Books
Something About Alaska
A Novel For Young Adults
Something About Alaska (MidnightSun Publishing) is the debut novel from South Australian author J.A. Cooper.
Nearing 15, Zac Greene travels to Alaska to re-connect with the father he’s only ever known from a distance. But Zac’s dad is a lone wolf – a wounded soul who’d rather drown his regrets in a bottle of bourbon than confront the mistakes of his past. As Zac struggles to earn his father’s approval, things spiral out of control forcing Zac to take his chances with the Alaskan winter.
In Review
Behind The Story
When I was 21, I was lucky enough to spend 3 months in Alaska working for a man who ran sled dogs for tourists. I’d previously travelled around the world and was looking for my next adventure. My brother (who had been planning to go to Alaska to climb Mt McKinley) had this guy’s contact details and passed them on to me. The next thing I knew, I’d arranged to head over there and rent a cabin and work with the dogs. I’d originally planned to stay a year, but I met my wife just months before leaving and couldn’t bear to be away from her that long!
At the time, I had no ambition of becoming a writer, but I actually wrote every day in a journal. At the end of each week, I’d bundle up the pages and post them back to my girlfriend (now my wife) in Australia. I think that helped cement a lot of memories in place, so when I came to write a short story about dog sledding (ten years later), the atmosphere of the place just seemed to bubble up to the surface.
The short story began as an exercise in trying to remember what it’s like to go out in minus 30 degrees to harness up a team of dogs and go mushing. The more I wrote, the more details started to resurface. Soon, the voice of the narrator started to take over – kind of an American version of myself at 14, but with undertones of a brooding, strained father-son relationship beneath the surface. So the setting suggested the characters, and the characters drove the story, as they generally do.
Encouraged by one of my writing lecturers to develop the story into a novel, the end result was Something About Alaska. It only took another ten years (and a ton of research) to make it fit for publication! Alaska gave me an amazing setting for an adventure story, and a sense of what it’s like to feel out of place. Developing the characters and events in the story took me way beyond anything I've personally experienced, which is part of the challenge and the joy of writing. It's also at the heart of why we read. I hope the book takes you on a similar adventure, returning you to the here and now with a new perspective on life.
J.A. Cooper
