As I write this, Stephanie and I are traveling across the Southwest in our campervan. We'd stored the van over the winter in Las Vegas, then picked it up for the leisurely drive back to Minnesota. The one thing I enjoy doing on a long road trip is planning out the next book I'd like to write. On the last trip, I researched and outlined my novel, The Outlaw Shuffle, which will be coming out on April 24th. It's about a group of people living in their campervans and RVs who search throughout the Southwest during the COVID summer of 2020 for an abducted woman. They communicate primarily through social media and, along the way, run into angry Trumpers, religious fanatics, fussy liberals, Instagram influencers, and other societal outcasts. It's meant to be satirical and humorous but also a good old psychological thriller. Now, I'm on to the next novel.
The book I plan to write this summer is a collaboration with Stephanie. I did something similar with my daughter, Ellie, writing about her canoe trip through the Barren Lands of northern Sub-Arctic Canada (it won a Minnesota Book Award last year, amongst other awards, so buy it and read!). This new husband/wife collaboration is based on our frequent sailing trips to Croatia. Each time we went, our favorite destination was the island of Lastovo. It's the outermost island and a place infrequently visited by others. In the middle of the island is the town of Lastovo, which is mostly deserted. What's left are hundreds of tiny stone houses and a few churches stitched together on the sides of a valley like Anasazi cliff dwellings, most built in the sixteenth century. The place has always been magical. We're working on an idea about a cookbook writer (Stephanie-like) who escapes a failed marriage and restaurant to explore her Croatian roots. The character in the novel lost her parents when just an infant during the Croatian War of Independence. In Lastovo, she discovers a grandmother she'd never known about and a hunky guy named Dinko. As you might guess, the novel will be a contemporary romance, albeit with a literary bent.
I've been reading genre romances, the real thing, and frankly dislike most of them—all that falling in and out of love, fights then reconciliations, famous actor/musician/writer/scientist characters, incidental cheating (can cheating be incidental?), and happy endings.
But I know this shit exists—I witnessed it head-on while trying to focus on a romance novel. Next to us in the campground was a woman talking loudly on her cell phone. I put down the book and eavesdropped. This is how it went:
"We broke up again."
“…”
"Ever since that time, you know, when I caught Dean with that other girl at that party, I've never been able to trust him."
“…”
"I don't know. I left the next morning and stayed with a friend for a week. But then he called me three times a day apologizing. He admitted that he did sleep with her, but just a one-nighter. She meant nothing to him. He said that he'd been in a vulnerable place. Supposedly, we'd had a fight over something stupid, and then he was out at this bar with his friends drinking shots, and she was there. He said she seduced him, which I hardly believe. But I do believe that it was just a one-nighter and that she doesn't mean anything to him. And then I was just so lonely."
“…”
"I never thought of it like that, but you're right; he did blame his stepping out on me because of some fight we had. Anyway, I moved back in with him two weeks after I moved out. My friend was also asking me to help with rent. So, on another level, my moving back in with Dean was practical."
“…”
“I know, practical isn't a good excuse to move in with a guy, but he'd always been THE GUY. I thought Dean was the love of my life. It was my first time truly excited and blown away."
“…”
"Yes, I know we were total opposites. I like the outdoors, hiking, and camping, and Dean likes to stay in town. He likes to go bowling. Can you imagine that I'd fall for a guy who goes bowling? But opposites attract, right?"
“…”
"I left him again because the magic wasn't there anymore. And after that one-nighter, I just never trusted him again. I always worried about what he was doing when not with me, and when he said something about what he had done and where he'd been, I couldn't take it at face value. It was driving me crazy. Then, last week, I just decided I couldn't do it anymore and told him. I moved back out again."
“…”
"Yeah, you're right. It was the right thing to do. But then I was lonely again. Dean didn't call me like before, so a week later I called him. And he said that what we'd done in splitting up made sense. He said we were just too different, and the relationship would have never worked out in the long run."
“…”
"Yes, I'm paying rent now."
“…”
"What am I going to do? I'm forty years old.
“…”
“Forty is the new sixty. I'm too old to do this dating thing again, so I won't do anything. I'll just be lonely for the rest of my short life."
I stopped listening—it could have been my self-conscious mind telling me that eavesdropping was ethically frowned upon—but the reality was, I had to pee. Then afterward, while sitting around a campfire cooking cheddar jalapeno brats, I thought about the woman's dilemma, what she'd gone through, and how she reacted. I juxtaposed that with the romance novel I was reading and had an offhand epiphany: this romance up-and-down, back-and-forth shit actually happens.
Then I thought, I can do this!
Thanks Kris, hope you like it. Kurt
I meant April :)