Five questions: Arkansas native, author Kelly J. Ford
A free ride got Kelly J. Ford out of the state right after graduating from the University of Central Arkansas. She left with a friend and Walmart co-worker who had already planned to move out of state after graduation.
But though she lives in Vermont now, she’s never really left Arkansas.
All three of her novels are set in the northwestern part of the state. Her first novel, “Cottonmouths,” was named a “Best Book of 2017” by the Los Angeles Times, and her second novel, “Real Bad Things,” was warmly reviewed. (I wrote that while the picture “Real Bad Things” painted of Arkansas wasn’t exactly something the tourism board would commission, she was able to “avoid caricature while capturing the cruel psychology of small-towned-ness, the petty pride that devolves from Friday night under-the-lights glory and the intractable feeling of inferiority that infects the left behind.” Book clubs might consider pairing “Real Bad Things” with Monica Potts’ nonfiction work “The Forgotten Girls.”)
Her third novel, “The Hunt,” will be published next week. It is set in the fictional River Valley town of Presley, where, since 2005, a radio station has sponsored an annual Easter egg hunt. Immediately after the first event, a 19-year-old man disappeared; when his body turned up later it was presumed that he accidentally drowned. But his death was the first in a string of deaths and disappearances occurring during the week of the hunt, causing some citizens to believe they were the work of a serial killer called “the Hunter.”
In 2022, with the event scheduled to resume after a two-year break due to covid-19, the sister of the first “victim” finds herself trying to keep her teenage nephew safe during the hunt as secrets from her past threaten her recovery.
Q. The first question I’d want to ask is about world-building; obviously the universe of “The Hunt” is the same as the universe of “Real Bad Things,” and it’s a recognizable version of Arkansas, with some recognizable place names and geography. I think I could probably point to Presley on a map — it might be somewhere below Clarksville, west of Russellville and Maud Bottoms. Not too far east of Van Buren. Have you
picked this out as your own little patch, like Faulkner did with Yoknapatawpha? And do you intend to return, or might we expect future novels set in Boston or Italy?
Anyway, aside from the obvious biographical connection to the state, why set your stories in Arkansas? I imagine that to the rest of the world (which I have ventured out into) it might seem a little exotic and forlorn, kind of a pauperized Florida? I’d be interested in what feedback you might get from non-Arkansans on your work as well as what you might get from natives. While I don’t think you’ll be put up for any Chamber of Commerce awards, I sense a deep affection for your home state tempered with the rational horror of someone who has, in Charles Portis’ phrase, “achieved escape velocity.”
A. All my novels are set in and around Fort Smith and Cedarville, where I grew up and went to school. Though I left shortly after graduating from the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, I still consider Arkansas my home, even though I’ve lived in and around Boston now longer than any other locale. Sometimes I step outside Arkansas in short stories and flash fiction. But I don’t truly feel like my prose can sing and expand unless I’m writing about my home state. Arkansas is where I came of age and developed my imagination and sense of curiosity about the world. Arkansas is deep in my creative DNA, and I’ll likely stick to Northwest Arkansas for the foreseeable future. Even if I wander to different locales, my characters will likely be Arkansas ex-pats.
Most people I come across in my life don’t think much about Arkansas at all. Sometimes, there’s a bit of horror from readers who haven’t experienced the culture of the South beyond Hollywood. But you get that with a lot of southern states right now. One woman at a reading near Boston said, “Arkansas. Sounds awful.”
That was one of those, “This Is More of a Comment Not a Question” folks.
Of course, people aren’t a monolith and neither are states or countries. My personal Arkansas horror primarily comes when reading about the latest news from certain state representatives and other people, whose policies and politics and religious stances malign queer individuals such as myself and other marginalized folk. But there are incredible people on the ground working to make Arkansas a better version of itself. It’s an uphill battle, but one worth fighting. I try to do my part by reminding people that, much like perceptions of Florida, real people with real stakes and decency live there. Not just talking heads and trolls.
As for fellow Arkansans, I haven’t met a ton who have read my work. I’m probably related to most who have. That’s not an Arkansas joke. Fiction by queer writers is a bit harder to get into people’s hands.
That deep affection you allude to is real, though. I’m especially fond of my hometown of Fort Smith. I’m always trying to sell people on visiting the Fort Smith historic site; the Fort Smith History Museum and soda fountain; the Trail of Tears overlook; the Unexpected project, featuring contemporary public art from world renowned street artists; the indie bookstore Bookish; among other offerings. The Chamber of Commerce should want me. I’m a terrific ambassador.
Q. Of course, Portis was saying that very few actually do achieve escape velocity; most ex-Arkansans are, like Michael Corelone, eventually dragged back into the state’s orbit. That’s what happened to Jane in “Real Bad Things.” But Nell (in my head I’m casting a young Holly Hunter) hasn’t achieved any escape beyond just over the border to the Indian Cherokee Casino. And while I know it’s dangerous to conflate an author’s fiction with an author’s story, I wonder if there aren’t significant autobiographical elements in both these books (sorry, I haven’t yet gotten to “Cottonmouths”). I recently wrote that I thought Richard Ford’s Frank Bascombe character was what Richard Ford would have become had he not written “The Sportswriter.” I’m not sure a writer’s characters aren’t all speculative versions of themselves.
How do you feel about being from Arkansas and is it qualitatively different from being somewhere else? (My take is that Arkansas is not Southern, but the slow cousin in the Midwest’s basement.) There’s a wonderful tension in your books that both acknowledges (to quote Jason Isbell) the “shame and certainty” of smalltown life and the generosity and potential of individual human spirits.
A. “Midwestern Nice”? In Arkansas? Whew. That kind of talk will get you in trouble with just about everyone I know who’s from the state. My dad would probably start by saying, “Let me tell you something, Slick …” right before mentioning his guns. But that’s precisely why I love being Arkansan. We’re so feisty despite our famous inferiority complex. Of course, that could just be the people I know.
I do think that Arkansas, especially the Fort Smith region, is a beast of a different sort that makes it slippery to classify. Fort Smith is considered a historical Old West town, but it’s definitely Southern once you escape downtown. Fort Chaffee saw the influx of multiple refugee groups whose cultures influenced the region. Go north a bit and it gets a little hillbilly.
I suppose by only writing books set in Arkansas I didn’t completely achieve escape velocity. But the region’s quirkiness is precisely why I enjoy staying in orbit. It’s a fascinating cross-section of people and settings that never fails to inspire. I can think of a hundred “What If” story prompts when I “go to town” on errands with my parents whenever I visit.
Most authors are great students of character in the real world. Many of us don’t say much, but we’re listening and filing away dialogue, mannerisms, colloquialisms, and other quirks as material. That’s the fun of traveling and meeting people outside your everyday life. You become more than who you were the day before. You’re an amalgamation of the people you’ve met and things you’ve seen. So it’s natural that pieces of the author would slip into their stories. But you wouldn’t want an autobiographical account of just me. It’d be pages of me listening to music while doing chores; reading; working a day job; wrangling my cat and dog; and writing of course. Very boring.
Q. “The Hunt” revolves around a kind of pathetic commercial endeavor to try to drum up business for a dwindling community. Is there a real-life inspiration for this? Also, the “serial killer” seems an echo of the Texarkana Moonlight murders — is that coincidental? Similarly, do your old friends recognize themselves in your books?
A. I hadn’t heard about the Texarkana Moonlight murders until “The Hunt” was well on its way to completion. My friend Matt Coleman, another wonderful Arkansas author, told me about it when we met at a crime conference. He lives in Texarkana, and I’ve been begging him to write his version of it for years now. Perhaps now he’ll finally heed my call.
“The Hunt” is actually inspired by an event that Fort Smith’s KISR 93.7 FM used to host every Easter. There were various golden items, such as keys or an egg, that locals could hunt to win prizes. There was an illustrated map of the town and a whole slew of clues you’d have to puzzle out to learn the location of the golden object. The DJ’s voice would always mesmerize and, for some reason, scare me as he slowly read the latest clue. Sadly, I never went on a hunt, but that feeling of terror and excitement stayed with me. I’ve been carrying around the idea of writing a story about it for decades.
“The Hunt” was fun in that there were several characters who needed to be named given the subject matter. So I mashed up the names of family and friends to create the character names. It’s my special little Easter egg hunt in the novel just for them. The only person who has ever recognized themself is my brother, Jesse. He was my first friend and biggest part of my life growing up, so that makes sense that bits of him would appear on the page.
But whenever I ask him about very specific places or moments from the past, he doesn’t remember or says something never happened or that place never existed. So for years, with “Cottonmouths,” I thought I was losing my mind. But then a high school friend came to see me at the Arkansas Literary Festival and said, “The Quik-a-Way! The gas wells!” And I knew it was my brother who was wrong, and I get to say “I told you so.”
Q. Office politics (and local politics) seem to be a theme in your books, and those who play these petty games come off not quite as villains but as vainglorious and supercilious, not quite serious people.
A. I’ve worked in office environments since 1996 — and a host of fast-food joints and retail environments before that — so I’m deeply familiar with the people who inhabit those hallways. Confronted with such folks in real life, I usually mutter that time-honored phrase, “Bless their heart.”
Some people just don’t know how to do right or behave because they haven’t been exposed to different ways of being. Some people are hardheaded. And some people know better and just don’t care. Regardless, people and characters exist within their own context. As a storyteller, I don’t like to just present a villain or antagonist. I like to know who they are and where they came from. That backstory won’t always end up on the page, but it allows me to hopefully create nuance and complexity for these characters, which is far more fun to write and read.
Q. And you seem to know the lower middle-class world of Walmarts and pawn shops and light industry break rooms really well and have a real affection for the people who populate these places. I take it yours is not an ivory tower existence?
A. I know those worlds well. So here’s where the autobiographical touch comes in: The plastics factory in “The Hunt” is based on the one I worked at in college while also going to school full-time. So no, not too privileged.
Hardly anyone asks about working class/working writers, so I appreciate the question. Most writers I know are working class or they’re 9-to5-ers. We work day jobs and fit writing in when we can, often at the expense of our families and friends and fun life events. Writing and publishing is a long and arduous journey for many of us. But most of us wouldn’t trade that. Storytelling is a primal, human need. It’s a craft and a profession worthy of equitable pay across our various industries. That’s more a comment than a question.
Email: pmartin@adgnewsroom.com