A conversation about ‘What Happens in Montana’ with author Kim McCollum

By Jen Clancey DIGITAL PRODUCER

Writer Kim McCollum has lived in Bozeman for eight years, the longest she’s ever lived in one place. It should come to no surprise then, that her longtime home inspired a book, which came out at the end of January. Her debut as a published novelist, “What Happens in Montana” is a historical fiction piece about a group of women that find themselves at a haunted hot spring retreat.

McCollum attended Barnard College in New York and studied the Japanese language before working on Wall Street. Eventually McCollum pursued writing, starting two different books that merged into one: “What Happens in Montana.” Since its release, the book has been awarded the Firebird Book Award in the New Fiction and Paranormal categories. The International Firebird Book Awards celebrate work from writers of all backgrounds and donate author’s entry fees to make families in homeless shelters feel more at home.

Explore Big Sky met with McCollum at the Coffee Pot in Four Corners to talk about this new chapter in her career. Every table in the establishment was taken, so the conversation happened outside, sitting on the edge of the cafe’s wood porch, facing U.S. Highway 191. On an unusually warm winter day in Montana, McCollum told EBS about how her own life experiences and historical research across the state helped her create “What Happens in Montana.”  

Responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Explore Big Sky: Where are you from originally?

Kim McCollum: Oh, gosh, that’s a good question. I don’t have an original link, because I’ve moved every 10 years now and Montana is the longest I’ve lived anywhere. Before that it was New York City for eight years. I was born north of New York. And then I lived in California. Massachusetts, New Jersey. I lived in Germany, in Japan for a little while.

My parents divorced when we were little. My mom didn’t know what she wanted to do, and we just moved around… people are always like, ‘Oh, that’s so sad.’ I’m like, ‘No, it’s great. You get to meet new people.’ I still have friends that I’ve kind of picked up all along the way. I get to see new places. 

EBS: That’s awesome. And when did you start, “What happens in Montana?”

KM: It was originally two different books. I think it’s been over eight years now that I decided I wanted it. Well, I knew I wanted to write a book.

So I started writing it. I had a book about my girlfriends who I had … met when our babies were babies at a Mommy and Me playgroup in Las Vegas. We’ve stayed friends even though we’ve moved away, and we get together every couple years. Our kids went off to college, and we had a big reunion. And I thought well, that’d be a fun story to write about, you know, coming to Montana.

And then I started [a] historical fiction [book]. I also started getting my MFA at Harvard. But then I ended up doing two years of it and found a publisher and got my book published and was too busy … I met great people. I’m glad I did it. 

When I saw the hot springs there was a detour. I was like, wow—it’s this huge stucco building. It looks really majestic and also very out of place … it had this rounded Mission-style roof. I asked my husband who’s been here 30 years, I’m like, ‘What is that?’ And he told me … ‘That’s supposedly haunted and it’s only partially fixed.’ I thought, what a fun place for reunion for these girlfriends? Now that would make it a lot more exciting. And then partially into that, I was like, ‘Wait, there’s a ghost, the ghost can tell her story.’ And that was the historical fiction I had been working on. So it all kind of came together. And it made it a little more fun because it has that historical fiction twist to it. 

EBS: Did you ever end up going there? 

KM: I stayed there for one night. I have a girlfriend who was there years ago and she said. ‘Wait, you stayed there by yourself?’ It was a little creepy.

Yeah, not 100% sure I believe in ghosts. But if there are, I’m pretty sure they might be there.

So I snuck over here … There’s this huge deck with like 20 rocking chairs that just sit there empty. And then I went and peeked in the window and it’s still beautiful. And the rugs are still there, the marble check-in counter. And there was opera music playing and there was no one around. I don’t know why it  was playing. It was really creepy … I was glad it was only one night.

EBS: So, the Mommy And Me friends that you met in Las Vegas, did they inspire the characters in your book? 

KM: Absolutely… So I changed all the backstories and stuff. But whenever I wanted to write dialogue, I would just think, what would [my friend] say right now in this scene, and it would pop right into my head. 

I’ve been asked to give tips on some podcasts and things that I’ve done for writers. And that’s the one that people say they really enjoy. If you’re stuck on writing dialogue, either picture a friend, or—Maude is one of the characters in my book, and she’s almost 80 and I would often think of Betty White. Because I love Betty White and I wanted a fun, spunky character … So it works not just with friends, but with celebrities, too. 

EBS: Cool. I was going to ask about Maude. I was reading a lot about the background of the book. Maude sounds like a really key character.

KM: She is, I would say, the main character, the main protagonist. Some of my favorite books are “Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine,” or, “A Man Called Ove.” They’re these quirky characters who are kind of isolated, and I love that. So that’s kind of who Maude is. Her best friends are the dog and the ghost. She doesn’t really want to deal with real people. And she just tells it like it is. And she’s, I hope, kind of funny and quirky … She’s the chef. She’s been there for 30 years longer than the owners who keep coming in, trying to fix it up and they don’t get it done. 

EBS: It sounds like you were inspired by the hot springs with the ghost story. But what made you add that into this book?

KM: The idea that there was a ghost, I thought, was really fun and really intriguing. When I stayed there, I found out they thought she was a prostitute and she was murdered there. That’s all they know of her backstory. So when I was doing research about homesteading in Montana, [I learned that] 18% of Montana’s original homesteaders were single women, often with children. 

They would come on the train until the late 1800s while 320 acres was yours for free if you could farm it for five years. And often they were teachers, so they had some income. And they would buy these homestead kits with all the wood cut already to build a 12-by-12. So I went out to the Museum of the Rockies, they have one there, … Imagine what it would be like to live there … How would you do that as a single woman?

The most famous single woman was named Maddy Kramer, and she was a writer. She came from Virginia, I believe it was where she was an editor. And she came out and she started writing for the Northern Railway Bulletin. And that’s how women learned this idea to go west. She was single and she brought her eight-year-old son. And she wrote about it. That was before the drought, so farming was easy, she said, because you didn’t have to irrigate. 

A bunch of women were often fleeing alcoholic husbands or bad situations, or they weren’t married, or they were pregnant out of wedlock, which is what happened with my character. And they come out west to be free.

EBS: So for your research, where else did it take you?

KM: For a while I thought [the mom] was going to go to jail. So I went to Deer Lodge to visit the [Montana State] Prison. I went and visited the underground brothel and the underground network up in Havre. I toured the brothel in Butte. My son played hockey so I was all over the state. 

EBS: What made Montana or maybe even southwest Montana appeal to you as the setting for this book?

KM: It’s so different, you know I grew up mostly on the East Coast. I can hardly imagine anything more different … You know, Montana, there’s just something special. And I’ve lived in so many places. I feel so qualified to say that it’s just the best. The people here are so genuine and so great. And the outdoor lifestyle …  you really feel like you’re part of nature when you’re here more than anywhere else I’ve ever lived. 

EBS: What’s next for your writing?

KM: My next one, I’m trying to do the “Eleanor Oliphant” type thing where she’s a very quirky character. I just love her though. At first you don’t, she’s initially an unlikable character. And I’ve had a few people read my first chapter, and they’re like, ‘She’s very unlikable. Is that what you are going for?’ [But] that’s exactly what it’s about. It’s really about the insidious nature of abuse, the emotional abuse, so she is the way she is because her husband was emotionally abusive, but she doesn’t even realize that she doesn’t recognize. It just happens. It’s a slow, slow thing that happens. And she ends up isolated and very rigid in her thinking. And it’s because of this abuse that she doesn’t recognize until later. 

EBS: I’m looking forward to reading that. 
KM: Oh thank you.