Author William Kent Krueger was brought to Celebrations Hall in Gilman on Friday, June 27 by Friends of the Western Taylor County Public Library. He is the author of standalone books e.g. Ordinary Grace and This Tender Land, as well as the Cork O’Connor series.
He said that librarians are a guide to understanding the world and that libraries are archives that help us understand who we are. He has lived in St. Paul, MN for the last 45 years and been married for 52 years. He said that he loves living in the upper Midwest.
William Kent Krueger talked about his beginning with reading. He date stamped returned books for the library to help earn a Boy Scout merit badge. He ended up walking out of the library with a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. He also mentioned authors Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Louis Stevenson that brought about his love of reading. He was read to as a child. His father was an English teacher and didn’t just read stories, he embellished them. One of the author’s favorite books is a Little Golden Book called The Happy Family. He “learned that a story once begun, can go anywhere.” It is only limited by your imagination. He wrote his first short story in third grade and knew he was destined to be a writer.
He loved the writing of Ernest Hemingway and his mythic image. At age 18, Krueger said he wanted to be Hemingway. In the fall of 1987, he got a fellowship designed to give him time to write. Before knowing he had received the fellowship, his wife told him he should quit his job and write either way. He wrote his first manuscript and sent it to an agent who told him it was the worst thing she had ever read. He felt he had failed and didn’t write again for two years. Then he decided he would write books that people want to read rather than focus on writing the “great American novel.” He didn’t start reading mysteries until he started writing them. He believed that they were written on a formula or template. He found out that wasn’t true, but mysteries do have a structure: something happens, there is an investigation, the answers are found.
Kent Krueger, as he refers to himself, published the first book in the Cork O’Connor series in 1998. He said a lot of his books deal with issues related to mixed cultures, his main character being a mix of Irish and Ojibwe. It took him four years to figure it out, but he said “words are jewels put together and when put together correctly, they sparkle.”
Krueger said if you are not enjoying yourself writing, you aren’t doing it right. The plot of a story is important but the narrative elements are what make a story great. The DaVinci Code is the current all-time American fiction best book. Before that it was Valley of the Dolls. He doesn’t believe we will be reading the DaVinci Code in 50 years. It is the books that have a narrative element that will still be read.
Krueger read the prologue from This Tender Land. In answer to a question from the audience, he said it takes him about three years to write a standalone novel as they are “written from the heart.” The series novels take him less time.
After answering audience questions, Krueger signed books and visited with those attending the event. Another author event is being planned for August.