When the Character Steps off the Page…

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by Helen Currie Foster

You go to a play, you’re reading the program, you’re waiting for the curtain to go up. It does. And onstage a character comes alive. You not only believe in that character—suddenly you feel that character is real.

After the play, in the lobby, out comes a chattering group of actors, one of whom is—the character you believed in! But it’s merely…another human being!

This happens to me over and over at Austin Shakespeare productions. I remember sitting riveted, watching Othello preparing to smother Desdemona, his face just a few feet from the front row of the Rollins Theatre. “No, no!” I wanted to scream. Minutes later, still quaking from the death scene, I watched the actors come back out for their traditional after-talk with the audience. I watched brokenhearted Othello plop down in a folding chair and grin at us––morphed from Othello into actor Mark Pouhé. At Free Shakespeare outdoors in Austin’s Zilker Park I held my breath, watching young Romeo climb the balcony to talk with Juliet, enchanted––like Juliet––by every word he uttered. Then at intermission, still in costume, actors came out and climbed the hillside, shaking buckets for donations, including…Romeo! Jarring to think he’d time-traveled from sixteenth century Verona to an Austin hillside. https://www.austinshakespeare.org/

You may be thinking, “I know all about that––it’s just the ‘willing suspension of disbelief.’ Coleridge, right? Maybe you’ve just got an aggravated case!”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge

But the question is—how exactly can actors do that? Maybe because Shakespeare has made Othello and Romeo so active, so appealing, so fascinating, so human, so alive in their loves and hates, that we believe in them, and we must hear their story. Others call such fixations our willing contract with actors, in exchange for being entertained––so long as the illusion is not spoiled. See The Actor’s Edge Online, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdGM7QzFJhM

As always, Shakespeare says it best. In the Prologue to Henry V, his Chorus begs the audience to use their own imaginations to make the small wooden stage come alive with the war between the “two mighty monarchies,” England and France:

“Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them/

Printing their proud hoofs I’ th’ receiving earth./

For ‘tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,/

Carry them here and there, jumping o’er times,

Turning the accomplishment of many years/

Into an hour-glass…” Henry V, Prologue.

That’s genius.

Coleridge himself recalled his agreement with Wordsworth as follows: that while Wordsworth would write poems about the charm of everyday things,

“It was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.” (Emphasis added.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief [Also spoken of as “the concept that to become emotionally involved in a narrative, audiences must react as if the characters are real…”] https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199568758.001.0001/acref-9780199568758-e-267

By buying a theatre ticket, or a movie ticket, we’re inviting an agreement like the one between the child who begs, “Tell me a story!” and the adult who responds, “Once upon a time…” In those two phrases, the contract is made. The child agrees—likely longs––to suspend disbelief, and the storyteller promises a world where the unexpected (even the unbelievable) can happen. Talking animals…bears with beds and chairs…

You and I happily suspend our disbelief when the characters become real to us, even though the events may be beyond “belief.” Harry Potter! Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny! Lord of the Rings! Star Wars!

What does this have to do with mysteries? At least the protagonist in any mystery must come alive for us. If you’re a Louise Penny fan, you appreciate how Gamache smiles at his wife, how he strokes his dog. As for Donna Leon’s Inspector Brunetti, I know him well; I’ve followed him upstairs to his Venetian apartment so many times, practically huffing with him on that last staircase. I’ve watched him choose a panini to have with coffee in his favorite coffee bar—indeed, I can practically smell the espresso. I’ve stood with him in the police boat as it bounces across the lagoon to a murder scene. He’s become so familiar, so…well, real to me. V.I. Warshawski in the Sara Paretzky novels? I know the emotion she feels when she touches her mother’s cherished wine glasses, I feel my blood pressure rise with hers over injustice. And Robert Galbraith’s team, Robin and Cormoran? I ache with the pain of Cormoran Strike’s prosthetic as he runs, trying to catch a suspect; I feel Robin’s fear as she opens a door to a dark hallway. I peer over Joyce’s shoulder as she writes in her journal in Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club series.

A story (play, movie, mystery novel) demands a setting in which the protagonist comes alive for us. We’ve suspended disbelief when our favorite mystery characters no longer exist merely as ink on a page, as lines in a Kindle. Coleridge’s goal was to create “a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment.” We’re interested in what happens—a “semblance of truth”––to a character who arouses our “human interest.” The author, actor, director, has made us feel in league with our favorite characters. We’ve become collaborators with them, sharing their adventures, their frustrations, their fears. Suspending disbelief may be why we’re so anxious when our protagonists face danger, why we’re indignant when they’re treated badly, why we’re so relieved when they’re vindicated.

Of course a mystery plot may challenge imagination. The perfectly timed rescues in Daniel Silva’s spy thrillers…and the magnificent art restoration skills of his hero, Gabriel? The exquisitely choreographed capture and totally successful interrogation of Grigoriev in John Le Carré’s Smiley’s People?

Or the clever solutions deftly reached by ex(?)-spy Elizabeth and her friend Joyce at a foreign agent’s swimming pool suspended high above London, in The Bullet that Missed? https://amzn.to/45NxJlE

Knowing how reality usually works, we worry how plans go awry, how colleagues disappoint, how villains can foil. We shake our heads, fearfully anticipating that the plan will fail, and our character’s bluff will be called. But we’re still hoping, and holding our breath every second. And we keep turning the page.

MURDER, MAYHEM, CRIME

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AND THE GRANDE DAMES OF MYSTERY

Reprint by Francine Paino AKA F. Della Notte

Originally submitted in 2021, I thought the s tory of the grand old men and women of mystery was worth a reprint. At the end, I have added three books not on the original list, presenting additional feisty, not-to-be ignored, seniors who make their way through crimes – sometimes committing them.  

Overall, fiction provides a brief respite from the realities in our lives. In those few precious hours of distraction, we shut off the conscious minds’ worries and efforts to find solutions to problems or imagine worst-case scenarios. In real-life crises, the subconscious must see an issue with fresh eyes and a different perspective, perhaps even finding a new approach. The most popular category for that escape in the U.S., as revealed by Nielson Bookscan Services, is the mystery/thriller/crime novels, which beat all others by two to one. But if we seek to escape from real-life problems, why is this genre more popular than romance or comedy?  

Explanations are offered everywhere, even in psychology periodicals. One reason for the popularity of murder, mayhem, and crime is that they allow a safe way to immerse oneself in high drama without the destructive aftermath touching the reader in reality. Another is that it is exciting to be emotionally flung about as if on an amusement park ride. Then there is the experience of entering the criminal’s mind—oh, horror—something we don’t get to see in real life—at least not before the evil deed is done. Readers can also figure out, see, or at least suspect what will happen before it happens, and hopefully, by the end, there is the satisfaction of Yes. Makes sense. It was in the clues all along. Most often, that is not the case in real life. These reasons help explain why this genre is the most popular, but why are stories with elderly sleuths so well-liked?

Unlike the many Mediterranean, Native American Indian, and Asian cultures, and despite the growing economic difficulties and stresses on those societies’ families, their elderly are respected; their knowledge and wisdom are put to good use, whereas in the U.S., youth has become a preoccupation. It has the mind of younger people so entrapped in worrying about maintaining youthful looks that they often miss the grace, wisdom, and knowledge acquired with age and experience. 

Aging in a culture that puts enormous emphasis on being young or appearing youthful creates a constant struggle for those susceptible to that fetish. Yet,—interest in stories employing older people in mysteries is widespread – even among the more youthful readers.

 In mystery fiction, older protagonists have already made the mistakes that younger detectives haven’t yet experienced. Whether professional or amateur, senior detectives see the world through more experienced and seasoned eyes. Thus, their mistakes are different and perhaps even more enjoyable. 

Neha Patel, writing for Book Riot, suggests several mystery thriller books starring older women, starting with the Grande Dame of Mystery, Miss Marple, who at age 70 solved the first of her 13 mysteries in Murder at the Vicarage, by Agatha Christie.  

Before She Was Helen, by Caroline B. Cooney, explores the dangers of confronting your own past life.

In Three Things About Elsie, by Joanna Cannon, the sleuth is 84 years old, and in Partners In Crime, by Gallagher Gray, Lil is a feisty woman of 84 who considers herself “84-years-young,” and has a love of playing detective and Bloody Marys. (My kinda-gal!) 

A metaphysical mystery/thriller, Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh, has a 72-year-old widow coming across a haunting. The only clue is a note saying, “Her name was Magda.”

Writing for Early Bird Books, Paul Wargelin offers a list of feisty, intelligent, and frequently underestimated amateur sleuths over 60, beginning with Grey Mask, by Patricia Wentworth, about a retired governess. Written two years before Agatha Christie’s first Miss Marple novel, Ms. Wentworth went on to write 32 Miss Silver mysteries.  

In Tish Plays the Game, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, Tish Carberry isn’t suited for retirement activities, preferring to use her idle hands and mind to solve mysteries.

Stephanie Matteson’s Murder at the Spa introduces Charlotte Graham, a successful actress who, after four decades of screen and stage success, takes on the role of a sleuth in real life.  

“Does age really bring wisdom?” asks Rochelle Melander. She writes, “Recent studies affirm this adage. Older adults…recover quickly after making mistakes and use their brains more efficiently than younger adults.” In Melander’s article Crime Fiction: Savvy Sleuths Over 50, she offers some fascinating crime stories featuring elderly sleuths.

Celine, by Peter Heller. Celine is an artist and P.I. in her late 60s. In Rage Against the Dying, by Becky Masterman, a 59-year-old ex-FBI agent is haunted by the unsolved murder of her protégé. After an attempt on her life, she needs to unearth the truth. 

Not to be accused of gender discrimination, here are two books starring elderly gentlemen. Don’t Ever Get Old, by Daniel Friedman, is about an 87-year-old retired Memphis police officer, Buck Schatz, who learns that a Nazi officer who’d tortured him might still be alive with a stash of hidden gold. He teams up with his grandson, and they get more than they bargained for.

Summer of the Big Bachi, by Naomi Hirahara, is set in L.A. and Hiroshima. Japanese-American gardener Mas Arai, age 69, is hiding a secret. He faces bachi—the spirit of retribution when a stranger asks about his old gambling buddy Joji Haneda. Joji is murdered, and Mas must try to make things right.

Perhaps one of the qualities that fascinate readers, and they may not even realize it, is that often the elderly almost disappear, even standing in plain sight. They are overlooked, leaving them free to move about, observe, listen, eavesdrop, and study circumstances without anyone realizing what they’re doing. 

These, and many other senior Grande Dames and Grands Hommes of mystery, show how being older does not mean life stops. There is still inquisitiveness, a desire for adventure, and the need to use one’s brain. There are still mysteries and crimes to be solved—they do it with humor, grace, and aplomb.

Grab a bunch and enjoy!

PS: Add to the original list:

 Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club, series, featuring the senior citizens of a retirement home.

Catherine Ingel-Sundberg’s, The Little Old Lady who Broke All the Rules, starring 79-year-old Martha Anderson and her four oldest friends, self-dubbed, the league of pensioners.  

Robert Thorogood’s, The Marlow Murder Club, headed up by feisty 77-year-old, Judith Potts.  

Getting Unstuck

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by Laura Oles

As a writer, I sometimes find myself struggling through periods of being stuck and working my way out of it. Like that character I locked in the trunk of a car (I’m sorry I did that to you, but I knew you’d escape somehow), I’m having to rethink my tactics.

One of my most effective methods of getting unstuck no longer works. My first line of defense, until recently, was to take my Labrador Retriever for a good long walk. I’d bounce ideas off her and she’d pretend to listen as she considered whether she could catch a nearby deer, road runner or squirrel (no, no and no). My sweet pup has recently left this world, and her absence in conjunction with the triple digit Texas heat has meant my walks just aren’t as appealing as they once were. 

The truth is that we all get stuck. Sometimes we get in our own way. Thankfully, there are strategies to get out.

In a recent episode of Hidden Brain, a podcast hosted by Shankar Vedantam, Shankar interviews psychologist Adam Alter about how musicians, writers and other professionals dig themselves out of their performance holes. The epic writers block that plagues George R. R. Martin is discussed, and Martin himself has said of the increasing gaps between each book, “I’ve had dark nights of the soul where I’ve pounded my head against the keyboard and said, ‘God, will I ever finish this?’”  

I’m scared, George. If you can’t do it, what hope do I have? 

Thankfully, Shanker and Dr. Alter have some solid strategies to offer. For example, Dr. Alter explains how an experiment from behaviorist Clark Hull might help someone struggling with stagnation. The experiment involved mice. I know, I know. How can mice running through mazes help with writer’s block? 

Hear them out.

In the beginning of the experiment, the mice moved slowly at first in the maze and then sped up again.  Once the goal came into view—exiting the maze–the mice moved more quickly. Dr. Hall labeled this the Goal Gradient.  When the end is in sight, the pace picks up. This theory has since been further researched to expose a U-shaped motivation arc.  We may start off on a project quickly and then slow down in the middle. Then our pace picks up at the and of a project. Quick. Slow. Quick.  Take the example of being in the messy middle of a novel.  Too far away from the excitement of beginning a new project and too far away to see the end.  It’s like being in the center of the ocean when we’re far away from shore but we can’t see the destination yet. 

And there we tread water.  

STUCK.

So, how do we combat this? 

CREATE SUBGOALS

Dr. Alter uses this technique in his own writing. He recommends taking a large goal, such as writing a novel, and breaking it into smaller sub goals such as completing a scene, writing one chapter, or choosing a small word count to start. “The nice thing about writing a book is that it’s broken naturally into chapters, so already you’ve shrunk those middles down.”  He further explains that you can take one subset and further divide it. “I’ve used the tactic of every hundred words when I’m struggling more…I find that I’m shrinking and expanding constantly as I’m writing a book.”   

USE A TIMER

Photo by JESHOOTS.com on Pexels.com

Dr. Alter sets a timer for a single minute for those times when he’s struggling with a particularly difficult aspect of writing. The idea is to just get back into the rhythm of writing, and each minute will lead to five minutes and then ten. “Each minute is its own goal, its own victory.”

A deadline, a timeline or some other small constraint can push us through our own block. Constraints can bring freedom. And then a breakthrough.

BATTLING PERFECTIONISM

We’re often our own worst enemy.

Musician Jeff Tweedy, front man of Wilco, has described in significant detail his own experiences with writer’s block. One thing he battles the most is perfectionism.

“Perfectionism is paralyzing because what perfectionism signals to you is that unless you produce perfection, you’re failing. The feedback you’re getting is negative feedback and it’s demotivating.”

I feel so seen right now.

But you didn’t fail.

Tweedy says that he battles perfectionism by pouring out the bad material. “Imagine that your ideas are liquids sitting one on top of the other in your head, you’ve got to pour out the bad stuff.”  This works because the expectation is that, of course, some of the work each day is mediocre. It’s part of the process but you’re “getting rid of the bad stuff so the good stuff can emerge.”

IT’S NOT JUST YOU

If you’re scrolling through social media and getting the impression that your other author friends are all killing it while you struggle to get five hundred words down, it can feel very lonely. But, chances are all the seats are full on the struggle bus.  

“Researchers have found that many of us have a tendency to focus on our own struggles while imagining that others have it easy,” Shankar says. The research shows that most people are stuck sometimes and believe they are the only ones experiencing it. “It’s hidden from view, and it feels lonely,” Dr. Alter says. Psychologists call this “pluralistic ignorance.” The concept centers around the idea that we all walk around thinking a similar thing but believe we’re the only one thinking these thoughts. 

Social media can keep us connected but it’s often a highlight reel—it’s usually the very best news each person in your feed has to share. We don’t see the long bouts of struggle, the everyday challenges, the mundane aspects of the creative process. So, while we root for those who have good news to share, we can also remember that there’s much more to their stories.

This Hidden Brain podcast episode covers additional topics, including the deeper issues of how our mind keeps us trapped in certain behaviors. I highly recommend giving it a listen the next time you’re feeling at odds with your creativity. I’m sure I’ll listen to it multiple times, maybe even on a long walk when that time returns.

Getting stuck isn’t some sort of failure or an indication that talent lacks. It happens to many of us. I wish I had a magic potion to share that would banish writer’s block forever. I’d send bottles to all my writer friends with free refills for life.

What I can offer, though, is encouragement, support, and a link to a fantastic podcast episode.

Laura Oles is the Agatha-nominated and award-winning author of the Jamie Rush mystery series. Her work has appeared in crime fiction anthologies, consumer magazines and business publications. She loves road trips, bookstores and any outdoor activity that doesn’t involve running.   

YOU 2.0:  How to Break Out of a Rut

You 2.0: How to Break Out of a Rut

OUR SENSES: THE WORLD BETWEEN PAGE ONE AND “THE END”

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by Helen Currie Foster

Aren’t there two keys to your enjoyment of a mystery? (1) Whether you like the protagonist(s), and (2) whether you’re drawn to the setting?

If I don’t find myself caring pretty quickly about the protagonist (or protagonists—see Mick Herron’s Slough House series, with its delightful collection of failed spies, or Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series with its appealing retirement village residents), I can’t read another page. I shut the book. I want to feel I’m collaborating with the protagonist—so I want to be drawn to his or her mind and experience. Is your reaction similar? When you’re in the bookstore or library, and open a mystery by a new-to-you author, how many pages do you give the author before you shove the book back on the shelf? Not many, right?

The same goes for setting. Setting furnishes part of the puzzle, gives clues to the motivations and preoccupations of the characters. Maybe the author chooses a spot on the planet where the reader has never set foot. A tiny coastal village in Alaska? The ancient cities of Sicily? Or Fred Vargas’s French mysteries, with her Pyrenees-born police inspector Adamsberg? bit.ly/3Or0nDh

Whatever the setting, the author must help us experience it. I recently reread the Shetland series by Ann Cleeves and was caught up by her use of sensory detail. She has us breathing salty air and the smell of sheep, feeling the Atlantic breezes, hearing the cries of gulls and kittiwakes, and always tasting the cups of coffee her police detective, Jimmy Perez, makes time for as his long day wears on. https://greatbritishbookclub.com/all-of-ann-cleeves-shetland-books-in-order/

So wherever a book takes us—Texas Hill Country or Gulf Coast, Paris, Venice, Lake Michigan, Maine, the endless vistas of New Mexico or Arizona, the wilds of Yorkshire—give us the smells, the tastes, the sounds! The feel of the place! And an engaging protagonist!

I also revisited The Coroner’s Lunch, book one in Colin Cotterill’s 15-volume Dr. Siri Paiboun series, set in post-1975 communist Laos with its informers and “burden-sharing tutorials.” Cotterill again impresses with how quickly chapter one captures us, when we meet Dr. Siri, age 72, after the Pathet Lao regime denies him retirement and appoints him coroner—a job he must learn from a tattered manual. bit.ly/3K8Td3N

As we meet Siri in chapter one, we learn he dreams of the dead he’s examined: “He was somehow able to know the feelings and personalities of the departed.” He tells no one of his dreams, fearing they’ll think him a raving lunatic. Besides, “His condition did no harm and it did encourage him to show more respect to cadavers once he knew the former owners would be back”—in his dreams.

Arising from bed, “Siri…carried his small transistor radio to the coffee table. It was a sin, but one he delighted in.” Under the Pathet Lao regime it’s forbidden to listen to Thai radio from across the Mekong River. Instead, “Lao radio broadcasts boomed from public address speakers all over the city from five A.M. on.”

Here’s the smell of Siri’s morning: “He brought his thick brown Vietnamese coffee to the table, sat in his favorite chair, and inhaled the delicious aroma. It smelled a lot better than it tasted…The scent of temple incense had already filled the room, but the roosters were still dreaming of magical flights over mountains and lakes.” And here’s part of what he sees on his way to his office, passing the Mekong: “On the far bank, Thailand stared rudely back at him…The river that was once a channel between two countries had become a barrier.”

Siri defies the instructions of his doctrinaire would-be supervisor Judge Haeng: he continues to wear his ancient leather sandals to his ramshackle office, refusing the black patent shoes Haeng says a coroner should wear, and he pursues the murderous truth despite raids on his notes and even the theft of the bodies he’s analyzing.  

Sights, smells, tastes, sounds! An atmosphere of dreams, the presence of the dead, the feel of an omnipresent regime, and the casual defiance of this irrepressible witty doctor in his ancient leather sandals! Plus a dose of magical realism! Siri’s surrounded by vivid, believable characters—but Cotterill keeps us in Siri’s point of view.

But wait, you say—is there no romance? Wait until you meet Auntie Lah, with her baguettes—“the sweetest in Vientiane”—or taste the sandwiches she makes for Siri—“always different and always delicious.” Siri’s acerbic assistant, nurse Dtui, tells him: “She’s got a crush on you.”

An appealing though wacky protagonist, and a fascinating setting: just one chapter, and I was in.

At the moment, my setting’s different. With the epic heat dome squatting on Texas, I’m temporarily two states away from home, drinking coffee in early morning cool, looking at alpenglow pink on the Front Range and sniffing the vanilla scent of ponderosa pine. From the porch you can hear Glacier Creek rushing past. This setting includes a quartet of mule deer boys, sporting their impressive antlers, still velvety, as they stalk quietly through the sage above the creek. Black squirrels prance on granite boulders, pink and green with lichen; Richardson’s ground squirrels dash from burrow to burrow. Hiking yields paintbrush, mariposa lilies, periwinkle-colored harebells.

And the remnants of past fires!

Tomorrow, though, back to the beloved Texas Hill Country: limestone, live oaks, the stubborn creek still reflecting the sky, and Book 9 of the Alice MacDonald Greer Mystery series.

To Thine Own Self Be True

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By K.P. Gresham

When I start a new mystery novel, there are a lot of decisions that must be made. Is someone going to die?  Who’s the murderer? Who’s the victim? What is the setting for the book—location? Era? Is the book intended to be an escape from the world or immerse the reader in a world of reality, using the current (or historical) goings on to push the story forward?

Many authors (past and present) are fearless in their desire to delve into reality and what they have to say about it. They refuse to hide or camouflage their belief system in the telling. Sounds like freedom of expression, to me. So what’s up with all the following authors (living and dead) whose books are being banned?

George Orwell was such an author. His novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eight-Four (1949) made very clear Orwell’s admonishment of communism, censorship and surveillance. Using phrases such as “cold war,” “newspeak,” and “Big Brother,” Orwell introduced terms that are now prevalent in our world.

Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), chooses to shed light on her view that the males subjugate females. Presented on stage, in opera and on film, the book was given new life as the widely popular 2017 Hulu series which brought the novel back into the limelight.

Ayn Rand’s most popular books, The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1947), spoke to her belief in the morality of rational self-interest. Rand described her philosophy “Objectivism”, as “the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.”

I chose to highlight these authors because they were very clear in expressing their thoughts on the world, but there are many authors who fit this bill. Consider Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Lincoln referred to her as the lady who started the Civil War.  John Steinbeck’s book The Grapes of Wrath showed the shocking poverty and problems of thousands of immigrants. Even Charles Dickens wrote about the plight of the poor in Oliver Twist.

The author walks a tightrope when it comes to controversial content. In present day, people seem to be more divided on what is right and what is fair and what subjects are forbidden territory.  Most writers do not write to be controversial, but on other the hand, writers must be true to themselves as to what they put on the page.

The decision belongs to the writer. Consequences, good or bad, will follow. But hopefully the author has the grist to hold their heads high, knowing they’ve told their own truths. As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, “To thine own self be true.”

Seems to me that is exactly what freedom of expression is all about.

K.P. Gresham is the award-winning author of the Pastor Matt Hayden Mystery Series as well as several stand-alone novels.  Active in Sisters in Crime and the Writers League of Texas, she has won Best Novel awards from the Bay Area Writers League as well as the Mystery Writers of America.

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Website: http://www.kpgresham.com/

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Books by

K.P. Gresham

Three Days at Wrigley Field

The Pastor Matt Hayden Mystery Series

The Preacher’s First Murder

Murder in the Second Pew

Murder on the Third Try

Four Reasons to Die

Dust Bunnies+Cat Hair=Murder

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By

Francine Paino, AKA F. Della Notte

I would love to ignore housework, but it is a necessary evil. From early childhood, I was raised on the mantra of Cleanliness is next to Godliness, a phrase created from Psalms 45:8 All Your robes are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia….” Propelling this phrase into popularity is credited to preacher John Wesley, circa 1791, in his sermon, “On Dress.”But I digress. If you can hire outside help to get it done, I salute you, but in my life, the chores involved in maintaining a generally clean home belong to me. I do, however, have some unorthodox help, although they lift not one finger.

As I slog through the early morning tasks of chasing dust bunnies, cat hair, and cleaning, two of my favorite fictional TV sleuths keep me company.  They are as different from one another as they are from me.  

JB Fletcher (Jessica) is down-to-earth, self-possessed, independent, and a mystery writer. In the early episodes, she is not a wealthy author with a staff to clean, cook, garden, and do minor repairs. She does it all herself and types her own manuscripts on an old-fashioned typewriter – not even on a word processor. Jessica, a retired high-school English teacher and a childless widow, writes a novel to distract herself from the death of her beloved husband. Her nephew, Grady, reads it, thinks it’s terrific, and sends it to a New York City publisher.  The publisher was immediately taken with the book and decided to publish and sell it. Thus, JB Fletcher, a new mystery author, is born and a new vocation emerges for a woman in the second season of life.  

Throughout the series, Jessica progresses and grows as a writer, as does her reputation for being exceptionally astute. Her observations and deductions are worthy of any professional police officer or Private Eye – and she is often consulted by both, as the storylines create different scenarios involving murders. Through all the changes and growth, this classy lady, and amateur sleuth, never loses the personality qualities that set her apart.

Two of my favorite episodes in this long-running TV series are Incident in Lot 7, set in Hollywood. There is a murder in the Hitchcock Psycho House, and the episode has a deliciously spooky ending.  

The Witches Curse takes place in Jessica’s fictional hometown of Cabot Cove, with the arrival of Mariah Osborne, believed to be a witch. A circuit court judge mysteriously falls from a bell tower, and a suspicious fire ravages an insurance agent’s home. Is it witchcraft? Enter Jessica Fletcher to find the answers and solve the crimes. 

For additional company, entertainment, and murder, I turn to my favorite TV homicide detective, Lieutenant Colombo of the LA Police Department. As soon as I tune in, I smile. 

Deliberately clumsy and unkempt, Colombo wears scuffed shoes and a wrinkled, ill-fitting trench coat over rumpled clothes. His facade as a mid-level cop with run-of-the-mill capabilities is fun to watch. 

While JB Fletcher’s situations are more of a mystery, Lt. Colombo’s fall into the category of suspense/thriller. The audience almost always sees the crime committed at the beginning of the show. The main question is how will the bungling Colombo solve the case, or will he encounter a criminal more ingenious than he is? (I’ve never seen that). Unlike Sherlock Holmes, who leads with his abilities, Colombo hides behind a nasty cigar, always in hand, and his habit of saying goodbye – but then, “just one more thing,” to the annoyance of other characters who wish to be rid of him. Of course, this masquerade of disheveled clothes and a muddled mind makes most criminals underestimate his remarkable crime solving abilities.  

In Ransom for a Dead Man, originally aired in the first season, Colombo encounters wily opponent Leslie Williams, a homicidal attorney who contrives a complex plot to get rid of her husband. Willliams calls Colombo out on his grubby subterfuge and her brilliance challenges his ability to capture this elusive adversary. 

These  are examples of cases that hold my attention while I vacuum, dust and clean.  Plots unfold, triggering ideas as I move from room to room. I stop my chores, grab a pencil or pen, writing paper, or sometimes just a scrap of paper and jot them down before they disappear.  

A Colombo episode ignited a spark for a gripping short story.  I’ve also unearthed an ingenious technique of committing a near-imperceptible murder, which I’ll weave into book four of the Housekeeper Mystery Series.  The protagonists in this series are none other than Father Melvyn Kronkey and Mrs. B. an ordinary woman with character traits not unlike the down-to-earth, homey, JB Fletcher.  As in Colombo, their detecting journeys are filled with high-stakes games of cat-and-mouse with Mrs. B. Father Melvyn on one side and criminals on the other.

Though it may be dull and mundane, vacuuming up cat fur and chasing after dust bunnies gives me time to think about murder. I never actually do it, of course, and the cat is safe from me.

 

Tell Me a Story!

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By Helen Currie Foster

In My Reading Life, a grand book about reading and writing, author Pat Conroy says, “The most powerful words in English are ‘tell me a story…’” bit.ly/3PpSoHF

Yes! And don’t we know stories demand––require––insist on characters? Fairy tales––Jack in the Beanstalk, Hansel and Gretel. Epics––The Fellowship of the Ring, Star Wars. 

I love the beginning of Emily Wilson’s recent translation of The Odyssey: bit.ly/43Bdjvi

Tell me about a complicated man,

Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost

When he had wrecked the holy town of Troy…

…Now, goddess, child of Zeus,

Tell the old story for our modern times.

Find the beginning.

So, how do writers create memorable characters? What works to create character? And why do we care? Isn’t it because character drives narrative?

Recall Shakespeare’s famous terse description in Julius Caesar: “Yon Cassius hath a lean and hungry look…” Those ambiguous words reach beyond the man’s shape or facial expression to hint at driving ambition…the very subject which drives the play’s narrative.

Or take Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813, and still one of the most loved novels in the English language. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/austen-power-200-years-of-pride-and-prejudice-8454448.html

How does Jane Austen create character? Looking back, I am surprised by the lack of physical description. She doesn’t tell us what Mr. or Mrs. Bennet, or the five daughters, look like. We’re given a few visual breadcrumbs, told that Bingley and Darcy are “handsome” and that Bingley “wore a blue coat and rode a black horse.” But her characters, with their personalities, their actions, largely come to life in our minds otherwise: by conversation.

Elizabeth overhears Mr. Darcy describing her as “tolerable but not handsome enough to tempt me”—a criticism she later recounts to friends, “for she had a lively, playful disposition.” Okay, there’s one aspect of Elizabeth—lively and playful. Yet after telling friends that Elizabeth “had hardly a good feature in her face,” Darcy “began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes.” So she’s also intelligent! Elizabeth tells her sister Jane, “you are a great deal too apt…to like people in general. You never see a fault in any body.” Elizabeth is not just “playful” and “intelligent,” but a critical observer.

Using dialogue––what Elizabeth and Darcy say––Austen shows us how Elizabeth—and ultimately Darcy––think. In a world focused on superficiality—class, wealth, appearance, social skills and niceties––Austen makes us care about two characters who are too smart, too critical, too thoughtful, not to keep thinking and––ultimately––change their minds. Their characteristics (both pride and prejudice!) drive the narrative.

But hey, what about those dark eyes? Mr. Darcy disturbs the haughty Miss Bingley by saying he’s meditating on “the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.” As all Austen readers know, that specific detail––“[A] pair of fine eyes”––will also powerfully move the plot.

Texas’s Larry McMurtry shows us how conflict between characters drives narrative. In his Lonesome Dove, the first character we meet is Augustus, sitting on the porch at the Hat Creek Cattle Company, in “the smidgin of shade he had to work with.” He has retrieved his jug from the springhouse and, as is his custom, he’s drinking Tennessee mash whiskey, which makes him feel “feel nicely misty inside.”

We’re in Augustus’s point of view when we meet his counterpoint, the other key character, his stubborn partner Captain Woodrow Call. Augustus, when he hears the whir of a nervous rattler in the corner of the springhouse, believes “in giving creatures a little time to think.” He doesn’t shoot the snake; he waits until the rattler has “calmed down” and crawled out a hole. He contrasts his own behavior to Call’s:

Call had no respect whatsoever for snakes, or for anyone who stood aside for snakes. He treated rattlers like gnats, disposing of them with one stroke of whatever tool he had in hand. “A man that slows down for snakes might as well walk,” he often said.

As  Call and their diffident hand, PeaEye, arrive at the porch, Augustus notes that while he himself stands four inches taller than Call, and Pea Eye three inches taller, there’s no way to convince Pea Eye that Call is the short man: “Call had him buffaloed.” Augustus knows that if a man means to hold his own with Call, that man must keep in mind that Call isn’t as big as he seemed. Thus Augustus begins many a day by remarking, “You know, Call, you ain’t really no giant.”

McMurtry doesn’t give us a detailed physical description of Augustus or Call. Instead, we hear them banter. We see Call’s impact on others, and how Augustus works to maintain his own status vis à vis Call. Right off the bat McMurtry makes us feel the sheer force of two characters, two magnetic and conflicting personalities, and their relationship, as we’re launched into this epic tale. Their characters, the combined magnetism and conflict, drive us to Montana…and back…

We first meet Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s character Sherlock Holmes in A Study in Scarlet, when Holmes is introduced to the narrator, Dr. Watson, as a potential roommate. Watson walks into the lab: “There was only one student in the room, who was bending over a distant table absorbed in his work. At the sound of our steps he glanced round and sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure. ‘I’ve found it! I’ve found it,’ he shouted to my companion, running towards us with a  test-tube in his hand.” Then he shakes hands with Watson: “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.” Watson is astonished. bit.ly/3N0U4Ep

We get no actual physical description of Holmes until Chapter Two. Instead, we confront Holmes’s vigor, curiosity, perspicacity, confidence in his own powers. Similarly, in “A Scandal in Bohemia,” Watson first describes Holmes’s “immense faculties and extraordinary powers of observation” in deciphering clues. Then, looking up from the street, Watson sees the detective’s silhouette on the window-shade: “I saw his tall, spare figure pass twice…He was pacing the room swiftly, eagerly, with his head sunk upon his chest and his hands clasped behind him.” Watson instantly knows, “He was at work again.”

The author engraves that image of Holmes, pacing eagerly, on our imaginations. We can’t wait to see Holmes in action: that’s what we’re reading for.

Herman Melville deprives the reader as well as Ishmael, the narrator of Moby Dick, of even one glance at Captain Ahab until Chapter 28, when Ishmael is well out to sea on the whaling ship Pequod. Ahab finally appears on deck and stands erect, holding on by a shroud, his bone peg-leg planted in the auger hole drilled on deck for that purpose:

There was an infinity of firmest fortitude, a determinate, unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless, forward dedication of that glance. Not a word he spoke; nor did his officers say aught to him; though…they plainly showed the uneasy, if not painful, consciousness of being under a troubled master eye…moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a crucifixion in his face; in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some mighty woe.

The word “character” comes from the Greek root for “engraving tool.” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/character If ever character was engraved on a person’s body, Melville’s description of Ahab and his impact on his shipmates qualifies. The uneasy silence of the officers! The crucifixion in Ahab’s face! His unsurrenderable wilfulness, fixed and fearless!

If that’s not enough foreshadowing, in Chapter 36, Ahab demands the entire crew to assemble and then hammers a gold piece to the mast for the first man who sees the white whale which took off Ahab’s leg—Moby Dick. Starbuck objects: he signed on to hunt whales, not to take vengeance on a mere animal, which he calls blasphemous. But Ahab makes the rest of the crew swear: “Death to Moby Dick!” Melville creates a character whose physical description conveys tragic history and deep emotion, and whose forceful actions persuade the crew to follow him. We know there’s no stopping Ahab now. And we haven’t yet met the whale.

Pat Conroy also tells us, in My Reading Life, of the day his beloved high school English teacher, Greg Norris, took sixteen-year old Conroy to visit the poet Archibald Rutledge. Rutledge “suggested that I make the close observation of nature part of my life’s work and that I learn the actual names of things,” because “specifics always proved fruitful to the validity of any narrative”:

“A Cherokee rose, not just a rose. A swallowtail butterfly, not just a butterfly. That kind of thing,” he said. “Get the details right. Always the details.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_laevigata

Always a great reminder for mystery writers. My character Alice, in the Alice MacDonald Greer Mystery series––stays on me to get the details right. https://bit.ly/3qC2fzI

So–tell me a story! Show me the character! Get the details! And we’re off!

About Helen Currie Foster

I live north of Dripping Springs, Texas, supervised by three burros. I’m deeply curious, more every day, about human history and prehistory and how, uninvited, the past keeps crashing the party. I’ve loved the Texas Hill Country since my first sight of it as a teenager. Artesian springs, Cretaceous fossils, rocky landscapes hiding bluegreen water in the valleys. After law school (where I grew fascinated with water and dirt) I practiced environmental law and regulatory litigation for thirty years––then the character Alice suddenly appeared in my life. I’m active with Austin Shakespeare and Heart of Texas Sisters in Crime. And I’m grateful to the readers who enjoy the Alice MacDonald Greer Mystery series!

WE’RE OLDER. WE’RE NOT DEAD

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BY

FRAN PAINO AKA F. DELLA NOTTE

Look out, there, you young whipper-snappers – (anyone under the age of 60.) Pursuing exciting and noteworthy activities like crime-solving isn’t limited to those more youthful people. Your elders are still learning and finding new avenues and adventures too. Here’s a surprise for you. You grow in wisdom exponentially when you pass the half-century mark, as we see in so many of the senior sleuths in today’s fiction. 

 There is a surging interest in books with senior sleuths that may be generated by those who have raised their children to adulthood, retired or are semi-retired from their vocations, professions, and jobs, and still have active minds and bodies. They enjoy reading about contemporaries in fiction with the same attributes of time, curious minds, and the inclination to fit puzzles together, and not just on a tabletop.

Or perhaps this new appreciation for exciting possibilities after Social Security and Medicare kick in is on the rise among the youngster (under age fifty) who want something to look forward to beyond the antiquated concept that life slows down after sixty. Then it’s all dreary golf, bingo, and blue plate specials – while you wait to die. The authors of the older sleuth mysteries squash that concept with humor and wisdom.

Our elderly protagonists may stumble in their quests to solve crimes, but it doesn’t faze them because they know making mistakes is part of growing older gracefully. They’re stronger for having experienced the fullness of life with pain, sorrow, joy, failure, accomplishment, and everything else that goes with it.   

Unlike many Asian, Native American Indian, and African cultures where elders are considered people of greater wisdom to be respected and consulted, Americans, obsessed with the youth and beauty fetish, fear aging and often shun aging.

In Greece, ‘old man’ is not a derogatory term. In Greek-American cultures, old age is honored and celebrated, and respect for elders is central to the family.”  The African proverb, ‘A village without the elderly is like a well without water, ‘expresses their cultural approach to old age. 

The importance of older generations is emerging in our society as Americans continue living longer. As noted by Alison Bryant, Ph.D., senior vice president of research at AARP (a nonprofit organization focused on civic engagement for people 50 years and over), “As Americans continue living longer, society must redefine what it means to get older. It’s encouraging that most older adults feel positive about their lives…. But we have work to do to disrupt damaging negative associations around aging.” 

We hope that America’s cultural view of the beauties and blessings of growing older is improving, and it’s feasible that the surge of interest in the senior sleuths of fiction will help. Life often does imitate art, and the adventures and lives of fictitious characters will help turn younger Western attitudes into a more positive recognition of all seniors have to offer.  

In the Housekeeper Mystery Series, Mrs. B., the protagonist, is a feisty, energetic, strong-willed, and outspoken senior citizen who has raised her children to adulthood, battled and beaten breast cancer, then lost her beloved husband. In book one, I’m Going to Kill that Cat, on a lark, Mrs. B. answers an ad for a new housekeeper needed at St. Francis de Sales. She is invited to interview for the position and is hired by the pastor, Father Melvyn Kronkey. Thinking her new vocation was just the care and upkeep of the priests and the rectory, she could never have imagined the new life of solving crimes she’d be thrust into when she rang the doorbell of the rectory.  

Below, I have included several links to a wide range of mysteries featuring senior sleuths, the motivations of the authors who wrote them, and information on cultures that deeply respect age. 

And remember: We are older, but we are not dead. Not by a long shot! 

Who knew getting old was so much fun?

Senior Sleuths Theme Mysteries : A – F

https://www.everythingzoomer.com/zed-book-club/2021/11/19/senior-citizen-sleuths-join-the-murder-club/

Mature Sleuths Show Us Getting Older Means Getting Better

https://ihpi.umich.edu/news/most-older-adults-say-theyve-experienced-ageism-majority-still-hold-positive-attitudes-toward

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-other-cultures-can-teach_n_4834228

Writers, Readers and Unexpected Detours

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–By Laura Oles

I’m a little out of practice being part of a crowd. This last year has taken me down some unforeseen roads, avenues that are only now leading back to some normal semblance of my daily life.

More on that in a minute.

Speaking of crowds, I recently attended Malice Domestic (a mystery readers and writers conference) and also served as a speaker at an event at a gorgeous library in the Texas Hill Country town of Kerrville. May has meant time talking with readers about the stories they loved, connecting with other writer friends whose work I admire, and basking in the joy that is having endless conversations about the nuances of storytelling, structure, and world building.

Yes, I’m still willing to have the plotter/pantser debate. Also, I’m pro Oxford comma.

As I get my groove back attending writing conferences and other book events, I realized something.

I missed these people.

Not only as a writer but also as a reader. Reading has always been an important lifeline for me, especially in my youth when I was moving almost every year to a new school as part of an Air Force family. But books were a particularly important part of my survival toolbox once 2022 kicked down my door. It was the works of many talented authors that supported me, in part, through this last year.

Let me explain with a small detour about a big topic:

My younger sister had a horrific beginning to 2022, starting with a perfect storm of medical events culminating in her experiencing (according to one of her many doctors) “too many strokes to count.”  She then fought her way through an entire year of re-learning to do everyday things, learning to do some things differently, and keeping her razor-sharp sense of humor intact. I was grateful that I was able to spend weeks at a time with her during her hospital stays and then assisting in adjustments to being at home as she reclaimed her life. I’m sure I smothered her with too much attention and hovering, and I’m grateful that she trusted me enough to be a part of her recovery. 

Did I mention that she was also pregnant at the time? As a surrogate? (The baby is, remarkably, completely healthy, and lovely.)  And then she needed to have open-heart surgery? My sister is a fierce force of nature. Her recovery has been astounding, hard won, and also complicated in many ways. She has shared her story far more eloquently than I ever could—it’s her story after all. She’s also a gifted writer.

While many people have followed her incredible journey—and she has been so graciously open with the difficult details of her recovery—this is the first time I’ve been able to write about it in any format. For someone who makes a living with words, this last year left me speechless. 

And then towards the end of 2022, I had my own health scare, which required tests, a biopsy and then surgery.  My recovery was a good one, and I was able to enjoy the holidays with my family.  At this point, I wanted nothing more than to see 2022 in my rear-view mirror. When I talked to my sister about how my scar would heal and how visible it would be, she told me, “Be proud of that scar. You earned it.” 

During this last year of medical emergencies and the restless waiting of recoveries, my own writing simply wouldn’t come. I was immersed in traveling, caregiving and trying to keep myself together.  I simply had no space for writing stories—I was too busy living this one—but I did find comfort in reading.  I read short stories, novellas, and novels, grateful for these authors who gave me the gift of their created worlds.  I needed a break from my spinning universe, and immersing myself in a book in the late evening hours gave me respite that, to this day, I know helped me through it all.  

I started this year giving my calendar some serious side-eye, afraid to make any plans for fear of the next crisis to come. But then, while walking down a favorite stretch of beach in Port Aransas with my husband over New Year’s weekend, I spotted a beautiful shell. A lighting whelk, nestled in the sand.  In my twenty-five years of walking that beach, I’ve never come across a shell so lovely.  I took it as a sign that maybe it would be okay to consider better things would come, that being afraid of hope might be energy wasted. That shell sits on my desk as a reminder that the future holds promise as well as challenges.

I resumed making plans for the year, attending conferences, book events and celebrations. Part of me fears declaring such plans to the universe, but then again, if anything happens, I hope my writing community will wait for me until I can return. Until then, I’ll do the best I can with a book on the nightstand.

Sometimes, it’s the little things.

Laura Oles is the award-winning author of the Jamie Rush mystery series. Her debut mystery, Daughters of Bad Men, was an Agatha nominee, a Claymore Award finalist and a Killer Nashville Readers’ Choice nominee. Depths of Deceit, her second novel, was named Best Mystery of 2022 by Indies Today. She is also a Writers’ League of Texas Award finalist. Her work has appeared in crime fiction anthologies, consumer magazines and business publications. She loves road trips, bookstores and any outdoor activity that doesn’t involve running.  https://lauraoles.com

Why They’re Favorites…? On Rereading

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BY HELEN CURRIE FOSTER

What’s your favorite place to read? A certain chair? The one with a lamp that shines on your book, not in your eyes? Perhaps a ferryboat seat, where you glance up at the horizon, then down at your book? On a plane, or train?

When I was young our house had an elm tree in the back yard which was not only climbable, but offered two branches that stuck out at the perfect angle for a lounging pre-adolescent. Even better—the lounger was invisible from the house. I could scramble up, arrange myself, open my book—and be left unfound, undisturbed, for some time.

A later joy was climbing on the New Haven RR in Boston after final exams (Chaucer, Shakespeare), armed with the latest James Bond and the very biggest Hershey bar with almonds, and being rocked south for miles along the coastline. Uninterrupted.

And I confess to rereading books. I further confess to rereading children’s books. Maybe a more accurate word is: revisiting. At least every two years, I pick up Kipling’s Kim, finding my way to the part where Kim guides his Tibetan lama, who seeks a sacred river, on a pilgrimage into the high deodar forests of the Himalayas. I can almost smell the trees. There Kim steals the Russian spies’ notes––his own initiation into the Great Game. Even more satisfying? The long afternoon where, exhausted, he is “taken apart” by Eastern massage and finally stumbles out, recovered, to find his lama at the brink of—well, no spoilers.

Why this gravitational pull of favorite children’s books?

Maybe because the best children’s books feature enterprise, surprise, disguise. And—most important––the discovery of identity.

Consider The Sword in the Stone, where Merlin transforms Wart into various animals (badger, owl, fish) who teach him survival techniques (“put your back into it!”). And magic! Giants! Griffins! The Queen of Air and Darkness! (See volume below–griffin looming behind tree.) One favorite moment? When Merlin transforms Wart to a raptor—a small merlin––who must sit for desperate minutes during his formal initiation, near the maddened and perilous Peregrine. Why does Wart need Merlin’s special tutelage? Because of his identity, which he and we will finally discover.

Others I still pull off the shelf: The Wind in the Willows, especially Mole’s tearful return home, where he recognizes his true self.

Also Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising. Maurice Sendak’s Nutshell Library – memorizing all the poems. I sneak back to Harry Potter—a feast of enterprise, surprise, disguise, and Harry’s search for his own identity. Occasionally I return to Lord of the Rings––especially the battle for Gondor. You’ll note I missed out on Jack London and many others. But there’s always The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe—remember that wondrous moment when Lucy slips through the back of the wardrobe, past all the mothballed coats…into magic? Into the snowy landscape where she meets Mr. Tumnus the faun? Into the realm where––as Lucy later discovers––she is Queen Lucy?

You have your favorites. So do our collective children and grandchildren. Bookstore shelves still offer children tales of enterprise, surprise, disguise—and characters discovering their own identities.

And fortunately, children’s books needn’t follow the 1930 Detection Club’s 10 Rules for Writing a Mystery. Rule #2: “All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.” Following Rule #2 would let out magic, of course, and its enormous space for imagination. (If you, like me, crave an occasional touch of magic for grown-ups, try Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. amzn.to/44iIoVj)

As a mystery writer/reader I usually write about mystery. But thinking lately about the bibliophile’s favorites—favorite reading spots, favorite chairs, favorite characters––has sent me down a different path. Why reread? Wait––why revisit?

What is it about the end of Kim, or the plight of Frodo and Samwise in Shelob’s lair, or Harry Potter’s first moment on his broom, learning how good he is at Quidditch––that whispers, “read it again!”

I reread mysteries too. Have you reread a Dorothy Sayers, a Ngaio Marsh, a Sherlock Holmes? Or John le Carré? How many times have you read Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Spy, or Smiley’s People? (Come on, spy thrillers are part of the mystery-thriller-spy novel genre.) And why do we reread le Carré? One character in particular: George Smiley.

Smiley first appears on page 1 of chapter 1, titled “A Brief History of George Smiley,” in Call for the Dead, le Carré’s first book, published in 1961. Smiley’s marriage to the aristocratic Lady Ann Sercomb has ended when she abandoned him, and he’s described as follows: “Short, fat and of a quiet disposition, he appeared to spend a lot of money on really bad clothes, which hung about his squat frame like skin on a shrunken toad.”

We learn of his deep love of 17th century German literature, his success at Oxford, his recruitment by MI-6, his dangerous service abroad as a spy in WWII. Not a commanding figure, no. But le Carré allows us to glimpse his sharp mind, his penetration, his ability to absorb all he hears. Smiley’s work as an intelligence officer provides him “with what he had once loved best in life: academic excursions into the mystery of human behaviour, disciplined by the practical application of his own deductions.”

Smiley appears next in A Murder of Quality (1962), where Smiley’s solution to the murder rests on a scathing critique of the snobbishness of British public schools (le Carré despised his own experience at such a school).

By the time we reach Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974), Smiley has been put out to grass at MI-6 under the new regime headed by Bill Haydon, who has seduced Smiley’s wife Ann and taken over London Station after causing the bitter dismissal of Control as its head.

In Tinker, Tailor, Smiley is plucked out of retirement to interview a somewhat dubious British agent who claims the Russians may have placed a mole inside MI-6. Here’s Smiley, listening to the agent’s tale:

“He sat leaning back with his short legs bent, head forward, and plump hands linked across his generous stomach. His hooded eyes had closed behind the thick lenses. His only fidget was to polish his glasses on the silk lining of his tie, and when he did this, his eyes had a soaked, naked look that was embarrassing to those who caught him at it.”

Smiley’s investigation marches ahead. The BBC wants to make a series of Tinker, Tailor. And John le Carré has an actor in mind: Alec Guinness. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/sep/05/tinker-tailor-soldier-spy-40-years-on-alec-guinness

Le Carré’s letter to Sir Alec Guinness (3 March 1978) appears in A Private Spy / The Letters of John le Carré, at 213. He tells Sir Alec:

“Apart from plumpness, you have all the other physical qualities: a mildness of manner, stretched taut, when you wish it, by an unearthly stillness and an electrifying watchfulness. In the best sense, you are uncomfortable company, as I suspect Smiley is. An audience wishes––when you wish it––to take you into its protection. It feels responsible for you, it worries about you. I don’t know what you call that kind of empathy, but it is very rare, & Smiley and Guinness have it: when either of you gets his feet wet, I can’t help shivering.”

I love that “as I suspect Smiley is.” Does the author’s own speculation about George Smiley explain, in part, why we readers become so attached to this character? What drives us to Smiley’s side? Is it his apparent ineffectualness, his vulnerability, his stillness, his watchfulness, entwined with our certainty that he will somehow keep going?

Not until 1979 in Smiley’s People does Smiley achieve final vindication, catching the Russian master-spy who conceived the long set of steps that led to Haydon’s seduction and Control’s fall. At the climax, we (along with Smiley and his fellow spy Peter Guillam) await the possible arrival of the Russian in cold war Berlin, at the crossing point from East Germany. Will the spy make it across the bridge? Guillam asks what cover the Russian will use:

Smiley sat opposite him across the little plastic table, a cup of cold coffee at his elbow. He looked somehow very small inside his overcoat.

“’Something humble,” Smiley said. “Something that fits in. Those who cross here are mostly old-age pensioners, I gather.’ He was smoking one of Guillam’s cigarettes and it seemed to take all his attention.”

At book’s end, we are waiting with Smiley. It’s cold there by the Berlin bridge. I expect Smiley’s feet are wet. Like the author, “I can’t help shivering.” When we know a character’s vulnerabilities, we begin to perceive true identity.

For Smiley, for all the characters created by their authors with such vividness and such vulnerability that we seem to feel what they feel, for such characters–I reread. Yes, the better word is revisit: I go back just to be sure the characters are still there, still available, still waiting quietly on the shelf. And, yes, just as good as I thought they were.

I’d love to hear your favorites (reading spots, children’s books) and the favorite characters you…revisit.

*****

Author: Helen Currie Foster

I live north of Dripping Springs, Texas, supervised by three burros. I’m deeply curious, more every day, about human history and prehistory and how, uninvited, the past keeps crashing the party. I’ve loved the Texas Hill Country since my first sight of it as a teenager. Artesian springs, Cretaceous fossils, rocky landscapes hiding bluegreen water in the valleys. After law school (where I grew fascinated with water and dirt) I practiced environmental law and regulatory litigation for thirty years––then the character Alice suddenly appeared in my life. I’m active with Austin Shakespeare and Heart of Texas Sisters in Crime. And I’m grateful to the readers who enjoy the Alice MacDonald Greer Mystery series!