brewer lost out to George Wallace in 1970, I went back into television with WBTV in Charlotte," Inman says, recalling his early odyssey.

About his metamorphosis from journalist to novelist, he says, "There was no sudden epiphany, just a sort of divine discontent in the early '70s that reactivated some long-dormant itch to be a storyteller. If there was a moment of awakening, it was reading Walker Percy's Love in the Ruins. Percy's comic vision and his way of diving into the soul of a character still leaves me awestruck."

As if by some cosmic ordination, in 1975 the University of Alabama called to offer Inman a PR post in Tuscaloosa.

"That offer was pure serendipity. I'd just started a novel called The Quarterback and UA had initiated an MFA in creative writing. It was a no-brainer. I grabbed the PR job and applied to the MFA program."

In 1979, Inman submitted The Quarterback as his graduate thesis. "My entire publishing history is pure soap." Inman laughs. "Barry Hannah offered to send The Quarterback to his agent, Lynn Nesbit at ICM. Nesbit passed it along to Esther Newberg who had just come on board. Editors kept saying, 'This guy can write,' but none were offering a contract. But Bill Phillips at Little, Brown seemed genuinely impressed and said he'd like to look at my next novel."

His MFA completed in 1979, Inman went back to WBTV. Although The Quarterback hadn't sold, he now felt confident he could write book-length fiction.

"I was hooked. I got right to work on Home Fires Burning. The novel actually grew out of a short story I had written for Barry Hannah in a fiction workshop at Alabama in 1975. But I've never been much interested in writing short stories. My stories need a lot more room than that."

Once it was completed in 1986, Newberg took Home Fires Burning straight to Phillips at Little, Brown, who bought it on the spot.

"When Bill bought the book, he told me, 'We're not just publishing a book, we're launching a career.' As it turned out, he was absolutely right. Little, Brown followed with Old Dogs and Children in 1991 and Dairy Queen Days in 1997. Bill's fantastic. I can't imagine working without him," Inman says. (Although now retired, Phillips continues to edit Inman's books.)

Both critically and commercially, Home Fires Burning was a success, and Hallmark Hall of Fame bought the film rights and hired Inman to write the script. The movie went on to win the 1989 Silver Medal at the Houston Film Festival. (It still runs periodically on the Hallmark Channel).

That experience launched Inman as a screenwriter. He has since written screenplays for five other major TV films. A Son's Promise (ABC-TV) starred Rick Schroeder in 1990. Cries from the Heart (CBS-TV, 1994) starred Patty Duke and Melissa Gilbert. My Son Is Innocent (ABC-TV, 1996) was based on the true story of a falsely convicted Florida youth. In 1997, The Summer of Ben Tyler (CBS-TV Hallmark Hall of Fame), starring James Woods and Elizabeth McGovern, won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay of 1997 and was a Humanitas Award nominee. Family Blessings, CBS-TV, 1999, starring Linda Evans, was adapted from the novel by LaVyrle Spenser. His screenplay for Old Dogs and Children is still unproduced. Currently, he's working on the screenplay for Dairy Queen Days.

Inman left WBTV in 1996 to write full time, and the idea for Captain Saturday came to him just after his departure. "Exploring the psychosocial complexity was challenging," he says. "It's all about how we let outside influences--job, status, celebrity--define who we are and how we relate to the people around us. The plot examines the quandary of how to go about finding out who we really are when the rug is pulled from under us. I hope Captain Saturday resonates with our wake-up call." Inman offers a smile of optimism.