An Interview with James Montgomery Jackson

After ten labored steps, I turned around to block the wind and

wipe the snow from my goggles. The shore, a scant twenty-five

feet away, was almost invisible. I could picture the headline in the  Iron

County Reporter: “Snowmobiler Finds ‘Tourist’ Frozen on Shank Lake.”

I retreated to the shoreline and followed it around toward my place.

James M. Jackson

Cabin Fever

Although James Montgomery Jackson blogs for Writers Who Kill, when his first novel Bad Policy came out, I interviewed his main character, Seamus McCree, a private financial  investigator. Yesterday, Barking Rain Press released Jim’s second Seamus McCree novel, Cabin Fever. This time I wanted to interview Jim, not Seamus, because I read this book as one of Jim’s beta readers and wanted to talk with him about the book and his writing. Jim characterizes Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, but he set the timing during dead—cold—winter, a killer onto itself. We’ll start with the first character he introduces, the U.P.                                           E. B. Davis   

In Bad Policy, Seamus’s Cincinnati home is destroyed. He decides to overwinter at a cabin he owns in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Midway through the winter his significant other, Abigail, left. I know Jan (Jim’s S.O.) and you overwintered in the U.P. one winter. You’re both still alive. Neither of you died from weather exposure, isolation, boredom, or gunshot wounds. Would you do it again?

We spent the 2006-7 winter at our U.P. camp. In mid-February that winter Jan looked out at a flock of 100+ pine grosbeaks eating sunflower seed on our deck, beyond to the pristine snow unsullied by salt and pollution, the sun shining in an azure sky and asked, “So, what season did we think we didn’t want to be up here?” With that encouragement I figured we would repeat our one-time experiment maybe every fourth or fifth year—at least until we became too feeble to risk it.

However, Mr. Unintended Consequences made a strategic error. I suggested we change our “southern” residence from the gray, bleak, useless winters of Cincinnati (where there is not enough snow and cold to do winter things and too much cold and ice to do anything else) to the lovely, (relatively) warm winters of Savannah. Jan agreed and now no longer has any interest in staying up north past October.

Do you cross-country, downhill ski or snow mobile?

I love to cross-country ski. It’s great exercise and a fine way to check out what wildlife has been around since the last snow. It can be a Zen-like experience when you get into a good rhythm, but that usually requires maintained trails rather than the backwoods skiing I like best.

I injured my knees playing soccer in college, and the doctor told me I was free to downhill ski if I wanted to try it out some weekend. However, he suggested I call him before I went. That way he could pre-schedule my surgery for the following Monday. Even my teenager know-everything-thank-you-very-much brain got that message.

Snowmobiles are noisy; I prefer quieter activities and ways to travel through the country.

The setting encumbers Seamus, but it also assists him. Have you ever written setting as character before Cabin Fever?

Until your question, I never actually considered winter as a character in Cabin Fever. I thought of it as a metaphor for Seamus’s internal condition. He is emotionally frozen as the story opens. By the conclusion he has thawed, but he’s still an emotional mess—just like mud season. With time and sunshine he can heal, but that’s for later books in the series.

When Seamus finds a naked woman suffering from frostbite on his cabin’s front porch, he eventually gets help, but Iron County Deputy, Sgt. Lon Bartelle suspects city-slicker Seamus may have harmed the woman. The woman’s skin shows evidence of rope burns. Did you interview law enforcement officials in the U.P.?

I spent a wonderful afternoon on our deck talking with Sgt. Wade Cross of the Iron County Sheriff’s Office. I have to say he was appalled at the level of mayhem that I planned to (fictionally) commit in the county. I also spent a couple of hours with D/Sgt. Jay M. Peterson of the Michigan State Police in the crime lab in Marquette, Michigan. Among other things, he’s their fingerprint expert and gave me a tour of the lab. They helped me understand what roles, based on the crime and their expertise, time and available material, the county and state police would play.

Iron County’s Sheriff, Mark Valesano, gave me a tour of the county jail. I showed up one day,

talked with the admin and then waited for fifteen or twenty minutes. Turns out they were checking me out to make sure I wasn’t related to anyone housed in the jail, and that I was in fact a writer.

I also spent time in the Iron County Courthouse watching the trials. The Clerk of the Court and Presiding Judge both spent time helping me understand how things work in a county court.

It was all great background, but since Cabin Fever isn’t a police procedural or legal thriller, I took shortcuts to keep the story moving.

What’s a Yooper?

A Yooper is someone who hails from the U.P., eh? For a bonus answer, do you know what Yoopers call people who live in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan (also known as the Mitten)?

I’ll bite, what?

We call them trolls because they live below the bridge. (The Mackinac Bridge is the world’s fifth longest suspension bridge and connects the Lower and Upper Michigan Peninsulas.) We like being called Yoopers; for some reason that I just can’t quite understand, they’re not so fond of being referred to as trolls.

Seamus tells Bartelle that Abigail left because she couldn’t stand the isolation. Seamus remained because he had some issues to work out. Was it guilt due to his last escapade in Bad Policy, which resulted in Abigail sustaining severe injuries, or was it about him?  

Seamus doesn’t realize that he’s suffering from a midlife crisis. He quit Wall Street where he was outstanding but didn’t fit the culture, and landed a job to create the Financial Crimes Unit for Criminal Investigations Group. That done; CIG still uses him as a Financial Crimes Consultant, but he’s an alpha type guy and he’s bored. His son is well launched and Seamus doesn’t know what he should do with the rest of his life. Nor does he realize the depth of his anger issues (something you pointed out to him when you interviewed him last year, which he tried to brush off).

Seamus goes inside himself to find answers. That behavior shuts others out and causes misunderstandings—as becomes clear later on in Cabin Fever.

Your secondary characters are memorable, like, jack-of-all-trades eighty-two-year-old Owen. Is there someone you modeled him after?

Thank you. I have a lot of fun writing secondary characters. Owen is an amalgamation of Yooper traits. He wouldn’t live anywhere else if you paid him. He has done about every job one can do in the U.P. to make ends meet and, despite his considerable skills, he just scrapes by. If someone is in need, he’ll drop everything to assist them, but he’s an independent cuss who doesn’t want anyone telling him what he can and can’t do. He’s the Northwoods version of the Southern storyteller. I just love listening to the Owens of the world talk of times past or what happened earlier that morning.

Do you believe that power corrupts?

With very few exceptions (probably just you and me) we humans are flawed when dealing from positions of power. As people rise in a power structure they think their brains, their skill, and their otherwise being special got them there. Once we set ourselves up as special, it’s a short step to deciding we know better than others. From there a quick downhill roll finds us justifying our actions as “for the greater good” or “legal.”

The emphasis in the West on individual exceptionalism certainly contributes to this thinking. I’m not a sufficient sociologist to know if it is only Western Culture that sets up this construct or it crosses cultures. Once our justifications start, they don’t end well. I think it is true in government, business, churches, family.

Seamus became disgusted with Wall Street, but he has his own flaws when it comes to making decisions without consulting others and about what corners he chooses to cut to accomplish what he thinks must be done.

Some authors write short stories as promotion for their series. Do you plan to write more short stories featuring Seamus?

The one short story that featured Seamus, “Accidents Happen,” appeared in the first Guppy anthology, Fish Tales. I wrote another featuring Abigail, but it hasn’t found a home. It would be great marketing if I could write more Seamus shorts. My problem is that I think of him over a long arc. I know his past; I know what’s going on in his life in Doubtful Relations and I even have a good feel for trauma I have in store for him in the book after that. (I don’t yet have an “E” title in mind.)

Short stories I want to write often relate to a new shiny interest I want to explore. I don’t naturally gravitate to thinking about Seamus side stories that illustrate his character or fill in missing pieces of his history.

What’s next for Seamus in your third novel, Doubtful Relations, a work-in-progress?

Albert Cunningham III, the husband of Seamus’s ex-wife (Paddy’s mother) goes missing. The only thing the ex- claims to know is that someone is using his ATM card in the Savannah area. The police don’t consider it a missing person case because of the cash card transactions, so the extended family must determine what is going on.

The whole family becomes involved: Seamus, his ex-, Paddy and his girlfriend Cindy Nelson, and Seamus’s mother, and Al’s son. Each one has a support cast and not everyone is on the same page. As with all of my novels, relationships are a key theme, and in this case some of them are, let’s say, doubtful.

Have you planned a second series?

I’ve considered spinning off Abigail into her own series. She’s strong enough and interesting enough to be a series character, but I haven’t taken that idea past something to think about as I jog.

I do want to do a novel (probably trilogy) set in the near future that explores what happens when government no longer functions and corporations are the only entities that can get things done. I started the first book, wrote 40,000+ words, and realized I had started in the wrong place and some characters needed to change. That is one of the risks of being a pantser rather than plotter. I hope to get back to it once I turn Doubtful Relations in to the publisher.

Is the aurora borealis visible from Iron County, Michigan?

You betcha, but it’s more readily visible during winter than summer. We’re currently near the peak in solar activity cycle so right now there are many sightings. For anyone interested, there’s a great website for finding out in which parts of the country the aurora is present. They allow you to sign up for alerts if you are interested. http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast

I’ve praised you in person for what a great job you do in your interviews. Readers, don’t you agree that Elaine has a special talent for this? Thanks for having me and spotlighting Cabin Fever.

You can order a signed copy of Cabin Fever from Jim's website, or buy the books from your favorite retailer (especially through your local indie store!). Thanks for the interview, Jim. I've enjoyed your books and can't wait for Doubtful Relations.