A significant portion of my horror novel “The Nawie” takes place in Minnesota, primarily Minneapolis; at least 60% I would estimate. The rest of the time we are in Poland; which I will cover in my next post. To say that I had a bit of a head start in my research of Minnesota would be an understatement, as I spent the first 23 years of my life there. Some might even wonder how much I would need to research given that fact. Well, the heart of the story takes place in 1980, and as I was only 5 years old for all but 5 days of that year, my memory is slightly hazy. What I do remember from that year, is seeing “The Shining” at a drive-in movie theater with my dad, who apparently thought it was an apt decision to let me see. I’ll say this, without the terror and horror I felt seeing that film, and the immense influence it had on me and my love for horror films, I probably wouldn’t have written this book. So, thanks dad!
Some of the things I wrote from my memory:
The house the main characters, Jack and Marcelina, live in is modeled after the house I grew up in on 36th & Dupont Ave in North Minneapolis. So, I am intimately familiar with their house, the neighborhood and the nearby parks.
The cabin Jack and his father build is based on some faint memories I have of being up at my dad’s friends Steve and Mody’s cabin up in Carlton County, MN on the Kettle River when I was maybe 7 or 8 years old.
Folwell Park in North Minneapolis is the park me and best friends Richie and Dougie; the twins, played at growing up. The park plays a small role in the book, the twins play a much larger part.
There are a host of other locations visited or mentioned in the book that I had either never been to, or even heard of, and this is where most of my research came in. Music plays a vital role in the book (which will have its own post), and in the lives of Marcelina and Jack, so there were a number of music venues and record shops mentioned that I had to investigate.
Jay’s Longhorn Bar – this was the seminal spot for punk & new wave/no wave bands to play at in the late 70’s. Prior
to Jay’s, most venues in town only booked cover bands or folk music. Local bands like The Suicide Commandos, The Suburbs, Flamingo, Husker Du and The Replacements finally had a home to play their original music. Jay’s quickly became a hot spot, not only in Minneapolis, but around the world, attracting acts like The Police, The B-52’s, Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop and The Talking Heads. This setlist is from an Iggy Pop concert featured in the novel:
Electric Fetus –
this record/music store has been in existence since 1968 and is still a popular fixture in the community. It was a huge gathering spot for local music lovers and musicians alike. Doug, one of the main characters in “The Nawie” works at Electric Fetus.
Another very popular music store back in the 70’s was Oar Folkjokeopus. From the mid-70’s to the mid-80’s, the store was managed by Peter Jesperson, who was the founder of Twin/Tone Records, which was a record label that managed local groups The Replacements, The Suburbs and Soul Asylum.
Reading about these places was enlightening, and gave me a good context for certain settings in my book, but this was only a portion of the research. As mentioned earlier, I was at the ripe age of 5 in 1980, but my main characters are in their late 20’s. So, what were people of that age doing in Minneapolis back in 1980? What was the music scene like to see in person? What were their thoughts about what was going on politically? How did they view sex and drugs? This is where my favorite part of research came in, the interviews.
Perhaps the most helpful research I did for “The Nawie” were the interviews I conducted with people that were ‘of the age’ in 1980, people in their 20’s-30’s, and bonus points if they were living in Minnesota at the time. I talked to my parents, friends of my parents, my wife Charlotte’s family members (who were mostly in Chicago) and work associates that all fit the profile. I love to hear people’s stories to begin with, but there was a whole other level of interest knowing this knowledge I was gaining was inevitably going to seep into my novel, and the characters within. It was fascinating to see the different levels of memory people had from almost 40 years ago, and what it was that had stuck with them.
The final layer of research I tackled for the Minneapolis portion of things was in newspaper articles. I was astounded to find that the Minneapolis Star Tribune; the main publication distributed around town, had a massive and historic digital archive online. It cost a few bucks to get full access, but was worth every penny. They had scans of newspapers literally dating back to the late 1800’s. Mind-boggling! The chapters in my book are not in the standard numerical sequence, but by date and location. So, to read what most people would have been reading for their news back in the pre-internet days, was priceless information.
The most intriguing part of the newspaper headlines and articles for me, was just how important the strikes in Poland were. One after another, the top headline would detail something about the plight of the Polish workers, the strikes and their struggle for independence. I’ll cover much more about Poland in an upcoming research post dedicated solely to the country.
For extra credit, I found this handy website: https://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KMSP/ that has a historical record of what the weather was like in Minneapolis every single day, dating back to 1945. Why not go the extra mile, is what I always say.
Next up: Research for “The Nawie” – Poland
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