Episode 78: Kimmery Martin, author of three novels including Doctors and Friends
Kimmery Martin is an emergency medicine doctor-turned novelist whose works of medical fiction have been praised by The Harvard Crimson, Southern Living, The New York Times, and others.
In this episode she talks about her latest novel, Doctors and Friends, which is set during a pandemic.
Written before Covid 19, Doctors and Friends is prescient in how it follows a group of doctor friends as a contagious virus spreads around the world. Kimmery shares how the storyline changed as a result during editing, as well as book recommendations and her writing advice.
Books Mentioned:
Doctors and Friends by Kimmery Martin
Bill Bryson’s snarky nonfiction
Bewilderment by Richard Powers
My Year Abroad by Chang-Rae Lee
Dream Girl by Laura Lippman
Connect with the author:
Transcript:
** Transcript created using AI (so please forgive the typos!) **
Lainey Cameron 0:00
Hi, this is Lainey Cameron. I am here with Kim Marie Martin, and we are going to talk about one of, in my opinion, the most important books that come out this year. Kim Marie, thank you so much for joining me.
Kimmery Martin 0:11
Well, thank you for having me. My pleasure.
Lainey Cameron 0:14
So Doctors and Friends, I will say it's the only book that I think the word precedent comes up more in your reviews than any other words. And I think folks are listening, we'll understand why in a second. But do you want to start by giving people a quick summary of what the books about?
Kimmery Martin 0:31
Yeah, so I usually start with saying when the book originally originated because of the subject matter. So I first had the idea. In 2018, I was writing an article about the book I wanted to write next. And then in 2019, I researched, drafted and sold the novel to my publisher. And the reason that is relevant is because the book is about a group of female physicians, specifically in infectious disease doctor who are all friends from medical school, and they happen to be traveling abroad, during what turns out to be a brand new worldwide viral pandemic. And originally, the publisher was going to pitch the novel as the hot zone meets Sophie's Choice. So if you have read either of those two books, you are now cringing.
Lainey Cameron 1:35
And I love like in all of your books, they're all medical fiction. I love the friendship elements, like each of your books has an element of friendship and her friendship pulls the doctors through really challenging situations. And you do like to throw your doctors into incredibly difficult situations. And this one is fascinating because you've got the main character who's kind of working for the CDC, who's a little bit of a no we can say this people understand Anthony Fauci. Am I saying his name right? Like the character is on screen. Thank you. She's on screen talking about the pandemic. But I have so many questions for you. Because first off, yeah, this novel is gonna tug at the heartstrings. It's an emotional rage, right? It'd be hard to write a book about the pandemic that isn't, but goodness gracious me, you've wrote this book before our current reality. And you got pretty much everything right? Which just blows my mind. So did did any of it change? Like, I know you do amazing research, right? Your doctor yourself. I know you research these things. But like, did any of it have to change either because it was like a little too hard or a little too much or a little? Just once you were in a real pandemic? Did you have to go back and change any of it at all?
Kimmery Martin 2:43
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I started by researching and I, you know, I read a number of nonfiction books about various plagues and viral pandemics. And I read a ton of journal articles. I interviewed more than 40, infectious disease doctors, virologists, epidemiologists, and ER doctors. And around very, very early 2020, when I was on my book tour for the antidote for everything I was telling audiences about this book, and had a rough first draft done, but we did extensively revised after COVID. My editor wasn't sure whether the publishing house would even published the book once we finally realized that COVID was going to be a global pandemic, and not some easily controlled regional outbreak. So they ultimately came back to me and said, We will publish it. But we'd like you to rewrite the novel, so that you're not entirely focused on this infectious disease doctor who, by the way, has access to one dose of an experimental antiviral medication when both of her children are deathly sick. And I can talk about that in a minute because there's actually a real world inspiration for that plotline as implausible as it sounds. But they said well, can you can you change some of the other characters in the book to be point of view characters so that even though we will have all lived through a pandemic, by the time people read this, we will not have all lived through a pandemic on the frontlines. And so I switched the point of view to include an ER doctor in New York City and an OBGYN in San Diego as well as the ID doctor in Atlanta. And I added plenty of things to I added zoom scenes to the book because you can't have a pandemic without video conferencing and your pajamas. And I added I refined some of the stuff about the infectious disease warning system that was in the book and this and that, but I did already have some things that turned out to be accurate. You know, of course I I already knew about PCR testing and masking is an epidemiological Disease control measure and there were 10 hospitals in my book and some of that stuff stayed the same. I did not get everything right. And there are some major, major differences between what actually happened and what's in the book. But that's good, because you can kind of see what might have been.
Lainey Cameron 5:16
And also, it's a different disease. It's not about COVID. It's about a meetup disease, right, like, yeah,
Kimmery Martin 5:21
right. So I actually I crowdsourced, other doctors and said, you know, tell me the worst characteristics of a virus you can think of and I sort of combined the hemorrhagic nature of Ebola with the pulmonary devastation of certain forms of influenza and the contagiousness of measles. So the people in my fictional book had a much more lethal outbreak to contend with than we did in real life, which influence their response to it, of course.
Lainey Cameron 5:48
And did you change the ending? I'm actually fascinated on this question, because the ending is hopeful, like, like I would say, even if folks are a little hesitant to read this book, because yeah, we're all still living in this world. The ending is hopeful, like this book left me feeling hopeful. Did you change from the original?
Kimmery Martin 6:04
Yes, so actually, and that actually happened before COVID. So my original original draft of the ending had had a very different outcome. And even before covered when my editor read that she was like, she said, you're writing about a pandemic, the I think the way that you need to enter this book is on a note of optimism and hope. And in retrospect, she's completely right. Even if that isn't the most medically plausible ending. I'm not going to say exactly how it is. But exactly don't give away the ending. No spoilers, there is optimism in the ending? Exactly. It's
Lainey Cameron 6:38
hopeful. That's why I said it that way. I'm not never going to spoil a book on this podcast, not deliberately, at least. But yeah, and I wonder, because it would be very easy right to write a book to write a book about a global pandemic that ends the opposite way, right with like, I don't want to say everybody dies. But you know, very Shakespearean, you know, Hamlet ending is very feasible. And I liked that you you chose to leave hope at the end, I thought that was very cool.
Not everyone dies. Everyone dies. No, that's not giving
anything away. There's people alive at the end of the book. No, it's a beautifully hopeful book. And okay, so here's a real life question for you. Because I have watched some of the posts that you have shared publicly on Facebook, because you are a doctor, and you've been, for me a spark of light during the pandemic. So as someone who is so savvy about this topic, when did you know that COVID-19 was going to turn out to be not just a small thing that stayed in China or stayed in one region, but a global thing that was gonna affect us all? Like, did you see it faster than the rest of us?
Kimmery Martin 7:38
No. I mean, I was paying attention perhaps faster, because first of all, it was on a book tour. And second, I subscribed to a real life infectious disease monitoring service, which I kind of used in the book when I was writing it. So I knew that it existed, I did not, of course, realize the extent to which it would impact society. And I certainly did not anticipate the you know, very broad governmental and societal split that would occur over what response we should take. And I just didn't see that coming at all, I did not see the, you know, alternate reality thing happening or that, you know, I didn't foresee the amount of disinformation and misinformation and confusion. And so a lot of my posts about it were intended to say, look, this is evolving information. We never know, some of these things in the beginning of any outbreak, what fatality rates will be, you know, whether it's a case fatality rate or index or whatever, you know, we just we learn as we go and particularly with something this different from what we've seen in the past. But even so, it was so startling to see our society fracture so much over this we could have handled it and, and so much of a better way and then a better place now.
Lainey Cameron 8:59
And it's not the same I'll just say outside of the US as it is in the US. So as a nomad, I've kind of even during pandemic, I've been in both locations. Right now I'm in California at my mom's place. But I've spent a lot of time over the over the pandemic in Mexico. And the mask thing is not the same conversation. In other countries, it's actually very different. In Mexico was just the sense of the beginning of like grandma's and danger, we're all gonna wear masks to make sure grandma's okay. And Grandma was my grandma or your grandma was everybody's grandma was the concept that you couldn't put someone's abuela in danger. And so it was very interesting. It was just very different how people approached it, it was a much more communal, like it's not about me, it's about the greater good and making sure we all end up okay. And so it has been fascinating for me to be on both sides of that and see how much it differs from country to country.
Kimmery Martin 9:46
It being that politicized, but in the book, it's not and the people in the book have one big advantage over us in real life. Well, they have to one advantage I gave them deliberately was the President of the United seats is this young, very scientifically literate woman.
Lainey Cameron 10:03
Yeah, I love that character.
Kimmery Martin 10:06
And then the other advantage they have is, you know, they do have, and this is a obviously, of course, really a disadvantage, but, but their virus is a lot more lethal. And so when you feel that your life is threatened, of course, you're much more willing to take preventative measures to slow the spread of disease. Whereas in real life, a lot of people feel as if COVID isn't dangerous to them personally, and so they are less likely to embrace restrictive measures to slow this disease spread. So there there's a big difference there.
Lainey Cameron 10:36
And you said the President character is inspired by a real life person? Is that what I heard you say?
Kimmery Martin 10:40
Well, I named her after a real life person I wanted to honor Yes, there is a PhD immunologist who was at the NIH within the division of allergic and infectious diseases, named Kizzy Corvette, Dr. Corvette, who actually is one of the people who was instrumental and coming up with the mRNA vaccine. So she was working on mRNA vaccines against Coronavirus as well before COVID. As more people know, now, this is not something that just sprung up in response to COVID. It was actually in development for a long time. So I was able to contact her and say, Hey, can I name a character after you? And she said yes.
Lainey Cameron 11:21
Oh, that's fabulous. And you said the idea of the storyline of having, you know, one vaccine and having to choose between your two children, which is just this incredible, like you say Sophie's Choice storyline was inspired from something in real life to like, where did that idea come from?
Kimmery Martin 11:35
Yeah, so as, as research, I was reading, you know, every book on infectious diseases, I could get my hands on both medical and scientific and in the popular press, and I read this book called crisis in the red zone, by Richard Preston. And it was about the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Western Africa. And there was a very well publicized incident that occurred at an aid camp in Sierra Leone, in which two of the medical workers a doctor and somebody else, contracted Ebola. And completely Coincidentally, the director of the medical camp, a doctor named Kent Brantly, realized that he had access to one dose of an experimental antiviral medication. And he had to select which of his two dying colleagues would receive it, or if either of them would, because this drug had never been administered to a single human being before. And if he gave it to one of these two people, he would be giving it to somebody in a position of relative privilege. And there are people dying of Ebola all over the place. So so it was this fascinating real life ethical dilemma. And I read that and I thought, what if those two people had been his children? And I always say this in my book talks, I thought the same thing that all of you guys thought, which is what if these people had been his children, and everyone just stares? And then I say, I'm just kidding, your only thing that if your partner because, you know, the mantra of all fiction writers is we try to put our characters into the worst possible moral choice that they can make. Because that makes good fiction. So we are, you know, busily torturing our people, as we write.
Lainey Cameron 13:15
Right? We're in the business of torturing your characters. I love that I live my
Kimmery Martin 13:19
life as an ER doctor, like that's the fundamental difference between doctoring and writing is one grip is trying to torture people, and the other is trying to alleviate suffering.
Lainey Cameron 13:28
Is there anything about the response to the book that has surprised or delighted you? I mean, this is the strangest thing we're talking about it just before we started, right, bringing out a book set in a pandemic, during a pandemic that you wrote, before the pandemic is very meta and surreal. And I'm sure coming off the book tour here, it must have been quite the experience. And the thing that surprised you, I mean, imagine you had some fear going into this talking about this book to the world right now.
Kimmery Martin 13:52
Yeah, my fear primarily revolved around, no one's going to want to read this, and I don't blame them. So I usually try to tell people, you know, the book does have some humor, it does have sweetness, it does revolve around this concept of friendship, as a fundamental human relationship. And, and you can get a romance and in so many books, you can get, you know, work issues, and all these things, but I like to focus on friendship as a dominant force in my novels. So I have been surprised, I guess, because the the press for the book has been so good. You know, I was really nervous about that. And it wound up getting starred reviews from everybody, and it got, you know, some mentions in the national media and, and people contacting me saying how much they loved it. And so I think it's more a challenge of getting people to read it. And then so far, the response has been largely positive. There have been some people. Some reviews I've said, I've seen from regular people who said, I can't handle this yet.
Lainey Cameron 14:57
Yeah, and I think you know, if you're in a scenario where for example, You directly lost a loved one or something, it might be too hard to read a book that deals with anything pandemic related. And that makes sense. But I would say, you know, having lived through this, as far as we have so far, I thought this book was incredibly well written and hopeful. And I would encourage people to read it. No, not to wait. I mean, I really feel like it's I said to you, before we started, I think it's your best one yet. And I love your books. So well done. So talking of which this is a published novel, number three for you can read, I get that right. So I'd encourage folks to go read the others as well. But um, any advice for people who are maybe in your situation of wanting to come from a career and leverage that career into their writing, or who want to write something as as emotional and as gripping, I love that gripping is one of the top words that shows up in your reviews for this book gripping and can hard to put down but gripping in particular. Any advice? What do you advise other writers?
Kimmery Martin 15:57
Well, my first and foremost, advice to everyone is always that they should be readers. Because I think even if you haven't had formal education in writing, if you read a lot, you pick up this instinctive understanding of story structure, and, and character arcs and voice, and you know, and all the things that that make writing so enjoyable, and so singular when you read someone with a strong voice, so, so I do tell everybody to read. But I also think, yes, of course, I'm in favor of leveraging your career into writing, I love when I'm reading a novel, and you get this fly on the wall glimpse of some setting, or industry or place that an author knows really, really well, I like, it makes me feel smarter to read that kind of book. And so I really enjoy it when I read it. And also you you're able to bring a level of authenticity and detail to your work when you do that. So the main writing advice I have is, you know, knuckle down, it's a long haul, but it is if you find that you like it, and you're passionate about it. It's so worthwhile.
Lainey Cameron 17:02
It's so true. So let's talk books. Before we wrap up, is there anything you've read recently that you appreciate? And being such a stellar writer? I'm always interested, like, what do you appreciate being such a good writer?
Kimmery Martin 17:16
Well, I like writers who have kind of a snarky voice. My favorite writer is Bill Bryson. But lately, I love Bryson, I love him. He's like, so entertaining, and yet and so informative. And he writes nonfiction. In fiction, I have been gravitated, gravitating towards literary fiction lately. So I finished Bewilderment by Richard Powers, and My Year Abroad by Chang-Rae Lee. And both of those are just gorgeously written, deeply literary interesting books. I also just finished Dream Girl by Laura Lippman, which is more of a thriller, and I loved it. She's a fantastic writer.
Lainey Cameron 18:01
Love it. And let's take a quick peek at how people can connect with you on social media, if they want to follow you. And you do post such fascinating things that I would encourage folks to follow you. Your website with all your social media is Kim Marie martin.com. And you're at Kim Marie Martin on Instagram. And like I said, you're fun to follow. I always learned so much from your posts. But before we wrap up anything I haven't asked you that you wanted, especially to make sure that you mentioned or talked about today.
Kimmery Martin 18:28
Oh gosh. Well, I want to say thank you to everybody who reads you know, it's so easy to just fire up Netflix and y'all are keeping the literary industry going. Thank you so much. And I guess also Lainey I would like to say that I really want to meet you IRL. Where are you in California?
Lainey Cameron 18:48
Right now. I'm in Santa Cruz, California at my mom's place.
Kimmery Martin 18:51
Wonderful. Well, someday we're going to meet up someday we're either going
Lainey Cameron 18:54
to do it in the middle of the country or at a woman's fiction retreat or somewhere it's going to happen.
Kimmery Martin 18:59
For sure. Yep.
Lainey Cameron 19:01
Take care. So great talking with you today.
Kimmery Martin 19:03
You too Lainey. Thank you. Bye bye.