Nelly, the protagonist in Julia Park Tracey’s new novel, “Whoa, Nelly! A Love Story (with Footnotes),” is a single librarian in her 40s living in a small Northern California town whose only real friends are her two cats that she sleeps with.

She, like Tracey herself, is also eternally fascinated by the “Little House on the Prairie” series of children’s books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. When Nelly is let go from her library gig due to budget cuts, she decides it’s high time to delve into Wilder’s legacy a little deeper and sets out on a train trip to one of Wilder’s homes in De Smet, South Dakota.

Along the way she discovers that life on the prairie isn’t as romantic as she imagined. She also falls in love for the first time, and by the time she returns home she’s ready to finally confront her overbearing mother.

Nine-time novelist and former Alameda resident Tracey will discuss Nelly’s adventures at Alameda’s Books Inc. on Jan. 8, when she returns to the island city to discuss her latest book. Because the novel is a “meta” novel, in essence a novel about a novel, Tracey employed footnotes throughout to help explain the narrative — a “novel” approach that she says wasn’t appreciated by publishers she approached after finishing the book in 2014.

“Nobody wanted it. It was too weird. Fiction doesn’t have footnotes,” says Tracey, who says the device is a way to break up Nelly’s narration and talk directly to the reader.

“Nelly is a know-it-all librarian, so she knows everything. So it’s her breaking her stream of consciousness,” she said in comparing the technique to that used in the 1970s “Ellery Queen” TV series in which the lead character would “break the fourth wall” to address the audience and ask them what they thought would happen next.

In the process “the reader becomes a participant because they’re being addressed directly by the main character,” says Tracey.

Besides being a “Little House” fan, another trait that Tracey says she shares with her lead character is a love of train travel. The book was written partly in her then-Alameda apartment and on a train trip with her mother. The pair had flown to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to visit Tracey’s aunt and then traveled on Amtrak to Los Angeles.

“I am writing madly because I’m trying to get this novel done,” she says of her work on the train. “And a lot of the stuff that you see that the main character Nelly sees out the window is stuff that happened on the train.”

Tracey highly recommends train travel for writing.

“I absolutely love it. It’s very elegant because when you sit in your office and write, you have your walls and maybe you have a window. And when you go to a coffee house, you see who comes in and you see who passes by on the street. But on the train you get to see mountains and buffalo and eagles and beautiful red rock and waterfalls. It’s just like watching a movie. It’s incredible.”

She’s not just of fan of the scenery.

“Dining on the train is amazing. You’re eating on real china and drinking out of champagne flutes,” says Tracey. “It’s just lovely. It’s absolutely worth it.”

Though Amtrak didn’t sponsor her latest novel, she says holing up on a train to bang out your manuscript is also affordable.

“A train ticket is not very expensive, so you could easily do a weeklong trip on the train, and that’s your hotel, your food, everything is all there in one place, as long as you get off and stretch your legs periodically. But you can make a self-contained writing retreat on the train, and people do.”

Now living in Grass Valley (about 60 miles northeast of Sacramento) with her husband, Tracey was an Alameda islander from 2000 to 2017. While in town she co-founded the Alameda Sun newspaper and was an editor of Oakland/Alameda magazine, both of which have since shut down.

After relocating to a house they owned in Sonoma County and experiencing fires, floods and the traumatic death of their son, Austin, she and her husband, Patrick, at the urging of her daughter, decided to take a look at Nevada City. Tracey says they found it to be “kind of like Sausalito. It’s very touristy, and there’s no place to get your dry cleaning done. Or park.”

So nearby Grass Valley became their new home.

“It’s very walkable, and it’s got everything you need for basic living — several grocery stores, big box stores, little independent grocery stores.”

The other attraction of Grass Valley was that they could actually afford to buy a fixer-upper Victorian and renovate it — something that was out of reach in Alameda. Tracey’s Jan. 8 return to Alameda will start at 6:30 p.m. in Books Inc. at 1344 Park St. For details online, visit bit.ly/44F6oEb.

Paul Kilduff is a San Francisco-based writer who also draws cartoons. He can be reached at pkilduff350@gmail.com.

Nelly, the protagonist in Julia Park Tracey’s new novel, “Whoa, Nelly! A Love Story (with Footnotes),” is a single librarian in her 40s living in a small Northern California town whose only real friends are her two cats that she sleeps with.

She, like Tracey herself, is also eternally fascinated by the “Little House on the Prairie” series of children’s books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. When Nelly is let go from her library gig due to budget cuts, she decides it’s high time to delve into Wilder’s legacy a little deeper and sets out on a train trip to one of Wilder’s homes in De Smet, South Dakota.

Along the way she discovers that life on the prairie isn’t as romantic as she imagined. She also falls in love for the first time, and by the time she returns home she’s ready to finally confront her overbearing mother.

Nine-time novelist and former Alameda resident Tracey will discuss Nelly’s adventures at Alameda’s Books Inc. on Jan. 8, when she returns to the island city to discuss her latest book. Because the novel is a “meta” novel, in essence a novel about a novel, Tracey employed footnotes throughout to help explain the narrative — a “novel” approach that she says wasn’t appreciated by publishers she approached after finishing the book in 2014.

“Nobody wanted it. It was too weird. Fiction doesn’t have footnotes,” says Tracey, who says the device is a way to break up Nelly’s narration and talk directly to the reader.

“Nelly is a know-it-all librarian, so she knows everything. So it’s her breaking her stream of consciousness,” she said in comparing the technique to that used in the 1970s “Ellery Queen” TV series in which the lead character would “break the fourth wall” to address the audience and ask them what they thought would happen next.

In the process “the reader becomes a participant because they’re being addressed directly by the main character,” says Tracey.

Besides being a “Little House” fan, another trait that Tracey says she shares with her lead character is a love of train travel. The book was written partly in her then-Alameda apartment and on a train trip with her mother. The pair had flown to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to visit Tracey’s aunt and then traveled on Amtrak to Los Angeles.

“I am writing madly because I’m trying to get this novel done,” she says of her work on the train. “And a lot of the stuff that you see that the main character Nelly sees out the window is stuff that happened on the train.”

Tracey highly recommends train travel for writing.

“I absolutely love it. It’s very elegant because when you sit in your office and write, you have your walls and maybe you have a window. And when you go to a coffee house, you see who comes in and you see who passes by on the street. But on the train you get to see mountains and buffalo and eagles and beautiful red rock and waterfalls. It’s just like watching a movie. It’s incredible.”

She’s not just of fan of the scenery.

“Dining on the train is amazing. You’re eating on real china and drinking out of champagne flutes,” says Tracey. “It’s just lovely. It’s absolutely worth it.”

Though Amtrak didn’t sponsor her latest novel, she says holing up on a train to bang out your manuscript is also affordable.

“A train ticket is not very expensive, so you could easily do a weeklong trip on the train, and that’s your hotel, your food, everything is all there in one place, as long as you get off and stretch your legs periodically. But you can make a self-contained writing retreat on the train, and people do.”

Now living in Grass Valley (about 60 miles northeast of Sacramento) with her husband, Tracey was an Alameda islander from 2000 to 2017. While in town she co-founded the Alameda Sun newspaper and was an editor of Oakland/Alameda magazine, both of which have since shut down.

After relocating to a house they owned in Sonoma County and experiencing fires, floods and the traumatic death of their son, Austin, she and her husband, Patrick, at the urging of her daughter, decided to take a look at Nevada City. Tracey says they found it to be “kind of like Sausalito. It’s very touristy, and there’s no place to get your dry cleaning done. Or park.”

So nearby Grass Valley became their new home.

“It’s very walkable, and it’s got everything you need for basic living — several grocery stores, big box stores, little independent grocery stores.”

The other attraction of Grass Valley was that they could actually afford to buy a fixer-upper Victorian and renovate it — something that was out of reach in Alameda. Tracey’s Jan. 8 return to Alameda will start at 6:30 p.m. in Books Inc. at 1344 Park St. For details online, visit bit.ly/44F6oEb.

Paul Kilduff is a San Francisco-based writer who also draws cartoons. He can be reached at pkilduff350@gmail.com.