A conversation with Kevin Keck
On disappearing places, inherited stories, profound loss, and the patient pleasures of the past.
01
In its current form, sometime in the fall of 2010. The Doyle family came to me over several hours one night, and I drew their family tree on a large piece of sketch paper with notes for each person’s backstory. But I can remember the kernel of the idea as early as 1999.
02
For a long time I did not have all the particulars clear enough in my head. I also lacked the confidence to write in a voice other than the comical first-person voice I knew. And, if I am candid, I had not yet lived through some of the losses necessary to write a story like this.
03
Yes and no. Dry Pond itself is fictional, but it is surrounded by real places—and Denver was called Dry Pond before its name changed. I use that historical fact, then invent. I am not a historian; I write fiction. My responsibility is emotional truth, though I try to be as accurate as possible about Denver, Lake Norman, and the real places nearby.
04
For more than two centuries, families have returned every August to the same place. Camp Meeting is not simply a setting. It is a mechanism that allows one generation to hand its stories to the next. It is one of the things that makes Denver special.
05
Because once a place disappears, it takes an entire way of seeing the world with it. Places disappear twice: first physically, then from memory. Stories are one of the few ways to resist that second disappearance.
06
On the surface, the first volume follows one family through “Big Week” at Camp Meeting. Underneath, it is about memory, place, and the stories people and communities tell to remember who they are.
07
Because that is how I want people to experience it. Everyone online is competing for your attention. I do not want to add to that noise. I want to take you away from it. Anticipation is part of the pleasure, and the serial experience is part of the art.
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