Driving across the great plains of the United States can be pretty boring. When Dr. Paul Bennett was driving out to Nebraska a few years ago to visit a boyhood friend, Chuck Thomas, he filled the hours by formulating a plot for an historic fiction novel.

Today, that book, “A Fall of Sparrows,” is a reality. It is also a prize-winning book, having won the Athanatos Christian Ministries novel contest for 2014.

A native of Bainbridge, Dr. Bennett, who now lives and practices internal medicine in Forest, Virginia, returned home this week for a book signing held Friday afternoon at Bainbridge Pharmacy from 3 to 5 p.m.

Bennett has always considered himself a bit of a Civil War buff. The book deals with the struggles of a Confederate soldier who goes against all orders to help a slave woman escape to the north. He defines it as a story of compassion, much broader than a book about slavery. It is about the men who fought for their homeland and their people, even as they often fought against family and friends.

Bennett said the people in the book are patterned after people he knew and respected growing up in Bainbridge. They are not about any one individual, but are composites of several personalities.

He gave the hero of the book the name of William Mark Seymour, the name of his great-great-grandfather on his mother’s side. He fought as a Confederate soldier.

Bennett said it took him at least two years to write the book. Now he is giving some thought to writing a sequel based on the soldier’s life when he returns home after the war is over.

Many of his school friends and his medical colleagues turned out at the pharmacy to congratulate and welcome him home.