From his home in Vancouver, Daniel Kalla has the solution for keeping the Olympic high going: Releasing his next book, Of Flesh and Blood, April 13th.
Although, Daniel Kalla, an ER doc by day, is primarily known for his medical thrillers with favourable comparisons to Robin Cook, Michael Crichton and John Grisham, he tells me that Of Flesh and Blood is a departure for him. But, if you look at his earlier interviews, as early as 2006, you'll find mention of this novel fighting to come out. And maybe it's in his blood because the book comes with a century of personal family history, including ancestors escaping the Nazis in Prague and then fleeing the Soviets during the Hungarian Revolution.
Combining his experience of our most intimate ER moments with a deep family inheritance, Of Flesh and Blood promises to be nothing short of an explosive epic.
Here's the blurb:
A hundred years ago, Dr. Evan McGrath realized his dream of establishing a hospital in the Pacific Northwest that would never turn away a patient in need. But the personal cost was steep. Evan lost the love of his life while making a powerful enemy of the hospital's financier, Marshall Alfredson.
Today, the Alfredson Medical Center is internationally renowned for its care. The two founding families remain faithful to Evan's vision, but their history is clouded by forbidden love, conflict and betrayal. And crisis is besieging the Alfredson. A decision by Dr. Tyler McGrath, a childhood cancer specialist, leaves a young patient's family shattered. Dr. Jill Laidlaw, Tyler's wife, is a researcher poised to offer fresh hope to MS victims--including a former Presidential frontrunner--until rumors of research fraud endanger her career. And in the face of temptation and career demands, Tyler and Jill are drifting apart.
Devastating family secrets, doomed relationships and present-day medical disasters merge to threaten not only the Alfredsons and McGraths but the legendary hospital itself.
Daniel Kalla's earlier novel Blood Lies garnered a starred Publisher's Weekly review, saying that "Kalla has a gift rare in the thriller field for creating sympathetic characters."
A host of bestselling authors have offered up compelling jacket copy. Here's a few:
"Of Flesh And Blood is a multilayered story of the human side of medicine, told with a physician's authority and an irresistible sense of drama. Daniel Kalla deftly portrays the triumph and heartbreak of life-or-death matters." --Susan Wiggs, New York Times bestselling author
"A family saga set in the world of medicine, it's full of twists and turns and long-brewing feuds. Daniel Kalla, a worthy successor of Robin Cook, shows as deft a hand in penning this compelling tale as he no doubt does in the operating room." --Eileen Goudge, New York Times Bestselling Author
"Daniel Kalla has the medical drama sewn up in Of Flesh And Blood: high voltage suspense and rich characters, many of whom feel like they live next door to you." --Ridley Pearson, New York Times bestselling author
Still wondering if this book is thrilling enough for you? Read the first chapter on his website www.danielkalla.com, you won't be disappointed.
But hold on, because Daniel Kalla agreed to an interview, and I had the chance to ask him questions, which he qualified shouldn't have anything to do with rashes in hard to reach places.
So, thanks Daniel! And I didn't even have to wait five hours to talk to you!
Just so that I understand, I want to ask about this 'departure' business. Of Flesh and Blood opens with a classic thriller scene, and Nelson DeMille, a New York Times bestselling author said this about your novel, Rage Therapy.
"Rage Therapy, is a taut psychological thriller that will pull you into a world of sexual deviancy, murder, and mind games. A very good read."
It strikes me that your thrillers are all character driven with twists and turns. So what makes Of Flesh and Blood a departure?
Good point. Character is essential to any novel, regardless of genre, especially thrillers. However, Of Flesh And Blood, is drawn on a bigger canvas--in terms of the size of the cast and its multigenerational story. The narrative fluctuates between the hospital's present-day crises and the turn-of-the-twentieth century story of its birth. The multiple protagonists are all tied together by blood and or their association with this fictional Mayo Clinic-like hospital, the Alfredson, which I like to think becomes more than just a setting for the novel.
I understand that publisher marketing groups like to keep their authors in categories - you write science-based medical thrillers - what was it like when you put forward a family saga.
My editor, Natalia Aponte, and my publisher, Tom Doherty, at Tor-Forge, have been incredibly supportive from the outset. When I suggested that no one had tackled the kind of "industry sagas" such as Airport and Hotel that writers like Arthur Hailey had mastered a generation ago, they gave me carte blanche to try my hand at it. And I don't think they have been disappointed with the result.
Besides everyone, who do you want to pick up Of Flesh and Blood? Who is sure to love it?
I consciously wrote this book with women readers in mind. This is a family-based story with numerous strong female protagonists. I come from a very matriarchal family that boasts several medical pioneers--including my mother who was one of only six or seven women in her medical school class in London--and I wanted to capture their spirit in this novel.
Given that Of Flesh and Blood is epic, is it possible for you to pick out the key protagonist? And if so, what's he/she about? What drives him/her? And what gets in their way?
There's one character, who I never even envisioned in the outline, who became near and dear to my heart: Dot Alfredson. She is the ninety-year-old granddaughter of the hospital's original financier, Marshall Alfredson. Spunky and eccentric as hell--she collects erotica memorabilia in her classic Seattle mansion largely to shock her relatives--she is also the keeper of the family secrets... and the Alfredson hides some doozies! I introduced her, originally, as device for bridging between the past and the present and to "narrate" the family history. However, the verbal cat-and-mouse game that she plays with her less-than-honest niece (who feigns academic interest in the hospital) became the pivotal point in the resolution to the central crisis facing the hospital, its potential sale and or closure. On the surface, Dot appears to be a vain manipulative person, but she turns out to be a much deeper and more complex character.
I'm still amazed that you're able to have a full-time author output while working as an ER doctor. How do you move your ideas from the ER to the page?
I'm about as unstructured as they come. I start from bits and scraps of notes and when I get into a story I just need to get to a computer. I write with a fast and furious pace. As an ER doc, I'm used to being under the gun, and that's how I write. Once the ideas become clear and the story appears to me, it tends to flow very quickly. Some of my friends describe it as my crack habit because I just haven't been able to stop. For me it's the big release, I think our circumstances in the emergency room in the last five ten years have grown more challenging with increased volumes and son, but for me writing is my little escape. It still feels like playing.
The ER is a place where you see people at their best and worst, how much of this makes it into your writing?
I love the setting of the emergency, I love that the interactions are brief or sometimes intense and it just suits my attention deficit personality.
In an average workday, I meet 25 or 30 new people that sometimes tell me things that they haven't told their family about. That gives me great exposure and great fodder for developing characters. Doctors are exposed to a side of humanity that other people don't see. We're invited into people's personal lives and into situations that don't come up in other careers. There's an understood confidentiality; people open up to us in a way that's unique.
Many authors are not extroverts and yet you have had appearances on national TV and Radio programs. Do you enjoy the spotlight, or is something you feel you need to do to be successful?
I enjoy a good interview, whether in print or on TV. However, I don't really consider myself an extrovert. But it's a competitive marketplace out there. And I am told that any media attention, even negative, is a boost for the book. I was told very early on that an author has to be the best publicist for his or her book, and I have taken that to heart.
Do you think you'll every consider writing full time or does one career feed the other?
I am fortunate enough to love both of my jobs. Besides, leaving the emergency room is not an economic option right now, though in general, emergency medicine is a career for a younger individual. I'm 43, and there's a big physical difference from when I was 31. One day, I hope that I can transition toward more full-time writing. In the meantime, I am enjoying both careers.
What's next for Daniel Kalla? Is it back to what you call professional alarmism, with high concept plots regarding Pandemics and Super Bugs? Or is it more rooting about in the family histories? Or both?
I am not sure. I have an idea of a historical novel that I have been dying to write. But I'm also itching to return to the world of thrillers and mysteries. I never strayed that far from my thriller routes. I tossed in a couple of major twists into Of Flesh And Blood, but I am hankering to throw the whole world into peril from some infectious threat or corporate conspiracy!
Thanks, Daniel, it's nice to have a chance to probe a doctor for once rather than the other way around.
Born, raised, and still residing in Vancouver, Kalla spends his days (and sometimes nights) working as an ER Physician in an urban teaching hospital.
He has written five science thrillers and or medical mysteries, delving into themes and topics as diverse as superbugs, drug addiction, prions, DNA evidence, pandemics and patient abuse. His books have been translated into ten languages, and Pandemic and Resistance have been optioned for feature films.
Daniel is married and the proud father of two girls in a home predominated by the XX chromosome (even his beloved Labrador retriever, Lola, is female.)
Michael F Stewart is the author of several graphic novels published by Oxford University Press Canada. 24 BONES is his debut supernatural thriller. His next novel, HURAKAN, will be released in early 2010. Michael lives and writes in Ottawa, Canada.
