Baltimore-based author Nik Korpon’s latest novel, The Rebellion’s Last Traitor, is out now from Angry Robot, set in a city where memory has become a commodity – bought and sold, and experienced like a drug. Here, he talks about one of the rather unlikely inspirations for the story..

If there were one big thing I could change about the US, it would be—

Wait a second. That’s a dangerous way to start. Reboot.

If there was one small, ancillary, and fairly insignificant thing I could change about the US (that’s better now), it would be that more people gave a shit about soccer. (I know, it’s really called football, but I’m from Baltimore, so the only football here has a Colt or Raven attached to it.)

I’ve played soccer for most of my life, whether in proper matches on a rec team, a travel team, a high school team (before I found that skateboarding and punk rock were way better than having to run eight miles on a Saturday morning), or in pickup games in alleyways, parks, parking garage roofs, or now in the backyard with my kids. Interest in the sport has grown over the years, but it’s still safe to say that the majority of Americans don’t give a shit about soccer. That’s not to say it hasn’t gotten better. I can now watch a fair number of European matches online without resorting to sketchy Russian pirated sites and can walk into some pubs in Baltimore and find other people yelling at a match on the television. (Sometimes, I even meet someone who remembers the electric thrill of watching Paul Caligiuri scoring the decisive goal against Trinidad and Tobago in the November 1989 qualification match that would send the US to the World Cup for the first time in forty years.)

I can’t say that lack of interest is always a bad thing, though. In the US, we don’t have nearly the problem with hooliganism and firm rivalries that are present in Europe. We don’t have to keep away fans in the stands while allowing the home ones to exit in order to avoid riots. We don’t have people traveling from far away and getting into bar fights before the matches (unless the Red Sox are in town, but that’s a different story). But I’ve always found that affinity and loyalty-bordering-on-religious-obsession to a club incredibly interesting. Seeing how clubs can pull cities like Glasgow or Rome or together or drive them apart is fascinating. Maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up with it and, outside of the Baltimore Orioles, I don’t have those feelings for any American sports teams. In some way I can identify, because when Spain loses in a Euro Championship, or Barça or Celtic get knocked out of the Champions League before their time, I feel that stab of pain and regret. And I’m not even from there.

But there was something about these rivalries—or derbies, as they’re called—that helped me finally find a way into my novel, The Rebellion’s Last Traitor.

I had the kernel of an idea—a memory thief mourning the death of his wife and child finds a memory that suggests not all is as it seems—but couldn’t figure out what the story was. I’d gone through my usual brain-dump writing exercises, asking a series of what ifs, looking to books and films I liked to find inspiration, but it just wasn’t working. I was working at a tattoo shop at the time and had gotten so frustrated I screamed and flung my notebook across the shop. The place being what it was, no one noticed. So I plopped in front of the computer and went to YouTube to find something to dull my brain. After clicking around, I found a Vice documentary about the Old Firm, the rivalry between Celtic and Rangers, two Glaswegian clubs.

The reporter interviewed supporters from both sides. Some were Catholic (Celtic), some Protestant (Rangers). Some wore green (Celtic), others blue (Rangers). Most hated the other. But as I watched, a feeling passed over me, a tactile realization that this was my story. This was what I should be writing about. In the way that these two clubs represented not just different neighborhoods within close proximity, but different social classes and religious traditions—and really, different cultures—I saw my two protagonists, Henraek and Walleus. Both were raised just outside the city. Both were soldiers in the rebellion against the authoritarian regime. Both suffered loss of family. Both engaged in their own type of class warfare. But the difference between them—much like the difference between club supporters—was simply what side of the street they were standing on. One was a terrorist, the other a rebel. One was a traitor, the other an idealist. Everything was just a shift of perspective.

It was a realization that, in hindsight, should have been obvious, but it touched on some of the best writing advice I’ve heard: Everyone is the hero of their story. Terrible people generally don’t think they’re being terrible, just maybe misunderstood. (I know there’s a case to be made for awful protagonists, but that’s a different essay.) In the right light with the right justification, every cause can be a cause worth fighting for. And it’s finding that line—between terrorist and rebel, traitor and idealist—that makes following such incredible bastards so interesting.

The Rebellion’s Last Traitor is out now from Angry Robot