{"id":933,"date":"2013-02-21T17:32:40","date_gmt":"2013-02-21T23:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=933"},"modified":"2013-02-21T17:35:04","modified_gmt":"2013-02-21T23:35:04","slug":"author-interview-william-kent-krueger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/author-interview-william-kent-krueger\/","title":{"rendered":"Author Interview: William Kent Krueger"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve known Kent since he invited himself to the store when his first novel, Iron Lake, <\/strong>was published in 1998. As long as I\u2019ve known him, I\u2019ve been a fan of his work. His new novel, Ordinary Grace<\/a>, <\/strong>is an extraordinary leap – a deepening of previous work. It was a pure delight to read. <\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Q: One of the things I found most interesting about this book was the voice. While it\u2019s set in 1961, it doesn\u2019t in any way seem like a period piece or an historical novel. How personal to you are the memories of 1961 in small town Minnesota? <\/em><\/p>\n

A: One of the main motivations for writing Ordinary Grace<\/em> was the opportunity to explore memories, emotions, and experiences out of my own life when I was, essentially, the age of the story\u2019s narrator, thirteen-year-old Frank Drum.\u00a0 For boys\u2014maybe it\u2019s the same for girls, I don\u2019t know\u2014that period in our lives is an important threshold. We\u2019re about to step out of adolescence and into manhood, and the crossing over is sharp, significant, and full of deep emotion. Everything before seemed simple, and, afterward, everything so terribly complex.\u00a0 Growing up, I lived in many small towns, and I wanted to capture the essence of those places, both for the benefit of the reader and, I suppose, to indulge my weakness for nostalgia.\u00a0 So, yes, I mined a lot of my own background for this novel.<\/p>\n

Q: The narrative feels more like a fable or a remembered dream. How did you accomplish this? <\/em><\/p>\n

A: My own feeling is that this is the result of the way the narrative is constructed. It\u2019s told by Frank forty years after the events took place, but the perceptions and the way in which occurrences, people, places, and emotions are described is often in the moment and from the point of view of a thirteen-year-old kid.\u00a0 So the voice is both current and past. It\u2019s like a recollection that drifts between dream and reality.<\/p>\n

Q:I think most serious writers have certain themes they are working through in almost every book. I think in all your Cork books the themes you seem to be interested in are kinship and loyalty and what those things mean. Any thoughts on that? <\/em><\/p>\n

A: Yeah, I have a few.\u00a0 I write pretty close to the bone. In my series, many of Cork\u2019s concerns and considerations are my own. So, Cork believes in justice; I believe profoundly in the necessity for justice in this world. Cork believes that you make commitments, and, come hell or high water, you stand by those commitments. That\u2019s pretty much what I believe.\u00a0 Cork believes that in this life, family is the most significant relationship you\u2019re likely to experience.\u00a0 Ditto for me. So what interests me in the stories is the struggle to hold to these ideals in a world that seems often bent on either forcing or seducing you from them.<\/p>\n

Q: As this book comes after many Cork O\u2019Connor novels, I am wondering if that writing journey led you to write this book? Do you feel like it was intensifying some of the themes you\u2019ve written about in the past? <\/em><\/p>\n

A: I think I had a lot to learn about storytelling before I was ready to take on the challenge of writing a novel like Ordinary Grace. <\/em>It seems a rather simply told tale, but that simplicity hides a lot of depth, complexity, and meaning.\u00a0 (At least, I hope it does.) And that point of view I mentioned earlier, the voice that is of the moment and, at the same time, of the past, is a tricky thing to pull off. I\u2019ve learned a lot about storytelling with the Cork novels and a lot about myself as a storyteller.\u00a0 I think I was aching to write this kind of book, and finally had to do it. Ordinary Grace <\/em>allowed me to speak more directly to issues and themes that have been a part of the Cork O\u2019Connor stories but seldom front and center, things like faith and the spiritual journey.\u00a0 Having done it and believing that I did an all right job of it, I\u2019m eager to try this kind of story again.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Q: At the center of this book is a minister. Many of your books have a spiritual quality, and it\u2019s not a pounding it into your head type deal, it\u2019s part of the fabric of your storytelling. While you often write about very grisly happenings \u2013 and there\u2019s some grim occurrences in this one, as well \u2013 the ultimate outlook at the end of every novel is a hopeful or optimistic one. I think it\u2019s a quality many of your readers cherish. Anyway this is a long way of asking why you chose a minister as the central character? <\/em><\/p>\n

A: My first thought, when mulling over the story that became Ordinary Grace<\/em>, was to make Nathan Drum a high school English teacher in this small town, because that was my<\/em> father and that was an experience I knew well.\u00a0 I wanted to write about a family that, in a small community, is watched carefully, and that\u2019s definitely a teacher\u2019s family.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve always wanted to talk about faith, really about the whole consideration of God, and so the ministry became a better choice of profession. Over the years, I\u2019ve known a lot of PKs (preacher\u2019s kids), and I\u2019ve heard stories of the pressures they were under and of their rebellions. I thought that kind of kid would make a compelling narrator. Also, I realized early on that when the death in the family occurs, if Nathan Drum is a minister, the tragedy would be such a tremendous challenge to his faith that exploring his reaction\u2014and the reactions of each member of the family\u2014would be a fascinating journey for me as a writer. Was it ever!<\/p>\n

Q: As I was reading this for the second time, I was wondering about the structure of this book. You foreshadow what will happen, but the central death doesn\u2019t occur until almost exactly halfway through the novel, making the story a stark \u201cbefore\u201d and \u201cafter\u201d. Was this structure intentional, or did it happen organically while you were writing it? <\/em><\/p>\n

A: Although the death provides a compelling mystery element to the story (I am, after all, known as a mystery writer), this was not intended to be a mystery, as such. It was, from its earliest beginnings, going to be a story about a family in a small town who experience something awful.\u00a0 It was going to be about love and struggle and faith and hope. I knew that eventually it would deal with a tragic death that turns out to be a murder and challenges a family, and, in a way, a whole community, to reconsider their values. So the first part of the book was intended to draw the reader into an engagement with the Drum family and the town of New Bremmen, so that when the tragedy occurs, if I\u2019d done my job correctly, it would be an emotional blow not only to the characters in the story, but to readers as well. However, because I didn\u2019t really outline this story, as I usually do with my Cork O\u2019Connor novels, I felt my way along with the actual events. So, to a degree, I suppose, things did happen organically.<\/p>\n

Q: Did this novel refresh your palate? Did it make you feel ready to dive back into the Cork novels? <\/em><\/p>\n

A: These days, I never have to refresh myself in order to dive into a Cork O\u2019Connor story.\u00a0 I love Cork and his family and Tamarack County, and I\u2019m not at all tired of writing the series.\u00a0 I promised myself a long time ago that when I did grow weary of it, I would end the series, because I never want to offer readers a story in which I haven\u2019t invested my whole heart.\u00a0 But if that time does ever come, the way I\u2019m feeling right now, it\u2019s still a long way down the road.<\/p>\n

Q: What\u2019s next for you as a writer? <\/em><\/p>\n

A: I have another in the Cork O\u2019Connor series due out at the end of August.\u00a0 It\u2019s called Tamarack County<\/em>, and I\u2019m really pleased with it. That concludes my current contract with my publisher, but we\u2019ve just negotiated a new three-book contract that includes two more in the Cork O\u2019Connor series and another stand alone. I\u2019m at work on the stand alone, a novel titled This Tender Land<\/em>, which is, in a way, a companion to Ordinary Grace. <\/em>It\u2019s also set in southern Minnesota and in an earlier time, roughly the late nineteen-fifties. It\u2019s the story of a wealthy farmer found dead in the Alabaster River and of the secrets, long buried in the soil of Black Earth County, that come to light during the investigation of his death.\u00a0 Thematically, it\u2019s an exploration of the extremes we\u2019re willing to go to in order to hold onto the things\u2014people, land, ideals\u2014that we cherish. I\u2019m having a ball with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve known Kent since he invited himself to the store when his first novel, Iron Lake, was published in 1998. As long as I\u2019ve known him, I\u2019ve been a fan of his work. His new novel, Ordinary Grace, is an extraordinary leap – a deepening of previous work. It was a pure delight to read. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=933"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":938,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions\/938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}