Author/Action Hero Peter Heller Creates an Instant Classic of Aviation Literature in The Dog Stars

By S. Mark Rhodes

Author Peter Heller is well known for his innovative and adventurous non-fiction and journalistic work including Kook: What Surfing Taught Me about Love, Life and Catching the Perfect Wave, an account of several months of the author’s life learning to surf under the guidance of surf gurus in Mexico and California. He also famously learned to fly in less than a month in a Men’s Journal piece entitled “How to Be a Bush Pilot in Less than a Month.”

Mr. Heller’s debut novel, The Dog Stars (Knopf) connects directly to his interest in aviation.  The Dog Stars tells the story of a pilot named Hig who attempts to cope in a post-apocalyptic landscape by piloting his 1956 Cessna around what used to be Colorado (with his dog as a co-pilot).

With this work, Mr. Heller has emerged as a unique voice in American letters, someone whose storytelling ability bears watching.  Mr. Heller was nice enough to speak with Mark Rhodes about The Dog Stars, aviation and other aspects of his adventurous existence.

IF USA: This is your first novel after several well-received works of non-fiction, many of these works revolved around your own personal experiences like surfing or flying.  What was it like to construct something fictional?

PH: “Almost all of the non-fiction work grew out of magazine assignments to wild places. These were very intense assignments to places like Antarctica and remotest Tibet. So writing about big characters in extreme circumstances had to be very helpful to crafting The Dog Stars. Also, writing about them taught me a lot about pacing, about how to keep a story riveting, and about how to draw characters quickly and convincingly so that they jump off the page.”

IF USA: What is the process for you to write about the sensation of flight?

Author Peter HellerPH: “Pulse quickens just talking about flying. Like Hig, I came to it as something that I’d been meant to do my whole life. To see the world from the air, the way landscapes, topography fit together, how the creeks thread, the rivers unwind. You get this sense flying a small plane not too far from the ground that the world below is perfect. Neat. Everything in its place. And you are detached from it. It’s like flying through a landscape painting. All the earthly problems: sickness, poverty, death, they vanish, they can’t touch you. Then you get hit by turbulence and you are jolted sideways and you stop being all poetic and right the controls and get an adrenalin rush like nothing else – so fun. I got my pilot’s license in 20 days in northern Montana with crazy bush pilots. It was an assignment for Men’s Journal: How to Be a Bush Pilot in Three Weeks kind of thing. When I showed up I didn’t even know what a flap was, a rudder. It was like drinking from a fire hose. And I was not a natural. Dave Hoerner, my instructor, turned to me after one of my landings in the first week and said, “You came in like a sick goose. That was atrocious!” He had been a logger all his life. To haul out and use the word “atrocious” was a very special circumstance. I loved it.”

IF USA: Was there any reason you had your protagonist, Hig, pilot a ‘56 Cessna?

PH: “It’s the plane I own. Same plane, down to the tail number. And I keep it at Erie Airport just north of Denver, just like Hig. After I learned from Hoerner, he called and said that a friend of his wanted to sell the old Cessna he’d used for years to track radio collared wolves in the Rockies. He was getting too old to fly it. I jumped on it.”

IF USA: Where did the title The Dog Stars come from?

PH: “It came from Hig’s proclivity to make up constellations when he sleeps out under the stars every night. He used to have a book of the stars, but now he doesn’t. So he makes them up. His are almost always animals, and his favorite being, at this point in his life, his dog Jasper.”

IF USA: You somewhat famously learned to be a pilot in less than a month. Do you have any other goals with regard to flying/piloting?

PH: “I’d just like to fly more. I am a pretty low-hour pilot, about 180 hours, and I’d like to take more longer trips to California and Montana and just get to be a better pilot.”

IF USA: Is there a particular film or book that you feel captures the essence of flying?

PH: “Yes. Two jump to mind. I always loved Saint-Exupery’s Wind, Sand and Stars. The flying scenes are very evocative and beautiful and sometimes hair-raising. Also Beryl Markham’s West with the Night about early flying in Africa.”

IF USA: If you were to have this book optioned who do you see being a good actor to play Hig?

PH: “The book has been optioned. I can’t wait to see who they get. Brad Pitt would be good.”

(For more on Peter Heller see http://www.peterheller.net/)