Alejo Melendez and Creaking Door: Land, Identity, and the Weight of Mystery

There is something refreshingly unvarnished in Al Melendez’s account of his debut novel, a quality that mirrors the narrative temperament he describes. He insists that, as a beginner, he simply “wrote what I knew,” grounding the Kanoho family in lived familiarity. That modest claim understates the ambition of the project. The novel’s movement between Hawaii and the Canadian wilderness becomes a moral and cultural displacement, a testing ground where identity is stripped of convenience and forced into action.

Melendez’s reflections reveal a writer deeply attentive to misdirection. Structural as well as emotional. He speaks of leading readers “away from whatever it was they were chasing,” aligning the reader’s confusion with that of detectives “partnered by fate.” Yet the mystery is not the book’s only engine. What lingers is the cultural tension he sketches with quiet clarity, particularly the observation that “one of the last things a dying culture will have is its pride.” That line alone suggests the deeper current beneath the procedural surface. The investigation becomes an avenue through which land, ancestry, and modern economic pressures intersect, sometimes uneasily.

Equally striking is the author’s resistance to overstatement. He repeatedly emphasizes simplicity, even warning against “pseudo high prose,” yet this restraint gives the narrative a kind of muscular directness. Jimmy Kanoho’s transformation, whether through hunting, migration, or grief, is framed as experience, physical and immediate. The effect is cumulative. Humor, violence, and regional detail coexist without demanding interpretive ceremony.

By not trying to make everything perfect, the author created a story that feels truly lived-in. It’s driven by the past, the bonds between people, and the sheer staying power of the location itself.

“My favorite stories are the ones with unique plot twists.”

You’ve mentioned that your formal education feels less significant now than the “pain that fuels your stories.” I’d love to hear more about that. How does that deep personal emotion specifically shape the Kanoho family as they navigate the balance between their roots in Makah and the modern world?

I don’t believe I’m quite ready to discuss any schooling. I was a spectacular failure.
As for my concepts of the Kanoho family, I knew people like that very intimately, so, being a rookie, I wrote what I knew. I really tried to center around the unique quality of the murder itself. I know I could have done more with character development, but I believe I was too unknown a commodity to delve into such length or high prose. Something Ken, or my editor Keith, said, which regrettably I paid little mind to, was to single out all of the writing I am most proud of, then completely remove it. They were right.

While talking to Ken, Creaking Door could be compared to the classic satire A Confederacy of Dunces. How did you find the right balance between the darker reality of a bear attack investigation and the satirical elements needed to critique the “unlikely” scenarios the detectives face?

Quite naturally, my favorite stories are the ones with unique plot twists. From the get-go, this was my objective. Then I just wrote dialogue as organically as I imagined it would happen, particularly if it were happening to me. I used my own droll wit and life experiences to formulate scenarios and dialogue with simple yet strong enough language. A quick wit and some pretty decent comedic timing have always been my strengths. I find it much more tasteful to persuade in this manner than pretty much any other. I was very conscientious about not coming on too hard or laying it on too thick. Thankfully, I did well in American history and was glad I was able to reference such events as Manifest Destiny to lay a foundation.
It’s been 10 years, and I’m still happy with my first attempt at a novel, but in hindsight, I think this would also make a great comedy. A Hawaiian, a Canadian, and a bear. It practically writes itself!

The story takes Jimmy Kanoho from the familiar surf of Maui to the rugged wilderness of Canada. Do you feel this change of scenery was necessary to strip Jimmy of his cultural context and reveal the instincts that “modern life” had perhaps suppressed?

Yes, and I used the term “coarse interactions” with nature and the great outdoors as a way of living and life for the Kanoho men. His transition to the Great White North was not instantaneous, but his hardiness and enthusiasm were hopefully believable and acceptable enough, along with an acceptable time lapse.
I think his transition from old-time native Hawaiian to a modern American male, and his ability to slide fluently between both worlds, was helped greatly by his formal education, particularly the all-boys Catholic private high school that he attended in Honolulu. Of course, Honolulu, even way back in the 80s, was always a modern American metropolis more or less, while his side of the island remained much as it was in the 1920s.
The first time I heard an elk cry was on TV, but it was enough to inspire me. I was comically taken aback by how high-pitched the sound was from a five- or six-hundred-pound bull. I have a video somewhere deep in my archives that I sent to Ken; it was a creaking bathroom door, and it sounded exactly like an elk.

You draw such a clear distinction between the commercialized “service industry” version of the Aloha spirit and the true pride of families like the Kanohos. How did you ensure that the “winding trail of evidence” also served as a path for readers to discover this more authentic side of the culture?

Well, that seems easy enough to answer. This is just the life we live, particularly on Oahu. You may have also noted that I point out, semi-bitterly, that this is what the locals have been relegated to, but of course I try not to shove it in people’s faces. Not yet, at least.
It seems one of the last things a dying culture will have is its pride.
And of course, the evidence trail can only wind through western Canada and Hawaii, so I tried to showcase some of both. I just hoped I was vivid enough. Western Canada truly is beautiful, and of course I could write about Hawaii with nine fingers tied behind my back. I did not even think that was possible until I went on a date about a year ago.
My best friend from high school went to college and settled in Oregon, and I visited him frequently. My great abiding love for the Pacific Northwest is genuine. His name was Donald, and I think I see a little of him sprinkled throughout the story as well.

The central mystery involves Mark Tam’s death and includes some truly disparate clues, like a cornfield and a bearskin rug. When details reveal themselves in such a “tantalizingly slow fashion,” how do you manage the pacing to keep the reader hooked without giving away the “high-resolution” ending too soon?

I never had the story laid out until I wrote it. I knew I wanted a hunting accident with a twist. I knew a mental illness had to be involved. Of course, a Hawaiian had to be the main character, which in itself is kind of unique, or certainly rare. The great mysteries and thrillers I have read utilize some very unique and stylized misdirection, and I drew inspiration from that. I just kept leading the readers away from whatever it was they were chasing at the time. I guess I more or less got lucky that it all became somewhat tangible.
As for tantalizingly slow, good old Ken set the bar at a certain number of words, so I just kept trying to fulfill that. I just kept writing and trying to keep it organic with a believable continuity.
You do know that the great Kenneth Coffman is a slave driver, don’t you?

When Jimmy begins hunting, he finds a “euphoria unlike any he’s felt before.” Do you see this euphoria as a way for him to reject the passive “paradise” narrative often imposed on Hawaii and replace it with something more primal?

Quite honestly, no. It is not really the kind of thing I wax philosophical about. Being my first novel, I believed keeping it simple was a must. Nothing is worse than some stranger trying to make Dostoevsky-like subliminal connections, then using gratuity and pseudo-high prose to sell. I was naïve and inexperienced. I just wanted to write something good. It never occurred to me that Ken wanted me to write something that would sell.
Jimmy has just killed something bigger than a dog. He has also just killed a large animal in the wild for the first time. Very different from the wild pigs in a cage he has to dispatch occasionally. It is just that kind of rush, pure and simple, plus his frustrating buildup and anxiety leading to the moment, the long hike, the long wait, and the unusual bite of the cold morning.
Somewhere in the book, I believe I describe it as intensely orgasmic, palpitations and hard breathing included. But of course, I would be more than happy with whatever a reader envisions within the words, because that is one of the reasons I read and one of the reasons I write, so a person can make up their own mind about how they feel about something.

I suppose every reader will extrapolate whatever he or she will from any creative piece of work. A very good friend of mine, who ran but lost for city council in his town, read the book, loved it, then started telling me that the salmon in the story represented Jimmy and Mark and some kind of escapism.
I was laid up in a hospital bed when he visited me, so I do not know if I was on medication and hallucinating, but the fact that it was so far from what I was actually trying to do was very interesting.

The detectives are described as being “partnered by fate,” which is such an intriguing phrase. Do you see them as bringing order to chaos, or are they just as swept up in the “far-fetched scenarios” as the reader is?

“Partnered by fate” was a mere mention. I do not think I dwelled on that as any kind of basis or foundation for their relationship, just happenstance. Their strong tie is cemented by the work and what they have just accomplished. It builds along the way, and I think their becoming bonded is really natural, something I know would happen to me if I were one of those detectives. We all reward loyalty, particularly the kind that comes from hardship and struggle.
And yes, quite naturally I intended for the two detectives to be swept up in the misdirection. I believe that also convinces the reader to go down that mystery path as well.

You’ve spoken about the constant exploitation of Hawaii’s beautiful landscapes as a motivation for your writing.

I believe that in a very gentle way I point out, very subtly, that Canada is beautiful in its pristine beauty and is also quite deadly. With each tiny adjective or synonym or antonym, I describe a stark contrast without making it blatant. Canada is beautiful and has so much to offer, and I think 9.9 out of 10 people would choose to live in Hawaii. I am also doing this to show that my character is rugged. Everybody wants Prince Charming to be perfect. I gave him a few flaws, but I made him pretty much an ideal kind of guy: looks, physique, money, and a strong moral compass. The X factor for my protagonist is being rugged.

Mark Tam is described as a constant companion before the tragedy. Do you view him as a symbol of the “modern life” the Kanoho family has benefited from, making his death a symbolic break from that world?

I think Mark’s role is really more the fly in the ointment. He is a good buddy, but he has this dark side that really forms the confluence that tumbles into the main story. It is not even the cliché love triangle. With Mark, Jimmy, James Senior, and Kelly, it is a four-way entanglement.
He was born and raised and lived in the same town as the Kanohos, so they were all like-minded. But without question his death brings into view the full weight of our American legal system. Crime has always been punished whether you live in grass huts or fifty-story buildings.
I had a lot of fun coming up with legal scenarios. If I have one regret about including modern life in my story, it would be that the DNA machines of the time were very, very slow, and I forgot to mention that as part of the reason the character Janet Rousseau screwed up the DNA results.

You promise a plot and ending that “could never have been imagined” if the reader sticks with it. Does that final twist rely on reinterpreting the cultural nuances you have woven in, or is it more of a forensic surprise?

Without question, it was meant to be forensic. I know that was a boring option. I think an author has to earn the right to take any more deep dives than I did in my novel. There was enough going on, and anything more would have been clutter. I try not to stereotype whenever possible. Just as crime is punished pretty much anywhere a society exists, so too, I believe, does the recognition of goodness. I intended for Jimmy Kanoho to be an excellent man.
Some of the relevant cultural references would probably be the kindness and generosity and the naïveté of the Hawaiians. Their way was to welcome and share, and of course they paid for it. The slow trickling death is ongoing.

The book’s description suggests the story will “twist and turn your thought patterns.” Was this sense of disorientation a deliberate choice to help the reader feel the same confusion the detectives are experiencing?

No, it is really more my boorish way to tell them something they already know, as well as read on pretty much every mystery book jacket, that they are going to be misled, and to enjoy the ride.
We have to bring the reader in with a little titillation, even if it is boorish. What is noteworthy is that I completely had in mind not to insult one’s intelligence, which brings it back to why I kept it simple, especially regarding rhetoric and prose.

The Kanoho family benefits from being part of the union while still maintaining deep pride in their ways. Was it a challenge to write characters who embody that contradiction in a way that feels genuine rather than hypocritical?

You nailed it. That was the biggest struggle throughout the writing. In fact, since we consider this a first draft, let me take a little time to expand on that and get back to you, if that would be OK.

You mention that the “veil is lifted” to reveal the true plot only if the reader persists. Is that “veil” a metaphor for the superficial way tourists often view the islands, suggesting we need to look deeper to see the truth?

Gosh, that would have been great were it actually my intention. Can we lie and say that it was? Just kidding. Being my first book and unconditioned for the rigors, if memory serves, by that point in the writing I was looking forward to completion. So the veil was a simple metaphor for the solving of the crime. Sadly, it is just that simple.

Given your interest in “human nature pushed to its extremes,” do you see the book’s structure, moving from “unlikely location to unlikely location,” as a map of the human psyche as much as a physical journey?

Yes, and I am glad someone actually noticed. Again, I was very subtle about it. I believe a certain amount of discomfort is required in a story like this, so behavioral connections to certain regions and certainly occupations play a big role in the psychological direction. Jimmy and Pauly Boy, for example, are very much alike culturally in their laid-back aloha lifestyle. But once a cop, always a cop. That is a truism I managed to reinforce in my book without ever actually saying it. Not that it was a stroke of genius by any means. I was just keeping it simple, and this is how it turned out, and I rather liked it that way.

I’m curious about how the “aloha spirit,” which you want to portray as separate from the industry, survives or manifests when transplanted into the cold, dangerous context of a Canadian bear hunt.

Well, offhand, the need for a humane kill is universal among all hunters, that the animal dies as quickly as possible. Adrenaline is bitter, so the need is also pragmatic. That creed would come much easier to someone with the true aloha spirit within them, and of course the other subtle interactions, like those with JSP, their hunting guide.

With such a “winding trail of evidence,” did you write the novel linearly, or did you know the “high-resolution” ending first and work backward to plant those slow-burning clues?

No, I already mentioned I just had a concept, and the rest I did on the fly. I should say we. Keith was tremendous in all of this. A rookie novelist just plodding along.

If your stories are fueled by pain, do you find that the humor and satire, like the comparison to A Confederacy of Dunces, act as a defense mechanism for your characters, or perhaps even for you as the writer?

I suppose my answers had better be a first draft. I confess I have not read the book yet, but I ordered it on Amazon yesterday. Let me read it and get back to you.
One thing I can say is that it is true that the funniest people are often the saddest and have been through some pretty traumatic emotional pain. Children can be cruel, and sometimes those childhood experiences can stick. Adults can be very cruel as well.
But as a writer, that is gold regarding fuel or impetus to write something moving.

The Kanoho family has lived in Makah for countless generations. How does that deep sense of history anchor the story even when the plot spirals into those far-fetched scenarios?

It was totally necessary that there be deep roots to anchor what was paramount for me, that these people are Hawaiian, proudly Hawaiian, and that their ties to the land, that land, Makaha Valley in particular, are not only established but beyond reproach. It is Kanoho land, pure and simple. Of course, there has to be a basis of economic wealth for them to accomplish the fantastic things they do. It was never going to be a story about the impoverished. It was a murder mystery all along, and I had to keep it simple. The socioeconomic implications to Hawaii and its people would, I felt, have been a distraction and really cause for an entirely separate book and purpose.
I just had to keep this exciting, and the way it was set up, it was not going to work with homeless individuals or people on food stamps. I wanted to keep it grounded and have the Kanohos be somewhat elegant and refined, yet accessible to the locals, to their people. They are and will always be country folk.
Makaha was not impoverished in that way, especially for the particular period I am depicting. It was sparse and still very much rural, with a lot of open space. I understand that has drastically changed now.

Ultimately, you want the reader to find “double the value” through the story’s nuances. Is that an invitation for readers to treat the book not just as entertainment, but as a cultural document that deserves a second read?

Yes, I was arrogant enough to think that my plot twist was so sophisticated readers should invariably read it a second time. I was also very proud of the Hawaiian references to our life and culture and the beauty of it all, and I wanted them to take that in as reinforcement as well, because paradise is being lost at a rapid clip. The billionaires are coming.

What currently occupies your life?

My mother recently passed. I devoted the last five years of my life to shepherd her on her final journey. She had dementia. You know that gold I spoke of? I just went through a boatload of it.
As for what occupies me now, I am slowly finding my way back to freedom. I have really been in a bubble, a kind of numbness. Slowly, I am finding out it is OK to leave for the entire day. The problem is that being in the bubble for so long, I lost contact with a bunch of my buddies. Now I am just going to the gym, then going to the range, just so I can get some movement.
A year after I was stricken with Covid and paralyzed for about two months, my mom was diagnosed with dementia. While I was learning to walk again and overcome the nerve damage I suffered, I took care of her. The nerve damage is permanent. I am permanently disabled, and I have one of those placards on my vehicle. I am retired and free to do what I please at this point, and it is strange. My sense of purpose, making sure my mother wanted for nothing, was so intense that I felt lost for the first couple of months. But I am settling into it. I am painting and trying to play the guitar again. My right hand, my good hand, has extensive nerve damage, so I am always trying to rehabilitate. I have found the best way is simply to live my life and do the things I like to do. In short, that is what I am up to nowadays.
All kinds of experiences and ideas. Gee, I should write a book.

Interview and introduction by Klemen Breznikar
It’s Psychedelic Baby! Magazine