The Band: A cover band in Appalachia. A valley covered in fog. A brutal end you won’t see coming.
Take a look inside The Band and learn what inspired it.
The Band is a first for me in many areas, but one way in particular is that I spent a lot of effort and energy on the interior of the novel. I wanted this book to look special and uniquely good, not just read like it. To this end, I had my wonderful wife Juliana draw illustrations for the chapter headings. I spent time painstakingly deciding on the font and the layout. All of this to give the reader (you!) a special experience from front cover to back.
I have two reasons for this focus and two things which make this book different from the others:
1) This story is about connecting with the physical. Away from screens, away from distractions, what can you discover? What does it look like and sound like? What else is there to find? It was a major theme as I was writing the story, and this carried over to the physical book itself.
2) I wrote this book for my wife and filled it with our adventures. (Buried underneath the thrills, chills, murders, and even under the romance, this book is filled with our memories and inspired by our travels so far.) It only made sense to involve her in the process — from little decisions about font to big choices about the illustrations, all drawn by her.
Below, you can find a slideshow: some pictures from our West Virginia trip which inspired this book. Below that, take a sneak peek inside the physical book — some of the illustrations and some of the cool details. If you read a 2nd or even 3rd time, you’ll find even more. For now, enjoy this look inside The Band. I can’t wait to share this with you, however you might read it, and I just know you’re going to love what you find.
A Sneak Peak Inside The Band
I went for her, after all. She lit a match and pressed it to my soul. Until the world caught fire, too. All our hopes and dreams and we were choking on the ash. Together, at least. Together.
When I was running steady with the band, it felt like a matter of time ‘til the world burnt down around us. I never thought it’d be there — the hills of West Virginia. But I did always hope it’d be with her. When I was with the band — with her — nothing else existed. I’d play the game, ignore reality as long as I could. It’d have to punch me dead in the face, fist closed, and throw me off a bridge into the rocky, white rapids turning red.
I was starting to fall asleep. But I couldn’t help but wonder — and my dreams thought the same — why our landlady was watching us from the stairs. Never saying a word.
I tried not to think of my own family in Tennessee or what I’d left behind and run away from. On certain days, it was easy to pretend we’d all come from nothing, we held no guilt, and we were running as free as prairie horses. But sometimes, in the dark, the memories crept up and I thought about my mom, my brother, and the plaster walls marked by children screaming.
Someone in Oakville had killed and tried to kill again. Perhaps more terrifying, it seemed to be random. And worst of all, more than likely, it wasn’t over yet.
But we all came from somewhere. And we all ran from something. We hoped we might find something better. In Oakville, though, I felt a growing fear — creeping up my spine like crooked fingers — and every morning it got worse and worse. Not everyone could make it out alive. We were running face-first into tragedy. We were on a collision course with death.
David Kummer 