Sunday Salon | An interview with author: Kurt Kamm and a giveaway

One Foot In The Black

Morning fellow Saloners.

Last week I read and reviewed Kurt Kamm’s One Foot in the Black – an ARC which I really enjoyed. Kurt got in touch after I posted the review and agreed to answer a few questions about the book and kindly offered up another copy of the book that I can giveaway to a lucky reader.

So without further ado here is the interview.

Clare: What inspired you to write One Foot in the Black?

Kurt: In 2004, I retired and moved to Malibu. I was looking for something new to do and a friend from the LA Times recommended a writing class. The first level class was all about writing spontaneously. We were urged to keep a journal, write each day, and read something in class once a week.

The class had 35 women and 2 men (!!). Each week the women read about how their fathers and husbands neglected them, abused them, and didn’t love them. Everyone in class cried except me. My funny, edgy pieces were totally ignored.

One day on my way home, I passed Pepperdine University. On the huge front lawn, an L.A. County Fire Helicopter had landed and the firefighter crew was standing around it. I wondered what the lives of these crew members were like – being ferried to wildland fires in a Blackhawk Attack Helicopter.

I went home and imagined a scene where I was a young man in Saginaw Michigan, growing up with an abusive father who was a firefighter. One day I told him that, after high school, I was going out to CA to become a Helitack firefighter. He hit me across the face, and told me once I left, never to come back.

When I read this piece in class, all the women cried, and asked me if I had ever reconciled with my father. I became intrigued with the scenario, and it became the basis for One Foot in the Black. The original paragraph is in the book on page 72.

Clare: What sort of research did you carry out for the book?

Kurt: Malibu, and all of Southern CA, have terrible fires every year. In Malibu there are several LA County fire stations, as well as Camp 8, which is an old Nike Missile base converted into a Helitack (helicopter firefighting) training camp. Camp 13, nearby, is a female inmate fire training camp.

Once I got interested in the fire story LA County Fire was incredibly generous. They adopted me. I went through the 30 day training academy at Camp 8, spent time with the inmates at Camp 13, and started going out to the fires. CalFire also invited me to their training facilities and academy. (By the way, I have some interesting blogs about the old Nike Missile Base and the Female Inmate Camp – http://www.kurtkamm.com/blog)

Clare: It’s interesting to hear that you went through the 30-day training programme, that must be one of the reasons why the book was so true to life; you had actually experienced fire fighting. Do you think this book gives an accurate portrayal of Californian wildland firefighting?

Kurt: Absolutely. The firefighters who have read the book love it because they say it is so realistic. It has been a success in their community because of its realism. I think the best compliment came from L. A. County Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman. His secretary told me that he initially thought it was a true story.

Clare: As I said in my review I thought it was a true story too and was surprised to discover it was a work of fiction. Which scene in the book is your favourite and why?

Kurt: This is a good question. My favorite scene is the burnover – where Greg and his crew realize they are trapped on the mountainside by an approaching firestorm and nearly perish in their struggle to get away. It took me two months to write those 10 pages. I read several accounts of firefighters trapped in burnovers and finally tried to imagine what it would be like to be there.

Clare: That scene was pretty intense. It’s good to hear that youput a lot of thought into – it definitely felt real to me when I was reading. Now let’s move away from the book slightly – can you tell us about the first story you ever wrote?

Kurt: I won a prize in Jr. High School for a story about a peanut vendor who stood out on the street, but refused to sell anyone peanuts. It was his revenge for something society had done to him earlier in his life. (Those must have been simpler times!)

Clare: And are you reading anything at the moment?

Kurt: I have to be very careful because while I am writing, I often start to copy the style of something I am reading. To counter that, I try to read 2-3 books at once. Right now, I am reading an Icelandic mystery by Arnaldur Indridason, called The Draining Lake.

Clare: Ive heard other authors say the same thing; if you read too much while writing someone else’s voice creeps in to your writing. So it’s good to hear you are currently writing – what are you working on at the moment?

Kurt: I am just finishing Red Flag Warning, a novel about a serial arsonist setting fires in Los Angeles. It has some great characters including an emotionally injured arson investigator, a 911 dispatcher who wants to be a firefighter, a juvie who goes to fires dressed as a firefighter and steals equipment, and a fake priest who insists arson is the work of the devil.

Clare: I’m hooked on that idea already and will be keeping an eye out for it! Thanks for taking the time to tell us about One Foot in the Black and your writing Kurt.

Kurt also has a fantastic website with some truly spectacular fire photographs and a series called Words of Firefighters which are excerpts of things these people have written to him.

Would you like to win a copy of One Foot in the Black?

I really can’t say enough good things about this book, and as I said Kurt has kindly offered up a copy for one of my readers. So if you’d like to win a copy here’s what you have to do. Head over to www.kurtkamm.com and you’ll find a link to Kurt’s blog post about Camp 13; the women’s inmate camp. Read the post and then com back here and leave the answer to this question in the comments box: Approximately how many women are there in the camp?

You have until midnight (GMT) next Saturday November 15 to leave your answer. I’ll announce the lucky winner during next week’s salon.

One Foot In The Black

This post is part of the Sunday Salon.