“I've been asked a number of times why I bother with fiction when real life — especially for climbers — can be so extraordinary in and of itself. It's a question I never gave much thought to as the answer always seemed self-evident to me: fiction is a better medium for the part of the truth that matters, the part we as humans really care about.” - Chris Kalman
Kalman is a rare bird in climbing literature, primarily because he actually writes literature. His repertoire includes short stories, long stories, poetry, reportage, and even stage plays (which you can read in SJ 324).
Today, we chat with Kalman about his play, Shillelagh, in the latest issue of Summit Journal, which was accompanied by artwork from Molly Mundy.
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Chris Kalman is a father, husband, dog dad, nurse, and once upon a time, a dirtbag. He lives in Flagstaff Arizona where the choss and the (lack of) crowds are equally good. He has both writing and climbing accomplishments he is proud of, but undoubtedly, being a dad has been the highlight of his life thus far. He's published three books: Dammed If You Don’t, winner of the 2021 Banff Mountain Fiction & Poetry Award, As Above, So Below, and The Index Town Walls, a guidebook for the granite walls of Index, Washington.
You can follow him on Instagram @climbwritekalman
“Why I Bother With Fiction”: Q&A with Chris Kalman
Summit Journal: Your life has been described as Kerouac-esque — presumably meaning itinerant, mad to live, perhaps solipsistic (in younger years) to some extent. Would you agree with this characterization? (If yes, was he an influence on you as a writer?).
Chris Kalman: I think the funniest part of that question is the thought that anyone has described my life at all… lol. I had to click the link and see what the heck you were even talking about. But yeah, guilty.
I read On The Road during a college semester in Costa Rica. My girlfriend had dumped me, I was living in a bungalow in Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui during the rainy season, tearing through books procured at a local used bookstore. For sure, it influenced me. I became one of these pretty cringey suburban youths who suddenly wanted nothing more than to hitchhike, ride trains, eat out of dumpsters, and maybe drink a little bit too much.
I’m aware that’s fraught and problematic — I wouldn’t even argue with that characterization. At the same time, I have absolutely zero regrets about that time in my life; problematic or not. As for my writing, I know he influenced some earlier unpublished stuff for sure, but not really anything in print that I can think of… but of course, any influence leaks into your work in some way, shape, or form.
I know this answer is already long, but I think it’s worth mentioning that my Kerouac dreams and my dirtbag climber / free soloist dreams came and went concurrently for me. Again, I have no regrets about the time in my life they occupied, but I’m glad I moved on to more boring conventional things. I also don’t really differentiate between the two; dirtbagging and hoboing are just different manifestations of the same underlying desire to not waste your entire life on materialism and the suburban American dream.
SJ: If I have your timeline correct, you moved to Colorado in 2007 (to work trails at RMNP), and that coincided with climbing and publishing more. What was the connection between those two outlets?
CK: I had been climbing for 5-6 years already when I moved to Estes Park, but only bouldering and sport climbing (mostly in a gym). Through all of college in southern Maryland, I had to drive two hours to the nearest toproping, five to the nearest good bouldering, and seven to the nearest good sport climbing. The access to climbing in Estes was just insane, and for the first time, I could really actually climb as much or as little as I wanted to, which was a huge relief.
Writing, though, really remained just a fun side-hobby, and I was still highly skeptical of both publishing and writing about climbing. I had been writing all my life basically, and intentionally didn’t share it because I didn’t want my work to be influenced by other people. And I didn’t write about climbing, by and large, because I was most drawn to literary works. The only writing I ever saw about climbing was magazine fodder and nonfiction, and I didn’t have much interest in either, from a literary perspective.
Kalman on a recent new route of his in the chossy sandland of Sedona, AZ. / Photo: Nelson Klein
SJ: Did you start with creative writing?
CK: Yeah, I started writing short stories (basically plagiarisms of things I read and liked, like My Side of the Mountain) in elementary school. I was fiercely serious about writing pretty terrible poetry all through high school. In college, it was still mostly poetry, but I started branching out into essays and prose more.
I published my first climbing article in Urban Climber in 2007, the year I graduated college. After that, the length of climbs and written works pretty much went up in parallel for me. I have often wondered if that is a mere coincidence, or something else.
I wrote my first full manuscript (never to be seen by the light of day) while living on a pot farm in Southern Oregon and trying not to be a climber because I felt climbing had been somewhat responsible for the collapse of my second real relationship. That was about 2010. Climbing made only the briefest of cameos in that story, which was par for the course for my fiction writing at the time.
SJ: In Summit Journal 324, you share a scene from your play titled Shillelagh, and the story is bookended by an Irish folk song, Arthur McBride (which references shillelaghs, a wooden walking stick or cudgel associated with Irish folklore, and the song itself is also spoken about within the play too). Throughout the scene, there is a circling and layering of themes from the song. One interpretation is that the play is a modern instantiation of Arthur McBride — one of the protagonists is named Arthur, after all. Would you say that’s accurate?
CK: I wrote this piece shortly after the death of a semi-prominent figure in the climbing community that appeared to me, from the outside, to have been utterly pointless and relatively predictable.
There’s a whole swath of climbers like this guy who are relatively talented but nothing earth-shattering, breaking into the sponsorship sphere, pushing the risk since they don’t have the prowess to push the grades, who eventually just die. I hate it. It feels predictable and tragic.
Maybe it hits too close to home because I was of this ilk for most of my mid-twenties, and it’s just dumb luck that I’m still alive today. Anyway, I was feeling moody on an airplane, listening to Arthur McBride (the Andy Irvine / Paul Brady version) and just thinking “man, climbing is like war.” And then this little screenplay poured out over the next couple hours.
That’s how writing — at least the writing I like — typically happens for me. It’s not like I sat down and thought, “huh, I’ve never written a screenplay, I really should try that.” I just have an idea or a feeling, and words start flowing out, and they take on whatever form feels right at the time. I don’t even read screenplays. It was just a random instinct I had that that was the proper way to tell this story, so I went with it.
I actually wrote multiple non-screenplay versions later when Michael Levy and I were working through the piece, which he roundly rejected (and I agree with him, they weren’t as good).
An early sketch for the art that accompanies Kalman’s play, Shillelagh, in SJ 324. / Artwork: Molly Mundy
SJ: In one exchange between the two protagonists, Brady says to Arthur: “You know, the ones that get me are the ones that weren't out there pushing the limits. Like Martin's mom. That's a tragedy. People like Alan where you can see it coming-that's not a tragedy, that's just business as usual.” What is tragedy to you?
CK: Look, I’m aware that tragedy has a technical meaning… especially in Grecian play. Like, half of the stuff in Isn’t it Ironic isn’t actually irony — that sort of thing. But here, I wanted Brady and Arthur to bandy that term around the way people usually do — as a proxy for deep, deep sadness.
And in that sense, I do think I’m like Brady here. The ones you can see coming make me more angry than sad. A good friend of mine lost his mom in an anchor cleaning and lowering accident. That’s just devastating. Like, totally senseless. Nothing can be derived from that loss. You know? What’s the learning? Where do we go from there?
SJ: The conversation seems like it could have taken place 100 years ago, or 50 years ago, just as it does today. Have we gotten anywhere new in our discussion of life and loss and our relationship to the mountains (and each other) when it comes to climbing?
This may be some half-baked pop anthropology BS, but it seems to me that humans evolved to survive tigers in the bushes. We’re made for fight and flight, and those who fought hardest or flew fastest likely had an evolutionary benefit bestowed upon them.
I think the entire thrust of Western civilization has been, to some degree, the eradication of those tigers. It is a culture of comfort. The suburbs, the minivan, air conditioning, fast food, etc. But society has evolved much more quickly than our nervous systems. Humans still have this innate need to feel… something. Anything intense and terrifying and life-or-death-y. And the more we clamp down on those experiences as a society, the more they squeeze out in strange and aberrant ways like climbing.
Maybe 100 years ago it was challenging someone to a dual. Maybe 50 years ago it was drunk driving. Who knows. But in general, I agree with you that the conversation of “what a pointless and tragic way to die” is probably an old one. On the other hand, so is the “what a pointless and tragic way to live” convo. And really, these are probably just two sides of the same coin, yin and yang, peas in a pod.
SJ: Thanks for chatting with us! Are you working on any other creative writing you’d like to share?
CK: Ha! Nope, not even a little bit. Sure, various ideas bump around in the old noggin a bit. And I do like the process of working with a handful of editors I’ve gotten to know over the years. But I’m a newish dad, and a new nurse, and I don’t even have time to climb any more much less write about climbing… and that’s one thing I can say for certain — I’ve never liked writing more than climbing. So if I’ve got any free time at all, it’s got to be climbing for me. (This Q+A notwithstanding).
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Feature Image: Chris Kalman high on a wall in his happy place: Cochamó Valley, Chile. / Photo: Megan Kelly