From the Bookshelf: UM Author Frank Sennett
By: Susan Cuff
Frank Sennett had a goal when he walked out of the University of Montana’s MFA creative writing program in 1993 with a newly printed diploma. He intended to write 25 books. His then-wife had another idea.
“Why don’t you just write three good ones?” she asked.
It seemed like a reasonably sound idea, but Sennett had bills to pay and his “good” books would have to wait. Until then, he wrote anything and everything he could get paid for, from “100 Pranks for Principals” to “Groupon’s Biggest Deal.”
In the decade of the 2000s, he said in a recent interview, he was “literally like a pinball machine” with his eclectic choice of writing projects. “I’d do whatever I could sell.” Between 2000 and 2009, his catalog of books numbered at least 10.
It was a successful interim solution. The couple kept their heads above water and he’s now reached the point in his career where he can concentrate on the “good” books.
He recently produced a very good one in “Shadow State,” published in February by Crooked Lane Publishing of New York.
A Missoula native, Sennett now lives in the Chicago area, where he earned his undergraduate journalism degree at Northwestern. Now, instead of working on the second edition of “FUNdraising,” he’s working on the follow-up to “Shadow State,” a political conspiracy-laden thriller.
“Shadow State” was written as the first of a series starring Rafe Hendricks, a broken yet dedicated and patriotic hero. It’s a rapid-fire adventure set in locales as varied as Afghanistan and the desert of Fort Stockton, Texas, to Dealey Plaza in Dallas and Washington D.C.
Sennett’s personal map includes St. Patrick Hospital where he was born, four years at Hellgate High School and a trip to Pasadena, Calif., where he played trumpet at the Rose Bowl as part of the Missoula All-High School Band from Big Sky, Sentinel and Hellgate.
Attending college out of state was tempting, but financially daunting. He decided on UM and never regretted it.
He studied under UM legends Bill Kittredge and James Crumley. Office hours were often spent at the Eastgate Lounge.
As a Missoula native, Sennett knew all the good spots to hang out during his college years. Karaoke at the Milltown Bar, socializing at the Union Club, late-night food runs to the Ox or Missoula Club and Rockin’ Rudy’s just for fun. Best of all? A chocolate nut whip at Dairy Queen. No other Dairy Queen across the country serves it, but the Higgins and Strand landmark will “if you ask,” Sennett said.
“I love everything about Missoula.”
His mother, Leslie, preceded him at UM, earning an MFA in poetry in the mid-1970s with another UM great, Madeline DeFrees, as her mentor. Sennett’s family still lives in Missoula so he visits often.
Sennett credits his UM education with much of his professional success. An MFA from UM was a “huge calling card” early in his career for getting his foot in the door with publishers and agents.
“The quality of the education is so good,” he said, that literary agents “scoop up grads” from the creative writing program.
Sennett and his now ex-wife lived in Liberty Lake, Wash., for a time while he worked as a blogger and freelance columnist for the Spokane Spokesman Review.
Chicago called again when he was named editor of Time Out Chicago, a weekly entertainment and lifestyle magazine. He has been in Chicago since 2008 and has since remarried.
Despite his writing success with the publication of “Shadow State,” Sennett still maintains his day job. He currently is vice president of Outlook Marketing, drawing on his extensive experience in the marketing and communications worlds.
That career experience doesn’t include serving in the military or extensive military weapon knowledge. For “Shadow State,” he relied on research and interviews with experts.
“I hunted in Montana, but I was never a sniper,” he joked, alluding to the main character in “Shadow State.”
His characters display entirely human reactions, emotions and flaws. Their actions or reactions can surprise the reader, as they did the author.
Characters “sometimes surprise me,” Sennett said, noting that a gruff highway patrol trooper was initially an unsympathetic character, but eventually turned out to have a protective, fatherly side.
It was “a complete shock for the trooper to be the character he turned out to be,” Sennett added.
That being said, Sennett said he writes “by improvisation,” without a story outline. His work is not tightly plotted but he “generally” knows where the story is going.
The antagonist in “Shadow State” was the “hardest to write,” he said. “He’s human, but also a twisted individual.”
Sennett currently is working on the second of what he hopes will be a series of Rafe Hendricks stories. The satisfying ending of “Shadow State,” he said, “gave me some breathing room until the next story.”
Book Description
Shadow State by Frank Sennett
A fast-paced character-driven political thriller stars ex-Army Ranger Rafe Hendrix as the flawed, heroic, grieving protagonist. Rafe is forced into a Hobson’s choice while serving on the security detail of the U.S. president, a woman with whom he became close during their military tour in Afghanistan. Rafe is blamed for the resulting disaster - which hits closer to home than he could imagine - and retreats in mourning to a small town in Texas. The past isn’t far behind as a cunning killer tracks Rafe and plans his attacks to mirror some of the most shocking moments in the nation’s history. Rafe’s mission is to stay one step ahead of the killer to protect his son and to keep history from repeating itself.