Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview.
Today’s guest for the WHAT is Philip Fairbanks, author of Smash, Smash, Smash: The True Story of Kai the Hitchhiker
Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?
That is generally not the case, but is definitely so here. In 2017 I was doing news features and op-eds for Inquisitr. My friend Rachel Cochran sent me a message saying I should look into this Kai the Hitchhiker case. I remembered the viral incident, but not sure if I’d heard about what happened in New Jersey. I reached out to Kai while he was still in the jail at Elizabeth where he was held for over 4 years in isolation and 6 years before his trial would begin.
I recorded a few interviews over the phone, but we’ve kept in touch via Jpay messages over the years. When I heard from RAW TV Ltd. in London that they wanted to license some interview material for me I started to compile my previous articles and plan an attack strategy for a book.
Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?
The book is non-fiction, but I was incredibly heartened to hear that it read like a thriller in a review from Fiona Dodwell. Obviously, having compelling, true material to cull from was a benefit, but still one of the most challenging things initially was figuring out how to tell Kai’s story, but also give it universality: show that it’s not just Kai at stake here. How municipal, police and prosecutorial misconduct is a systemic issue within Union County, New Jersey but also across the country.
I start out with the “two fateful rides” that catapulted Kai to beloved fame and spun his life into a nightmare that persists to this day after being allegedly drugged and raped by a wealthy and well-connected lawyer who picked him up in Times Square. From those two viral rides, we skip back to give some brief histories of surfing, hitchhiking and New Jersey’s culture of corruption. Cults, cop gangs, conflicts of interests, cover-up, mafia ties, and a conspiracy to deprive Kai of his due process that has been “sufficiently alleged” as per a federal judge last July.
From there we go into issues specific to New Jersey and Union County, talk about a disturbing precedent in the New Jersey court system that shields predators from being disbarred and go into the “code of silence” that allows for such police corruption and carceral abuse to continue.
Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?
Just like a fiction thriller, the story itself and my journey into it was full of surprising twists and turns. I had an outline by early 2022, but by Summer I ended up having to add additional chapters. The racist cop gang in Union County, “The Family,” led to the discovery that the cult Kai’s mother was affiliated was the well-known child abuse cult “The Family” (formerly the Children of God). Looking into the waterfront connection led me to the story of Union County prosecutor’s covering for family friends who happened to be associated with the Genovese crime family. An off the record source gave me a tip that I wasn’t able to fully verify or corroborate as of yet, but it did lead me on to a rabbit hole related to the importance of the Port of Elizabeth in Union County to cocaine trafficking from South America through the east coast and on throughout the rest of the US.
Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?
I get story ideas from surprising sources. I try to read as much as possible, have diverse research interests and often receive story tips from random people in DMs and emails.
How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?
That’s always a difficult choice, I usually leave it up to factors outside mere personal interest (though that obviously plays a part). For instance, I have a project I had been researching and outlining since 2020 that I had to put on the back burner because there’s an archive in Buffalo I’ll have to visit before I can finish it. Several work projects have tangential connections as well though, so often researching a specific topic or making notes on a book or document could do double (or even triple) duty.
I have 6 cats and a Dalmatian (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?
I currently don’t have any pets, but I used to have a little rat named Erasmus. I think rodents get an unnecessarily bad name personally. Obviously not wild rats, but any pet rats or hamsters I’ve ever owned or known were sweet and intelligent animals. I’m living a bit out of the way at the moment, so it’s nice to watch the squirrels (another of my favorite rodents!) hop around.
Philip Fairbanks is a writer with over 20 years publishing experience covering news and entertainment. His work has appeared in the peer-reviewed journal of art Afterimage, CUNY's graduate newspaper The Advocate, UK's Morning Star newspaper, Australia's New Dawn magazine, Ghettoblaster magazine, New Noise magazine and several other print and online publications. His second non-fiction book, Smash, Smash, Smash: The True Story of Kai the Hitchhiker should be available for sale at major retailers in February.
Check out The True Story of Kai
