‘The Klass’ now in session

Dan Klasing started his career as an author without telling anyone. 

The Mountain Brook resident and Hoover-based attorney would come home from work, sit in his den and write — and all the while, his family didn’t know what he was working on. 

“I was done with the first book before I actually told my wife and children that I wrote a book,” he said.

Klasing, the author of “The Klass – Tyros,” “The Klass – Doyens” and a third unwritten novel, knew he wanted to write a book but kept putting off that dream.

“As an attorney, I write a lot,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to write a novel; in fact, this one has been in my head for maybe 20, 25 years. Until the kids grew up and all that, I really just didn’t have time to sit down at any time to start writing.”  

One day, Klasing said he chose to take the plunge. He finally sat down and got to work, and 10 months later, his first novel was finished. “The Klass – Tyros” came out in February, and his second book came out in September.

Both books could be described as conspiracy or action/adventure books, Klasing said, with a hint of science fiction.

The novels follow a group called The Klass, a Southern conspiracy to take over the South and attempt to secede from the U.S., Klasing said. It is set in modern times. A few historical flashbacks take readers back through The Klass’ history, setting the stage for how generations of work went into the group’s plan.

“My thinking was if the South was actually going to again break off or secede, how would that even be thinkable in the broad sense?” Klasing said. “And I thought, well, it would have to start a long time ago with preparations.”

Inspiration for the novels, as well as The Klass, struck Klasing while he was an undergraduate student at Auburn University and later as a law student at University of Alabama.

“You may have heard of The Machine at Alabama,” he said. “I heard about that when I was in college… [and] it just kept hitting me that, gosh, this has to be the start of a story — a good conspiracy story.”

Rumors and theories of The Machine combined with a fortuitous plane trip, where Klasing sat next to a man who said he was an engineer who worked on aircraft engines and had previously worked at Area 51. After chatting on their flight from Las Vegas to Birmingham, Klasing said the man sent him pictures of military aircraft, and inspiration hit.

“Basically I combined those two things into The Klass,” he said. “It’s just the very beginnings of the story.”

While The Machine helped shape some ideas for The Klass, Klasing said his novels are not a commentary on The Machine or on Alabama. Friends and acquaintances who were in fraternities and sororities at Alabama have also reacted well to the book, he said.

Centered on the University of Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa, most Alabama readers will be able to connect to the story’s setting and atmosphere, Klasing said. Characters in the novel, including Klasing’s favorite — Bubba, a “good ol’ boy from Greenville, Alabama” who is also No. 1 in his aerospace engineering program — are loosely based on the personalities of people he has met throughout the years, pulling from different individuals to build those occupying the world of The Klass.

As an attorney who normally has to focus on facts, precision and argument, Klasing said entering a world that is “100 percent creative” was a nice reprieve.

“It was almost like the story was unfolding, and I was writing it down,” he said. “It was fun to step into just this other world entirely, and I could make up and then get to know the characters as I wrote them and develop them as the book went along.”

Klasing will have a book reading of his second novel at Emmet O’Neal Library Oct. 16 at 2 p.m.