Bestselling author Allen Eskens visits Marshalltown Public Library Monday
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Allen Eskens told the story of how he went from a below average student who believed he was destined to hang drywall for a living to an accomplished attorney and, eventually, a bestselling mystery author during an event at the Marshalltown Public Library Monday night promoting his latest book, the All Iowa Reads selection "The Quiet Librarian."
The Missouri native who now lives in Minnesota with his wife began by thanking all of the teachers in the sizable audience and apologizing on behalf of students like himself. Eskens has now written a total of 11 novels with a 12th on the way, and his 2014 debut "The Life We Bury" was a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel and the winner of the Barry Award for Best Paperback Original and the Left Coast Award for Best First Novel.
Eskens recounted that despite his educational mediocrity -- and the fact that he did not grow up with a strong interest in reading or literature -- he found solace in performing in school plays, including a production of "Oklahoma." Theater, in turn, motivated him to at least keep passing grades, but it was a high school English assignment to write a short story that set him on the path he's been pursuing ever since. His submission, a western titled "The Farthest Horizon," impressed his teacher so much that she asked him if he'd ever tried his hand at being published.
A desire to stay involved in theater and a successful ACT score led Eskens to the University of Iowa, and after an early wake-up call (receiving an F on a paper about "Othello,") he began to take his studies more seriously, becoming an honor student and making the Dean's List. He later transferred to the University of Minnesota, earned a degree in journalism and then studied law at Hamline University.
"I never had a dream of being a lawyer. I just wanted to see if I could do it. I get into law school, and I take to it like a duck to water," he said.
As it turned out, he continued to excel, winning awards for his legal writing and passing the bar exam on his first try. Once he had started a job working for a judge, however, he realized something was missing: scratching the creative itch he had felt as a teenager when he wrote his first short story.
He spent 20 years writing his first novel length manuscript, then set it aside to pursue another. The process of seeking out agents and publishers came with 150 rejections, but finally, he broke through with an agent who was in her first day on the job after her predecessor had told him no. "The Life We Bury" was released to positive reviews in 2014, and at 51 years old, Eskens had achieved a lifelong dream of becoming a published author.
When he was nominated for the Edgar Award, he attended an awards gala in New York City alongside the legendary Stephen King, and Eskens ended up traveling to the Big Apple three times that year. "The Life We Bury" became a bestseller in 2016.
Since then, he has written sequels with the characters he created, including Joe Talbert, detective Max Rupert and Boady Sanden, but "The Quiet Librarian" is a standalone with new characters. Inspired by the film "The Reader," the titular character is a middle-aged woman with a secret -- in this case, she is living under a false name in the U.S. due to her past involvement in the Bosnian War, a bitter conflict that unfolded in the 1990s amidst the collapse of Yugoslavia.
With assistance from members of the Bosnian refugee community in Minnesota and drawing from their real-life experiences, Eskens set out to create a historically accurate story highlighting the brutality of the war between the Bosniaks and Serbs. "The Quiet Librarian" won the Minnesota Book Award this year.
"It's a book I'm very proud of. It was a journey to write. There are some hard parts to read, but I felt like the reader needed to at least walk through some of the bad parts," he said.
His next book is titled "The Loyal Daughter" and, in a similar vein, centers around the Hmong refugee community in the Twin Cities and their past experiences as part of the U.S. government's secret war in Laos during the Vietnam conflict. It will be released in February of 2027.
"It was harder to understand the Hmong culture than the Bosnian Muslim culture, but it has been fascinating to do this. Every time I write a novel, I want to try and push myself down some new path and try something new and expand, and I think this is a very logical expansion," he said.
During a Q&A with the audience, Eskens cited Dennis Lehane (specifically, "Mystic River"), "To Kill a Mockingbird" and the works of Barbara Kingsolver as some of his biggest literary influences.
Contact Robert Maharry at (641) 753-6611 ext. 255 or rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.