The Crime Lady V2, #11: Crime Reading
Dear TCL Readers:
May in New York is my favorite time of year. The foliage is full, the city feels more awake and alive, and my natural inclination to walk everywhere is amplified. The travel of the last few weeks has been great — Gambier, New Orleans, San Diego, Los Angeles, Ottawa — but it’s good to be home for a long stretch. There’s writing to do, especially on the current book project.
The only travel I’m doing this month is for a special reason: The Real Lolita is up for an Arthur Ellis Award in the nonfiction category. I’ve never attended that awards ceremony before (I usually go to the Edgars, but had to miss it as was out of town for Passover) and it’ll be a chance to catch up with my Canadian publishers and various friends. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to read all the other nominees in my category by May 23rd, but I did read Eve Lazarus’s Murder By Milkshake, which was excellent.
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It’s been an odd few days in crime fiction land. A Q&A with two male writers on writing female characters, presented as if they are saving thrillers from needless chest-thumping. A review in a literary periodical acting pretending that genre isn’t “lesser” but citing 75-year-old examples of condescension. I’d say more on each specific instance but a) Twitter hashed this out plenty b) it’s boring to cover settled ground for the knowingly clueless or those operating in bad faith.
I’m more interested in the dissonance between these pieces and what’s actually happening in crime fiction. Of course, I read widely, and frequently, so I’m exposed to far more of current releases than 99.99% of readers. I have my own biases, too; I’ll sputter out on series, even series that I used to love, if they aren’t evolving or doing something new. I find most plot twists tedious, as well as conventional narratives. And there is a lot of uninteresting writing — “bad” could be an objective term, but it likely isn’t — when I want something weird or fresh or more voice-driven.
But 2019, so far, is a really strong year in crime. It’s May, and there are plenty of books yet to be released that I plan on reading, but here’s my Faves So Far list to date, in author alphabetical order:
Cristina Alger, Girls Like Us
William Boyle, A Friend Is A Gift You Can Give Yourself
Alafair Burke, The Better Sister
Steph Cha, Your House Will Pay
Kelsey Rae Dimberg, Girl In The Rearview Mirror
Caite Dolan-Leach, We Went To The Woods
Lyndsay Faye, The Paragon Hotel
Alison Gaylin, Never Look Back
Amy Gentry, Last Woman Standing
Elizabeth Hand, Curious Toys
Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
Laura Lippman, Lady In The Lake
Lisa Lutz, The Swallows
Denise Mina, Conviction
Lauren Wilkinson, American Spy
All these books are, in their own ways, weird, with specific compulsions and issues and joys and grievances at their core, that work within genre constraints but also bend them to their will. When people send me manuscripts (and proposals) to read, whether unpublished or set for publication, there is one question I keep in mind: Why are you the writer to tell this particular story?
Thinking it through gets at everything: voice, narrative style, choice of subject, scope, you name it. And if you can’t answer that question properly, it shows in the work. It reveals the interchangeability of too many books and authors. It explains the rejections. Yes, great writers disappear and bad writers have success. And the ones with sustained careers figure out how to be themselves throughout.
(Two side points: Let’s just say that I don’t think it’s an accident that the only man on this list [so far] wrote a crime novel that is predominantly about women, especially middle-aged women, one that felt emotionally true. And I’ll save litfic, true crime, and nonfiction favorites for closer to the end of the year.)
READ/WATCH/LISTEN
Encyclopedia Brown creator Donald J. Sobol wanted to be as invisible as possible. But Craig Pittman uncovers the man behind the beloved children’s mystery series in a lovely profile.
Here is a Q&A with Matthew McGough on his terrific new book The Lazarus Files. And here is a CBS Sunday Morning segment on Casey Cep’s gorgeous new book Furious Hours and the true crime book that Harper Lee never wrote.
CBC Sunday Edition aired an audio essay by Darlene Madott, a close friend of Helen Weinzweig’s, which was in response to the segment I recorded in February on Basic Black With Pearls.
The Maris Review is live, and the first episode is with Mira Jacob.
Laura Lippman on taking up tennis again as an adult, and why it’s great to be mediocre (at some things.)
No doubt you read or glanced at the Sarah Lawrence cult story, but if not, here it is. (See also this 2016 piece on the Sullivanians, an Upper West Side-based 1970s cult.)
It’s brutal out there in the gig economy land.
For those who enjoyed my Topic article on forensic genealogy, here’s a broader overview of how this technique is being used for cold cases, Doe identifications, and much more.
Douglas Preston went looking for information about a childhood friend and was horrified by what he discovered.
And finally, one story I couldn’t stop thinking about during Yom HaShoah.
I’ll be back with another dispatch later this month, and for paid subscribers (and those who want to be), look out for something new very soon.
Until then, I remain,
The Crime Lady