I met fellow Burlington, Iowa native Keith Schulz on Facebook several months ago, when he wrote to me about a marble tabletop he had, which he had been told came from Sutter Drug. You can read my post about that here.
I discovered that Keith had written a novel called “Keepers of the River: A Tale of Terror Along the Mississippi River,” and I purchased a copy last year at Burlington By The Book. I just finished reading it, and I found it to be a real page-turner. It’s kind of a Stephen King-type horror novel, with realistic characters and surprising plot twists. I emailed Keith and asked him if he would answer a few questions about the novel and his writing process, and he obliged. Thanks, Keith! I recommend this book to anyone who likes a good mystery.
How did you come up with the idea of writing a horror story set along the Mississippi River? Did you hear stories about an island that was haunted?
Long story short, I had been attending the Iowa Writers Workshop summer program for a couple summers. I enjoyed the experience of writing fiction more than I was enjoying law practice and I got this notion of writing a creepy novel. We had bought this old house perched on a bluff in Burlington and there were parts of the town that I thought would make a good setting: the bluffs, the islands, the cemetery. So I decided to retire, move into the house and write.
I’m assuming that Bruders Landing is based on Burlington, Iowa. Can you talk about the ways the two resemble each other?
Bruders Landing is basically Burlington and most readers think they resemble each other. However, I moved some features around and embellished others. Big Island always intrigued me and it became Big Tow Island which I moved north for the story. Aspen Grove Cemetery became Walnut Grove which I moved to the bluff. I was always intrigued by the facades on the mausoleums in Aspen Grove, one of which I used, but the interior is pure fiction. The farmhouse exists south of Burlington with a hole in the basement. I heard about it but never saw the hole. I had a tour of a friend’s embalming room but I thought it lacked drama so the one in the story is pure fiction.
Did you base any of the characters in the book on people you know?
The character closest to a real person is (Undertaker) Raston Bruhl. The Prugh family has been in the funeral business in Burlington for 150 years so I borrowed their history. The two boys I created in my first course in fiction at Iowa and used them again. In the part of the story set in the 50s they are the age I was at the time so I relied on some memory. Sheila was the cousin of a boyhood friend but I created her personality. Mostly, though, I created the characters to serve the story.
Anything else you want to add about the book and writing it?
I wrote the novel in a highly disorganized fashion. The chapters were written randomly as episodes which occurred to me as something fun to write. For example, the funeral the two boys attend was the first episode I wrote. As I accumulated episodes I began to see a way they could become story. The fact that the story may work and be enjoyable to readers is the result of the input of the editor, a creative writing instructor in CA who taught at Iowa in the summer. She made it cohesive and told me how to discard about 200 pages.
A novel of its length is a lot of work, five-years worth trying to have the discipline to write three hours each afternoon. I’m finding it hard to do again.
I also am grateful to the small publisher that took it on, Coyote Press. An agent or publisher is virtually impossible for a first-time fiction writer to find. And Coyote is still selling it after a second printing.
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