An Interview with Kathi Kamen Goldmark, author of And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You (Chronicle Books, 2002). Imagine singing in a band, belting out honky­tonk tunes with the likes of Scott Turow, Dave Barry, and Amy Tan. Picture Stephen King leaning over and asking you—dear, sweet previously unpublished you—to contribute a chapter along with a list of literary luminaries to a book about the whole writer-wannabe-music-star thing. Your writing muse thus inspired, you begin thinking there’s a story to tell about this humorous world of honky-tonk music, and a top agent asks to represent you. Your first novel comes out and—voila—your endorsers looks like the roster of the New York Times Bestseller list because they really, really like the book! Quite a story, eh?  Well, that is the very real world of singer/songwriter/novelist Kathi Kamen Goldmark, whose own story keeps you believing that good things happen to good-hearted people. No surprise, perhaps, that Kathi’s novel, And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You, has more than a few twists and near-disasters, all kept together by the love and loyalty of a family that extends beyond genetic ties. The story line centers on Sarah Jean Pixlie who goes from a happily unknown backup singer to country music’s “Best Newcomer of the Year”—earning her adulation from some and scorn from others, including former boss Cindi-Lu Bender, who doesn’t like being shown up by one of the girls in the background. Sarah heads home to the Dewdrop Inn, the northern California honky-tonk club run by her parents, Allie and Johnny. There she gets daily doses of care and advice from Allie and Perle, the sister-duo who hold court over a cast of musicians and other assorted characters. The book’s story line provides a lot of laughs and more than enough love ‘em and leave ‘em and I’ll-be-wiser-next time country music lyrics.

FaithHopeandFiction: Where to begin?  Let’s talk about you first. Are you a musician first or a writer first?

Kathi Kamen Goldmark: Chronologically, I’m a musician first and I’ve always been in bands, although I always liked writing. Then I started this band, The Rock Bottom Remainders, which came out of my work doing publicity for people on book tours. In my work I met some very successful authors who either used to be in a band or who always wanted to be in one. It was a few months before the American Booksellers Association (now known as BookExpo America) 15 years ago that I invited Stephen King, Amy Tan, Dave Barry, and all these other people to help me form a band. They said, it sounds like fun. So we performed and did some benefits for charities, including a First Amendment group and a literacy group. Once Stephen King jumped onboard, we started getting a lot of press. KKG: At one point I hooked up with Van Halen’s tour manager and, I don’t know how it happened exactly, but he got us this luxury rock ‘n’ roll tour bus to take us from the Anaheim Hilton to the club where we were going to perform. It was the best 10-block ride in a bus you could ever imagine… Then we did a three-week tour from New England to Miami. We financed it because Stephen King got his publisher to pay $200,000 for a book about it entitled, “Mid-Life Confidential: The Rock Bottom Remainders Tour America with Three Chords and an Attitude.” (Stephen King, Amy Tan, Roy Blount Jr., and others are listed as author, and Dave Marsh as editor.)  I didn’t think I would have to write an essay for the book. But they remembered the things I “made” them do, like singing a certain song or wearing a certain outfit, and I guess they figured it was my turn to be uncomfortable! They told me, you’re writing a chapter. FHF: I can see where that would be intimidating—having a who’s who in the literary world ask you to play along in their world. KKG: I slogged my way through. It was paralyzing and intimidating. As I kept working on it, Amy Tan would call to double check facts with me. Then she’d read me this crystal-perfect line, and I would say, “Oh, that happened in Philadelphia not Atlanta,” and after we hung up, I’d throw my essay in the trash and start over again. We were doing a reading from the book-in-progress at the Miami Book Fair—Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Stephen King, and me. I was thinking, this is a 2,000-seat auditorium and I’m doing the very first reading of my life. I got up there and started reading, but as I did, I found myself revising on the fly. If I didn’t like a particular passage, I didn’t read it. I called Dave Marsh, the band editor, and told him, “I need one more rewrite!”  Then it was okay, and I got hooked…. After that, I had to write a novel. I couldn’t be in my own band without that fiction credential. So that’s how the book happened. FHF: Reading your novel, And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You, I was struck by how real the characters seemed to me—in all their quirky, stranger-than-life glory.  My favorites, I must say, are Allie and Perle, who alternate giving Sarah Jean the “mothering” she needs—including Perle’s wheat grass treatments. KKG: Perle is based very much on my mother, who is a holistic nutrition educator. I wasn’t sure how she was going to react to that, but she just loved it. I have to say, I can’t take credit for some of Perle’s funniest lines because they came right out of my mother’s mouth! FHF: Well, to synopsize this novel without giving away the story, let’s say there are so many twists, tangles, dramas, side plots, and intrigue—all with a quirky, humorous streak. Just as I was thinking about all that, it occurred to me: A) that’s life and B) that’s a country song! KKG: I wrote the book as a love letter to honky-tonk music, which is differentiated from country music. Most people think that country music is just what you hear on the radio. My heart is in honky-tonk, the guys who play night after night at the bar, who are terrific musicians and very wise people—just like the guys at the Dewdrop. FHF: Very wise when it comes to everybody else’s life, but their own lives are a mess. If you go through the list of characters, they have the “name that tune” of problems. In the middle of the mess, they all care for each other and they all rally around Sarah Jean as she handles everything from stardom to motherhood.

KKG: Everyone assumes that the voice of Sarah Jean is me, but it’s not. I’m really the most like Allie, her mother, or maybe a combination of the two of them… I remember when I started the book. I was driving my son up to Lake County, California, where the book is set. It was a nice, boring ride, and suddenly the first paragraph popped into my head. I wrote it down the minute we got there, and I started fleshing it out.

FHF: The story centers around Sarah Jean, who is savvy and she’s been around the block, but in many ways she’s also an innocent. She just loves to sing and she’s happy to be in the back of the band, harmonizing with Amy and Kathleen. She’s a real supportive team player. The last thing she expects is to be nominated for Best Newcomer of the Year for a song she basically wrote and forgot about. KKG: I feel like I know her so well. I have to say that, for me, writing a novel is like having imaginary friends—you know, like when you were a little kid. My characters have become that for me. I want to go shoe shopping with them. I was looking at something in a store window the other day and I said to myself, Allie would look good in that! FHF: Speaking of real characters, when Allie and Johnny (Sarah Jean’s parents) break up, that hit me out of nowhere. I felt a little upset by it—it couldn’t possibly happen to them, not after all these years.

KKG: I use to hear people say things like, “Let the characters decide what they want to do,” and I would say, “How interesting!” while thinking “What a precious bunch of crap that is.” But guess what? Johnny didn’t want to be in this book. I had romantic plans for just about everybody in the book, and I wasn’t planning on Johnny walking out, but he made it clear as I was writing that he wasn’t part of this story. It was a surprise to me too, but it definitely works.

FHF: And my attention keeps walking right back to Sarah Jean, because no matter how well things seem to be going for her life is completely messed up. Does she want to be with Bobby Lee or Greg the drummer?  Are her record sales being sabotaged or are they really being reported correctly?  In the background, her mother’s old flame shows up and is he really Sarah Jean’s biological father… KKG: By the end, Sarah Jean takes control of her life. She makes some hard decisions, but she knows what she has to do. FHF: That message rings true in the music, in the songs that Sarah Jean sings and the lyrics that we get to read—or sing along with in our minds. The music really is the unifying factor, even when the characters have their disputes. The music keeps them together; it makes them a family. KKG: In my life, music has been a way of creating a family. Now I have a lovely family: my son, daughter-in-law, step-kids, and fiancé; my parents are still around; my brothers and I get along. But you find your “heart family” in additional places. For me I found them through playing music—people I’ve sung harmony with, people I’ve played really bad music with. The Rock Bottom Remainders have been together for 15 years! We’re like a family now, and we have raised almost $2 million for charity. (To read and hear more about the Rock Bottom Remainders, see Kathi’s web site for “Don’t Quit Your Day Job” Records at http://www.dqydj.com/kgoldmar.htm. or the Remainders’ official site: www.rockbottomremainders.com .) FHF: So what’s next? KKG: There is a sequel to “Shoes” and I’m writing it now. It’s the story of (Sarah Jean’s son) Little Otis Ray at age 12. He’s on the road with Bobby Lee as a harmonica player in his band. There are things that Otis Ray doesn’t know about Bobby Lee, which makes the story interesting. As I write, I get to hang out with this really cool (if imaginary) 12-year-old. FHF: We look forward to reading the sequel and talking about it when it comes out. So let’s get this straight: you sing and perform in bands, you write songs, and you write books… and you’re having the time of your life. Right? KKG: Plus I have a job—actually a couple. My main job is producing a radio show, “West Coast Live,” (www.wcl.org), which is a two-hour show on Saturday mornings in front of a live audience. And I also do author liaison work for several different charity events. I seem to have a talent for getting authors to show up and behave.

FHF: And sing on key…