Jan Kelly is a lifelong Arizona resident, and she wants readers to understand the state’s long history and complex geography. “A lot of people think of Arizona as the iconic desert and the saguaro cactus,” she says, but through her series of novels, the sixth volume of which was just published, she has been able to share many of the lesser-known aspects of the state.

In People of the Sun, Kelly’s fifth book, series hero Guy Thornton is fighting for custody of his teenage son, Trick, and the case seems desperate until Guy gets help from Star Clarke, a medium who communicates with Trick’s deceased mother, Sally, a member of the Yavapai Nation. The book takes readers to the Mogollon Rim in the middle of the state, and Kirkus Reviews notes that “Kelly’s prose is rich and observant, whether she’s writing about the landscape, people, or animals.”

In one scene, Guy surveys his new home:

He turned his gaze to take in the small, comfortable living room; a wood stove was set on a sheet metal pad in the corner, that futon couch would lay flat for a bed, the bright orange lounger was a little ratty at the arm rests but practically beckoned him over for a nap. There was a mat beside the door with a pair of rubber clogs on it, which seemed mighty practical to him—it would keep a house a lot cleaner if everyone dumped their shoes at the door. Guy felt bad about the mess of broken plastic scattered over it, though, and he opened the utility closet to pull out the broom and dust bin. If he could find some cardboard and tape he’d make a repair that should keep the climate and critters out, at least.

Kelly was not planning a series when she introduced Guy in Elder Brother’s Maze, a novel that developed from an assignment in her MFA program. “Guy was a young 20-something when I first wrote the book in 1984,” she says. Kelly wrote the second book in the series because she thought readers might be interested in what happened to Guy next. Then she found she was ready to tell another story. “I called the third one The Last Creation, because I thought, OK, that’s it.” But it turned out Guy had more stories to share. “He’s aged with me,” she notes, “though he’s younger than me.” Although the novels are connected, following Guy’s adventures, they are also fully self-contained. “You can pick up any one of them and feel like the story is complete on its own,” Kelly says.

With the seventh book in the series now in the revision process, Kelly recently began work on the eighth—“what I now believe is the last one.” She expects it will be ready for release in 2025, following her usual process of research, writing, and revision. She retired four years ago from teaching at Arizona State University, and “I seem to take a lot longer to finish a book” now, compared with the days when she was working and also turning out a first draft in three months.

Kelly bases her novels on a combination of research and experience. “They all began like this one, with a focus on the Native American culture.” In addition to visiting Native communities around the state, she relies on books and articles to shape her portrayal of Native culture. “I like to use published works, because I know it’s OK and I’m not violating any cultural taboos,” she explains.

Although her books are set more or less in the present day—the key timelines in People of the Sun, for instance, take place in 2010 and 2005—they are steeped in history, and Kelly wants to acknowledge both the heroes and villains of Arizona’s past. “It’s unfortunate in some ways, but the history of this state has been pretty checkered,” she says. “I think the hidden Arizona is what I’m trying to get out there.” Her goal is for the books to display “the many different ethnicities and races that make up what is Arizona.” 

For Kelly, her books are a way of “coming to terms with our ways of dealing with Native American people through the centuries.” In People of the Sun, that means exploring how the Yavapai Nation’s historical relocation has shaped the present. “It’s a story that kind of breaks your heart but also makes you realize how many different tribes had a Trail of Tears or Long Walk narrative,” she says.

Kelly also travels frequently, both for fun and to get to know in detail the locations she features in her books. “By writing these novels I’ve been able to go to all of the different microclimates Arizona has, from the grasslands down in the south that make you think you’re in Oklahoma to the desert to the huge Ponderosa forests and the lakes and waterways. And then, of course, to the Grand Canyon,” she says, pointing out that people have lived in the canyon for millennia.

Once Kelly has her history and her sense of place developed—“I’m really more interested in the landscape where the action takes place”—she turns to the novel’s structure. “[Each story has] a weave, a basketlike design,” she says, describing how the multiple timelines, some moving chronologically and others in reverse, fit together. “It is a very organic process where the next chapters are suggested by what happened in the previous ones.”

In People of the Sun, she describes, Sally’s storyline was the most challenging part of the book to write. “It’s backward,” she says. “It goes from 2004 back in time to 1994.” Plotting, Kelly adds, is not the right way to describe her process. “The pattern really helps me. It’s not plotting, per se; It’s patterning.” Those patterns—not just in the writing, but in the landscape, the people, and the history of Arizona—are what Kelly hopes readers will take away from her books.

Sarah Rettger is a writer and bookseller in Massachusetts.