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Shawn Vestal, a reporter and columnist for The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., has just published his first novel, "Daredevils," which puts the reader on the road with three adolescent characters who dare to flee from their worlds in search of something more — or at least different. Like his collection of short stories, "Godforsaken Idaho," which won the prestigious 2014 PEN Robert W. Bingham Prize, Vestal's novel is garnering positive critical attention, including a star turn in the famously praise-stingy Kirkus Reviews.

Vestal, who will be at the King's English Bookshop in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, talks with The Salt Lake Tribune about "Daredevils."

What was the inspiration for this book?

The novel really arose from a slow process of writing and rewriting and rethinking and rewriting again, more so than a single inspiration. Some of the earlier drafts of the novel were much different than the final novel, and some of the changes along the way I didn't foresee or plan at all.

One of the first bits that I wrote is an early chapter where a teenage boy living in southern Idaho goes to see Evel Knievel try and jump the Snake River Canyon. I grew up in the same place as this boy, though I was younger, and I didn't get to go see the jump. In some ways that probably stuck with me and inspired me — or gave me the itch — to write about Knievel. From there, it took several years of work to try and figure out what I was up to here.

You have a large cast of characters (including Evel Knievel doing voiceovers). Loretta is particularly memorable. Were there any special challenges in writing a 15-year-old fundamentalist girl from the inside out?

I found it very challenging. I questioned whether I could do it at all. I have no direct correlative to her experience, no firsthand knowledge of her culture or experiences. So I came at her story kind of sideways at first, essentially omitting her direct point-of-view and letting others tell the story. But she didn't belong on the periphery, and I knew it, and so I just began trying to imagine what her life would have been like. The more of this I did, the less I felt like she and I had lives that were somehow alien to each other; the more I tried to think about her, the more I recognized the fact that we shared a basic human kinship. This is obvious — of course we do. But it took me a while to really feel that, to feel free to tell her story.

The Western landscape is its own character in this novel. Can you talk about the importance of the American West in your work?

It's important the way that my freckles are important, or in the way that I know how long it takes to drive from Boise to Moscow, Idaho, or in the way that I know that when I'm in certain cities, I'm going to try to eat at certain restaurants. (I'm coming for you, Red Iguana.) It's just a part of me. I have no real intention to write about the West, and no real desire to "comment" on the West — it's just the place I've lived my entire life, from Idaho to Montana to Oregon to Washington, and so I don't think of the West as one of the many different places I might choose among to write about: It's just the place I have to draw on.

Speaking of setting, why did you decide to have your story unfold against the backdrop of the 1970s?

I think it started with the Knievel jump. That was always a bit of narrative that I was interested in building upon. It also strikes me as an interesting time in the nation's history.

Various iterations of Mormon World play an important part in this novel. Why?

I grew up in a Mormon family in southern Idaho, and Mormonism has been a part of my life ever since. I'm no longer a member of the church, but I've gone through a lot of different periods in my attitudes toward and relationship with the church. In my story collection, "Godforsaken Idaho," I began writing stories that were overtly related to Mormonism after years of avoiding the subject. What I discovered was that Mormonism was my language for speaking to so many things in life — faith, doubt, family, authority, spirituality, love — even though I'd left the church. I wrote some stories that reimagined some Mormon mythologies — one that retold the seagull story and one that delved into Joseph Smith's years as a treasure hunter immediately before founding the church — and found that I was using my abandoned faith in a way that seemed rich with possibility, to me at least.

The world of fundamentalist Mormonism and polygamy is far outside my own experience, but I've been interested in polygamy and its relationship to the mainstream church and its history for quite a while.

Although not a young-adult novel, "Daredevils" is a bildungsroman — a classic coming-of-age story. Does this genre have any special appeal for you?

I never really thought about genre or classification when I wrote the novel. I didn't select a genre so much as write what I was able to write and discovered how others might classify it. I don't mind that kind of discussion in the least — but I do believe it's damaging to a writer to think too much about categories and classifications and marketing. Better to try and do work that feels authentic and let those questions take care of themselves.

What is the most satisfying part of writing a novel? A column?

The most satisfying part of writing anything, for me, is being in the stream of things when it's going well — when I'm inventing something that feels true for the story or finding language that feels fresh or vibrant. That's the moment I'm chasing.

But I also like to be finished, of course. Finishing the novel was satisfying in the way I imagine running a marathon is satisfying — it took a long time and a lot of work. The column is different. I really enjoy making an argument or finding an angle on a subject that I feel is fresh or doing some reporting that maybe adds some context — feeling that I have contributed to the conversation here in Spokane.

Who are some of the novelists you admire and why?

I admire my friend Jess Walter so much, because he has worked incredibly hard, written great novels in different styles, and remained a positive force for literature and the arts in our town of Spokane. I'm quite taken with Elena Ferrante lately, just swept up with her novels, and am also loving Joy Williams, both her stories and her novel, "The Quick and the Dead." Charles Portis makes me laugh out loud more than any other writer.

Among those I return to again and again: Faulkner, DeLillo, Nabokov, Henry James, Thomas Bernhard. In each of those — and so many others — there is a unique landscape of language and style and thinking that feels like a physical place, a realm I can go to and be in and find restoration. —

'Daredevils'

Shawn Vestal will read from and sign copies of "Daredevils."

When • Wednesday, April 27, 7 p.m.

Where • The King's English, 1511 S. 1500 East, Salt Lake City

Information • kingsenglish.com; for more about Vestal and his work, visit shawnvestal.com