Jeffrey Boldt spent 24 years working as an administrative law judge for Wisconsin. He's since shifted his energies to writing, releasing his first novel Blue Lake in 2022.
Now, his second novel Big Lake Troubles is out. Both books tackle environmental and climate issues. Boldt describes his new book as an eco-thriller with a legal case involving coal shipping on Lake Superior as its backdrop.
Four characters drive the story.
“The four we get inside their heads are Jason Erickson, who’s a former administrative judge. He is in his early fifties. And he’s done environmental hearings, but as the story opens, he’s grieving and he’s slightly traumatized from past experiences,” Boldt says.
Erickson is dating Grace Clarkson, “who is his contemporary and former law school classmate. More importantly for the story, she’s the attorney representing some neighbors opposing a coal shipping plant in the fictional town of Lake Superior City, Wisconsin,” Boldt says.
On the other side is corporate attorney Courtney Sharpe, who represents the coal shipping company.
“She can be a bit sarcastic and maybe cynical, but she’s had a tough life … and then Earl Franks who’s a former attorney fresh out of prison who’s trying to get his life together. But he has a lot of relevant background knowledge about coal shipping and environmental law and both sides are trying to get him to their team.” Boldt says.
All four characters appeared in his first novel Blue Lake. This time around, Boldt wanted to drill deeper into what makes people engage with each other and with important issues, like the climate crisis.
“And I think it works in that there’s a kind of an inherent drama. What’s going to happen with every legal trial. And now there’ a similar drama and urgency about what will happen with respect to the dramatic changes we’ve experienced with respect to the climate,” Boldt says.
He's watched impacts as he’s taken his novel on the road.
“My first in Madison was shortly after the floods in Asheville, North Carolina. It was in the 50s in December when I was in Duluth and Superior, and I was just in Green Bay as the L.A. fires were raging,” Boldt says.
He hopes that as readers follow the development of the novel’s characters, they not only see themselves but also people who view the world differently than they do.
“Everyone brings their own perspective, and what I try to do in my fiction is show respect to all those perspectives,” he says.
Boldt says his writing has evolved. “My first novel was my MFA thesis, so I had a, you know, cohort of professors looking at my every move and telling me sometimes conflicting things … I learned a lot of techniques,” Boldt says.
This time around, Boldt felt confident, “That I knew some of those techniques and that I had some not unique, but maybe rare combination of background and the ability to tell a story,” he says.
Boldt’s book comes at a time of increased concern and polarization. He’s worried about how Trump’s term in office will impact environmental protections and the progress made toward shifting to renewable energy.
“There’s also the concern of AI and data centers that are requiring just unprecedented amounts of energy ... Just recently, three or four [coal-burning] power plants that had been scheduled to go offline are staying in service to meet the needs of AI and data centers,” Boldt says.
Boldt calls these challenges the headwinds the country will be facing. “But I’m still optimistic, and that’s why in part why I’m writing these books that have environmental themes,” he says.
The recent birth of Boldt's first grandchild, conjurs up vivid memories what was going on in the U.S. when his daughter (now mother of his grandson) was born 37 years ago.
"The year that Allie was born was the hottest year on record—1988. People were having hearings in the U.S. Senate then about what carbon emissions were doing to our climate, and so little has been done until very recently to really address that, instead of just putting our heads in the sand,” Boldt says.
Boldt says we can't afford to put our heads in the sand.
"If we can somehow bring it down to the level, not of this divisive politics that's just so poisoning where people actively try to do things that are bad for the climate ... somehow get it back to we’re all in this together, we have one planet, and we need a plan to deal with what’s obviously a serious crisis,” Boldt says.
He hopes his novel might help fuel forward-thinking conversations.
Boldt will be discussing Big Lake Troubles at Boswell Books on Friday, Jan. 24, at 6:30 p.m.
