Author Interview & Giveaway: Laekan Zea Kemp
We are excited to welcome author, Laekan Zea Kemp, to the nest today. She's here to discuss her New Adult Historical Fiction novel, The Things They Didn't Bury and her life as an author. Be sure to check out the giveaway details at the end of this post.
Andrea @ Reading Lark: What inspired you to become a writer?
Laekan: I was always one of those kids who was constantly in my own head and I've been a perpetual daydreamer ever since--that combined with my love of reading just sort of resulted in this natural transition into writing. But it wasn't until I started college that I decided to actually study the craft and try to turn my passion into a career.
Andrea @ Reading Lark: Can you describe your novel in five words?
Laekan: How about three? Truth. Love. Family.
Andrea @ Reading Lark: What's next for you writing wise?
Laekan: Lots! Two contemporary novels—a realistic borderline thriller currently in its second round of re-writes and another New Adult novel about an epic road trip currently 30,00 words into the first draft—and a YA novel with a hint of fantasy currently being outlined.
Andrea @ Reading Lark: What are you currently reading?
Laekan: I've just started the Mortal Instruments series!!
Andrea @ Reading Lark: Where did you get the idea for this novel?
Laekan: Stories always come to me in the form of relationships, so Liliana and Diego had been floating around in my head since my junior year of High School. It wasn't until I read an article about a man being reunited with his son nearly twenties years after he’d been kidnapped by the Argentinean military and raised by one of its officers that the relationship began to really take root in a specific time and place.
Andrea @ Reading Lark: Finally for our Reading Lark tradition - What's your favorite bird? Why?
Laekan: Flamingos!! With their pink feathers and backwards knees they are the ultimate rebels of the bird world.
This or That?
- Thriller or Comedy? Comedy
- 80's music or 90's music? Oh geez! Both!
- Hugs or Kisses? Neither. I’m a big proponent of personal space and prefer to avoid anything that has the potential to prompt any kind of emotion.
- Facebook or Twitter? Though I’m a recent convert (like 4 weeks ago), Twitter definitely caters more to my affinity for strange and interesting sound bites and my obsession with even stranger and more interesting questions.
- Books or Magazines? Books of course!! But besides the obvious reasons I’d much rather read a good book than flip through page after page of airbrushed talking heads whose only purpose is to point out my own inadequacies in hopes that I’ll try and remedy them with whatever it is their selling.
About the Novel
The war took everything. Except the truth. When Liliana and her family move back to Argentina after seeking refuge in the States during La Guerra Sucia, a lifetime's worth of wondering comes to a head, reigniting the search for what really happened to her mother, one of the thousands of los desaparecidos—the disappeared.
With the help of a young Flamenco player who saw the atrocities committed by the military firsthand, Liliana not only makes the devastating discovery of what really happened to her mother but by forcing open the country's old wounds as well as her own she also learns a disturbing truth about her origins that will reconstruct the lives of the people she loves most.
Seamlessly alternating between the voices of mother and daughter—one trying to survive the rising chaos of The Dirty War and the other sifting through its aftermath, The Things They Didn’t Bury is a novel about forbidden love and family secrets.
Gripping, heartbreaking and lyrical this is not a story about war or about the secrets still buried beneath its wreckage but it is a story about the things they didn't bury, intangible and infinite—love, truth, and family.
Excerpt
Diego led Liliana through a shallow pile of leaves, the debris crackling beneath their feet and skittering across the floor. The room was dark, moonlight barely reaching the center of the dance floor and the changing streetlight outside flooding the window with pricks of green, then red. But it was enough light to see the bones of the place, the bare walls and rafters protruding from the darkness, frail like rotting stems.
A twig snapped beneath Liliana’s feet and a soft beating swooped down from the ceiling, the small grey bird dizzying out in a corner as it tried to find a way out. Liliana pressed a palm to the drumming in her chest.
“Well, this is it.”
Diego let go of Liliana’s hand, as he made his way over to the bar, disappearing into a doorway.
“No lights,” he said when he reemerged, “figures.”
But Liliana didn't need the light to find what she was looking for. Her eyes leapt from the bar, across the dance floor and to a low brick wall that gave way to a line of tall wooden tables. She stepped out into the darkness, abandoning the milky pool of light at her feet and slid into the small corner booth hidden behind the wall. The plastic seat surprisingly tepid against her legs, as if another body had just been there, sent her senses reeling.
“This is where she used to sit,” Liliana said as Diego slid in next to her.
“Who?”
“My mother.”
Diego stared at her, and Liliana could see the uncertainty in his eyes, the confusion at how she could know such a thing. But then he blinked, seeming to abandon rationality for a moment and didn't say a word.
“Why did they close this place down?”
“They closed a lot of clubs down, a lot of bars, movie theatres, opera houses.”
“But why?”
“They didn’t just get rid of the people who they thought were too subversive, but they also got rid of the places they liked to go. The arts were an easy target. There’s nothing more liberal.”
Liliana stared at him, brow furrowed. “But I don’t…”
“The thing you have to understand is that there were no rules. Their tactics didn't make sense because no one was regulating them. It was just chaos. Like a storm—you can’t ever predict its trajectory because it doesn't have one. That’s why when it’s over there are some buildings still standing and some that aren't ” Then the dryness in his voice, the inflection he used to recall facts as though he were stripping the words from the pages of a newspaper, suddenly evaporated. “I remember when I was almost ten, my mother took me to see this new animated movie from overseas. I was so excited because it was the first weekend that it was showing and I was going to see it before all of my friends did. They hadn't closed down any of the bars or clubs yet so my parents were still making good money. When we got there, the theatre was packed and the only seats left were down at the very front.
I remember I was leaning into my mother’s lap and resting my head on her purse, waiting for the lights to go down. But when they did, there was yelling coming from the theatre next to us, people screaming. We could hear it through the walls. And then there were gunshots, the thin wall between the two theatres barely muffling the sound. People started running, thinking the shots were coming from someone just a few rows below them. My mother picked me up by the arm and dragged me through the exit and around the front to the parking lot. Three people were killed. The next day it wasn't on the news, it wasn't even in the newspaper.”
Diego rose to his feet, one hand gripping his neck.
“We never knew who was responsible. We suspected the military, since it wasn't on the news, but really it didn't matter. It didn't matter whose side you were on or which side was winning. We were all afraid. Every day we were afraid of dying.”
Diego reached for Liliana’s hand, catching her thumb and gently pulling her to her feet.
“And then they took all of this away from us.”
He nodded toward the building’s empty carcass rising up around them. Then his hand slid onto Liliana’s waist, his palm resting against the arch of her hip, while the other curled into a fist, Liliana’s fingers hidden beneath his own.
“No movies, no art, no music.”
He bent his knees and Liliana leaned into his chest.
“And my mother who was made for Flamenco…she wasn't even allowed to dance.”
Then his cheek grazed her ear and they began to sway, his fingers moving from her hand to her forearm, sliding across the invisible frets along her skin. Colors unfurled in bold leaps and splashes across the bare walls and light began to swell in the dark rafters overhead as Liliana let herself slip into the fear of that moment, wondering what it would have meant during the war for them to be standing like this, so close, swaying, dancing. What would it have felt like to not be free in your own body?
She felt Diego’s jaw resting against her ear and then he whispered, “I didn't think I would ever be happy again.”
About the Author
Laekan is a writer, explorer extraordinaire, and recent transplant to sunny Florida. She grew up in the flatlands of west Texas and graduated from Texas Tech with a BA in Creative Writing.
We have TEN eBook copies of The Things They Didn't Bury up for grabs. The winner will receive a Smashwords code. Thank you, Laekan, for providing the books for the giveaway. The giveaway is open INTERNATIONALLY! In order to win you must:
* Be 18+ years old
* Fill out the Rafflecopter below
The giveaway runs from January 30 - February 6. The winner will be contacted via email on February 7.
A very interesting subject matter.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea behind the story and the South American twist.
ReplyDelete