Author: gregh121

I am a writer and editor who lives in New Orleans.

Young Offender

As I said yesterday, I had been wanting to reread Summer of ’42 for quite some time now, and finally decided to bite the bullet and start it yesterday.

He always intended to come back, to see the island again. But the oppertunity had never quite presented itself. This time, however, with a break in his schedule and with events moving remrkably in his favor, he had driven far up the New England coast to see if the magic still prevailed. Aboard the old ferry his Mercedes convertible earned the icy nonchalance of a half dozen craggy islanders, for very few new cars ever make that crossing. Cars that came to Packett Island are usually well into the varicose stage of their lives, and as such, they are by time and temperament unconcerned with a return trip to the mainland. “Cars come to this fuckin’ island to die.” Oscy had said that. Oscy, the big deal philosopher. And it was as true in 1970 as it had been in 1942.

He studied the faces around him, each turned to the wind, taking the breeze full face. It was apparent that none aboard remembered him. But then, he was barely fifteen that last time he forked over the twenty-five-cent fare. And in the intervening years nmuch had changed, including the twenty-five cents, which was now a dollar, and himself, which was now forty-two. How, then, could anyone remember him? The nerve.

The Mercedes moved with disinterest along what purported to be the Packett Island Coastway, for the speed limit was thirty, hardly a challenge for an exhumed LaSalle, let alone a hot Mercedes-Benz. To his left were the familiar dunes, sulking in the grass, incongruously scattered with the uncatalogued refuse and bleached timber that the sea could toss so casually across the road whenever it felt so disposed. And to his right, the sea itself, choppy and gray-green. And large. Very large indeed. One of the largest in the world.

I first read Summer of ’42 when I was either eleven or twelve; I don’t remember which; I just know that we had already moved out to the suburbs and I bought a copy off the wire racks where the Zayre’s stocked paperbacks, cover out and about four books deep. I’m not really sure why I picked it, of the scores of paperbacks from Dell and Fawcett Crest and Pocketbooks; there had to be a reason but nearly fifty years later I cannot remember. The movie was out at the time, and the cover art was from the movie, with Jennifer O’Neill standing in the sand looking out to see, and Gary Grimes seated in the sand behind her looking at her longingly; her little beach cottage was in the background along with the dunes and sea grasses. Was it because the cover depicted a beach scene, and we were beginning to spend our summer vacations including the Gulf Coast of the Florida panhandle in our annual jaunts to Alabama to visit family? The answer is lost in the mists of time, alas, but I did buy it, I did read it, and never really forgot it. It’s a lovely little book, nostalgic and sweet with a little tinge of sadness running through it; I think I also identified very strongly with Hermie, the main character (obviously, standing in for Herman Raucher; the book is supposedly semi-autobiographical). Hermie was a dreamer whose family didn’t really understand him, he had an older sister who is barely a presence at all in the book, and his fantasy life/world was just as strong as mine. He often went off into daydreams the same way I did, and he didn’t really fit with his friends, whom he enjoyed and was annoyed by in equal measure. At just fifteen, he is just starting to experience his own sexuality, and that summer of 1942 he becomes obsessed with a beautiful young woman who stays in a cottage just outside the small town on the beach. He sees her with her husband–also stunningly handsome, and they are so clearly in love, and begins to sort of watch them whenever he gets the chance. The husband goes off to the war, leaving her alone, and he contrives a way to meet her, offering to help her carry packages home when she is overburdened. He is also clumsy and awkward; saying and doing things that embarrass him, and they begin to develop a kind of weird and different little friendship. She just thinks he’s a sweet boy, but he is crazy about her, and she becomes his sexual fantasy; speeding along his awakening awareness of sex and sexuality.

The book is entirely from his point of view; so deep inside that we really don’t get to know any of the other characters in the book other than from his perspective and how he perceives them. There are parts that are actually quite funny–the scene where he buys condoms is hilarious–and the bittersweet feeling that she was his first love that he can never quite forget is the motor that drives the engine of the story forward. It’s melancholy, and Raucher was a really good writer; he captures that awkwardness of being insecure in your own skin at fifteen beautifully, and the entire tone of the book–that bittersweet melancholy for a lost love and a lost time and really, lost youth–is rendered exquisitely.

And yet…

He doesn’t know this woman at all, other than she’s quite beautiful and in their little exchanges, very kind to him, if a bit confused by his behavior. He doesn’t even know her name until the book is almost finished. (SPOILER) And when she does have sex with him in the end–after getting the shattering telegram that her beloved husband has been killed in the war and she’s been drinking, in the throes of a powerful grief–it never really made sense to me. Why would she do this? She’s in her early twenties and he’s fifteen. And despite her vulnerability in that moment, she’s the adult here…when I first read the book and saw the movie, that power differential wasn’t anything I noticed (as I said, I wrote my own story inspired by this one without a second thought about statutory rape and so forth), but now…it’s weird. And he of course has never forgotten the first woman he had sex with (they say you never forget the first) but it also doesn’t go into any of those directions, and why now has he decided to go back and see the place? There’s a lot left out, and I actually was thinking, as i read it this last time, how much I would have liked to have seen the story from her point of view.

It’s a short book and, as I said, the writing is well executed and it flows nicely. It made me start thinking about my own story and how I could possibly rewrite it now. I was able to read over the course of the afternoon (like I said, it was really short) and I did enjoy the reread…but this time it raised a lot more questions than it did to my much younger self.

But like Hermie, I also never forgot the story, so that’s something, right?

Way of Life

Sunday morning, and yesterday was a bust. Oh, we took Scooter to the vet, but I was oddly tired (Always Tired: The Greg Herren Story) and only intended to read for a little while; but alas, every time I got up to try to do something, anything…I was tired and gave up. So, I stuck to my easy chair and read Summer of ’42, and even dozed off for a little while around five. I was finally able to get up the energy to put the dishes away and clean out the dishes in the sink before making dinner–which is also when I did the filing and tried to get a handle on the reorganizing. I am hoping that tonight I’ll sleep well, which will help me get through the gym tomorrow as well as getting a leg up on the things I need to get done in the meanwhile before I go visit my family later this month.

But blessed sleep did occur last night and so I am hopeful that today I can make serious progress on all the things I wanted to get done this weekend. I started writing a short story yesterday, “Vivit Dominus,” and I’d like to make some progress on that today. I am going to go to the gym later on, and of course, would like to spend some time getting a handle on some of the other messes that seem to have become permanent around here. I also need to make a decision on what to read next…so many excellent choices in that TBR pile that sometimes it’s hard to decide.

We watched Palmer last night on Apple Plus, starring Justin Timberlake (#freeBritney), and it was incredibly well done. Timberlake gives a stunning performance as a former small town Louisiana football hero who wound up spending twelve years in jail for attempted murder, and comes home to live with his grandmother. Her home is next door to a trailer…and a young woman lives there (played brilliantly by Ted Lasso’s Juno Temple) who has a little boy who isn’t like other little boys. He has no interest in boy things, and his favorite TV show is Princess Penelope, a cartoon about princesses who have wings and can fly and have adventures. Grandma Vivian takes care of Sam when his mom is off on a drug binge, disappearing for weeks at a time. Grandma Vivian dies in her sleep during one of these times while she’s taking care of Sam, and the responsibility for taking care of Sam falls on Palmer–who doesn’t know what to do with this gender nonconforming little boy. At first he tries to get Sam to be more like other boys, but Sam is persistent–he likes what he likes and doesn’t understand why there’s a difference between boy things and girl things–and it’s really beautiful and touching to watch Palmer slowly come around to not only accepting him as he is, but becoming a parent. It’s a really lovely little film, and one of the few good things that came out of the pandemic is that streaming services are picking up lovely movies like this and making them available to a much larger audience than they would have reached in a theatrical release. Every film we’ve watched on Apple Plus has been quite marvelous. They have a documentary called Boys’ State that I’d like to watch–particularly since I myself went to Boys’ State when I was in high school.

And Ted Lasso is coming back in July! Huzzah!

So, today I am going to make a to-do list and see what progress I can make on it today. I am going to walk to the gym in a few hours and get my workout done–it inevitably wears me out and makes me tired, but I have to somehow stay awake so I can get sleep tonight so I can function tomorrow. However, a quick check of the gym’s hours today shows that they are no longer only open from 10-3 on Sundays but rather 9-6, so I can actually go later than I’d originally planned, which is even better. Huzzah! That changes everything.

So, I am going to get up for a bit and do some touching up around here, and then I am going to work for a while, maybe do some writing. Have a lovely Mother’s Day, Constant Reader!

Turn

Saturday morning and I’m up much earlier than I usually am; I woke up around seven–the last time; it was a restless night–and finally decided to just go ahead and get up. We have to take Scooter to the vet at eleven for follow-up blood work (monitoring his diabetes) but other than that, the day is pretty free for me. I am thinking about going to the gym later to do arms (I skipped them last night because…well, because there were too many people there in the small space that is the gym and I don’t like having to force my way into spaces because so many gym-goers seem to feel like they are the only people there or they own the gym or something; I despise many things, but I have an especial hatred for inconsiderate assholes at the gym; always has been a pet peeve of mine) and was actually thinking it might be a good idea to go to alternating workouts; arms on one workout, shoulders/chest/back/legs on the other, with a goal to eventually give legs its own day in June). My muscles feel tired this morning, which means I worked them hard yesterday. That is a good thing. I also don’t want to waste today–which has a tendency to happen far too often on these weekends. The apartment needs some work done on it (it’s horrifying how much I’ve allowed the housework to slide since the first of the year) and perhaps getting up early this morning and using this time to actually do stuff rather than be a slug will help.

We shall see how this day progresses, at any rate.

One would never guess, looking around my apartment this morning, that I prefer to be organized, that’s for certain.

I’ve kind of decided to reread Summer of ’42 by Herman Raucher next. I think I need a break from reading crime fiction–a palate cleanser, if you will–and I’ve been thinking a lot about this book and the film made from it lately; I don’t know why, or I don’t remember the reason it came up in my brain recently (hell, it may have been two years ago for all I can remember; I have absolutely no concept of time anymore). I read the book when I was eleven or twelve; I’m not sure when, but I know it was when we lived in the suburbs, and I’m also not really sure why I was so interested in it. I know I didn’t see the movie until it aired on television, and years later I rented the video to see the unedited version, but it always stuck in my head–so much so that I wrote a short story somewhat predicated on the same premise; nostalgic looking back at the coming of age of the main character. The story was called “The Island”, and rereading that story about ten years ago–I was fond of it, and it was very popular in the creative writing class I wrote it for–I realized, in horror, that it was very clearly a product of its time and could never be published without an extensive rewrite. There was a young woman in that creative writing class, and she hated the story, which of course deeply bothered me; particularly because her criticism was based on nothing–she had nothing concrete other than “it just made me squirm a bit,” was all she could say, and of course everyone else in the class just kind of rolled their eyes and dismissed her. On the reread, I realized precisely why it made her squirm, even though she couldn’t–or was afraid to–put it into words: the main character was thirteen and is seduced by a woman in her early twenties, so I kind of unintentionally wrote a grooming/pedophile story but wrote it as a nostalgic, coming of age romantic story. Ick ick ick. In retrospect, her reaction was the right one to have, frankly. I tried to rewrite it and make the characters closer in age–making the main character seventeen and the young woman twenty–but it still had an ick factor to it. I thought about changing it to a gay story, but that made it even ickier.

This set me to thinking about how our viewpoints on this sort of thing have changed over the course of my life, and whether Summer of ’42, which inspired the story in the first place, would still read the same way all these years later. NOW I REMEMBER! (There’s still some juice in the old brain yet!) I started thinking about my story again when I made the list of all the unpublished short stories I have in my files, and I remembered, not only this story but another one I wrote for that class that was never published anywhere, “Whim of the Wind”–and I was thinking about that story a lot over the last year because that one was also set in Corinth County, Alabama–the place I was writing about in Bury Me in Shadows, and the two stories (“The Island” and “Whim of the Wind”) are forever linked in my head because I wrote them for the same writing class and turned both in together (we could turn in as many stories as we wanted, but had to turn it at least once twice in the semester…I turned in two the first time, and six the second time; the first example of how prolific I can be when I set my mind to it and do the work). But I digress. Back in the day, when I was growing up and even up to my thirties and forties, the age gap thing–and the sexuality of teenagers–wasn’t as big a deal as it is today, if that makes sense. Even now, when there’s a scandal about a teenaged boy having sex with an adult woman–usually a teacher in her early twenties–a lot of men don’t see the problem and say lucky kid or wish I’d had a teacher like that when I was in high school and things like that; as though there’s something natural and “manly” and normal about a teenaged boy having sex with an adult (incidentally, if the teacher is male these same responses are most definitely not used; adult male teachers who have sex with girl students aren’t treated or looked at the same way, nor are male teachers having sex with male students; adult men are inevitably seen as predators–the very same type of double standard the classic Tracy/Hepburn film Adam’s Rib addressed in 1949).

It’s rather interesting now, as sixty looms on the horizon, to look back and see how the world has changed since I was a kid.

We got caught up on Cruel Summer last night, then tried watching The Serpent on Netflix–I’d read Thomas Thompson’s book about the murderous couple, Serpentine, years ago–but it didn’t really hold our interest, so we decided to skip it and move on to something else.

Okay, I’ve put off getting the day started for long enough now. Talk to you tomorrow, Constant Reader.

Video 5 8 6

Last night wasn’t perhaps the best night of sleep I could have had, but it wasn’t too bad. I think I may have gone into a deep sleep for a while, but spent some time in the dreaded, dreadful half-sleep I’ve come to know and despise. I am working at home today–the apartment is definitely in need of some straightening, organizing, and cleaning–and I have some phone calls I need to make. I also have to swing by the office at some point, because I ran out of lube for the condom packs yesterday, and thus need another case of it.

I love that I have a job where I can casually say, welp, ran out of lube again so I have to run by the office.

Pretty cool.

We finished watching season 1 of Who Killed Sara? last night, and then began watching a Freeform show–a teen crime drama I’d made note of when seeing previews a while back–called Cruel Summer. It’s an interesting show–not even based on a novel, which I thought it must have been–in that it has three different timelines; three consecutive summers, in which we see dramatic changes in the main character, Jeannette: the first summer, where she was nerdy with frizzy hair and glasses and braces (the typical way show business always depicts nerdy); the second summer, where she has transformed into a beauty whose is popular and beloved; and the third summer, where she has no friends, is hated, and has been accused of something–in the first episode we aren’t sure what happened; another pretty, popular girl is missing in the second summer timeline, and we don’t find out exactly what happened to her until the second episode. We watched the first two episodes–became completely absorbed into the story by the second, and there are two more to stream, after which we will have to wait every week for a new episode. A lot of new seasons of shows we already are into start dropping in mid-May; including Who Killed Sara?, so we should have plenty of things to watch in the upcoming months.

I started writing a short story in my journal last night; the idea has been niggling at the back of my brain for the last few days, and finally last night I started scribbling in my journal. The working title for the story is “The Glory in Damnation,” which is a great title but doesn’t really fit what I am writing, so I’ll have to come up with another. Don’t get me wrong, I like that title–will probably use it again at some point, but right now I don’t have a better one for this story so will leave it as is. (I won’t start typing into Word until I have the right title for it; I use the titles for the file names and changing file names is one of those things that I dislike doing, while being full aware it doesn’t make any sense.) I want to spend some time this weekend with my short stories, while getting ready to do revisions of #shedeservedit, and of course I need to outline the first act of Chlorine.

Hopefully, I won’t be a lazy slug this weekend and can get this all done–plus the cleaning.

While I was making condom packs yesterday, I rewatched a film I haven’t seen in a while, The Last Picture Show. The book (by Larry McMurtry) and film both had an impact on me when I was a teen; both remain on the list of my favorites. I tried to reread the book a few years ago, but stopped when I got to the part about the teen boys having sex with heifers; the book had such a weirdly nonchalant attitude toward bestiality, like it was a normal part of rural Texas boys’ growing up, that I was a bit repulsed and put the book down. I also loved the movie, and had been wanting to watch it again, to see if it would actually hold up as well as fit into the Cynical 70’s Film Festival. It does, on both levels; and I kind of want to dive back into the book again. Peter Bogdonavich, who directed and co-wrote the movie, did an inspired job with it; this was the start of his hot streak, which included the superb What’s Up, Doc? and Paper Moon. The film was shot in black-and-white (as was Paper Moon), and every time I’ve watched it I marveled at the genius behind this choice. The cinematography gives the film an almost dreamy, slightly out of focus quality, which really works and makes an impact; Bogdanovich made a 1950’s style movie with an 1970’s sensibility. The acting was superb; Timothy Bottoms was fantastic as Sonny, as was Jeff Bridges as Duane, and of course, Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman won Oscars for their pitch-perfect performances as Sam the Lion and Ruth Popper–that final scene with Leachman is staggering in its impact and she earned that Oscar. Ellen Burstyn is stunning and beautiful as Lois Farrow, and Eileen Brennan’s Genevieve didn’t get nearly the accolades she deserved. Cybill Shepherd made her first appearance on film as beautiful, selfish, narcissist Jacy Farrow, and she was absolutely the right choice for that part as well. Randy Quaid also has a small role as Lester Barlow, who is instrumental to Jacy’s story; he is painfully young in this, and years away from his break with reality. When he grins, you can actually see a resemblance to his brother Dennis–which he grew out of as he got older. The film opens with a panning shot of the main street of the town of Anarene (Thalia in the book), with the only sound the howling of the wind as dust blows, and Bogdonavich ends the film with a similar panning shot, which centers firmly the dying small town as the anchor to the story. (In the book, Sonny is the emotional heart of the story.) It’s nostalgic, but not seen through rose-colored glasses; both book and movie focus on how the town and the times warped the lives of the characters; how they endure the body blows of a hard life and yet somehow continue enduring. I’m glad I watched it again–because it does indeed hold up and is a classic that doesn’t get neat the attention it should.

And on that note, I need to get back to the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

The Perfect Kiss

And I finally fell asleep last night, and it was glorious.

I feel pretty amazing this morning. I never realize how completely tired I am when I’ve had insomnia for a few days, but I can certainly tell the difference when my body finally feels rested. I feel alert mentally, my muscles feel great, and so do my joints (I’ve been noticing my joints a lot more the older I get). I’m working at home this morning and afternoon–the call of the condom packs must be heeded, always–and the house is also a disaster, as it always seems to be on Thursday mornings. So I’ll probably have to put the dishes in the dishwasher away and do another load once I finish this and before I dive into the condom packing–and there’s also a load of laundry in the dryer in need of folding. Seriously, it never seems to end around here, but that seems to be the case for everyone.

We finished watching The Innocent last night, which was enormously satisfying (if a bit predictable; I saw the resolution coming, but it was still very well done) and I do highly recommend this series. Then we started season one of Who Killed Sara?, a Mexican series that reminds me a lot of Revenge, which also was a retelling, of course, of The Count of Monte Cristo. It’s quite well done; the villain of the piece is quite the monster, and the damaged dynamic of the Lazcano family and their incredible entitlement, which is the primary driving force behind the show’s plot, is complicated and enjoyable. (I would also like to add here that one thing Paul and I have noticed about Mexican and Spanish crime drama series, like this one, are incredibly open and inclusive to queer characters and stories; coming from two deeply conservative Catholic countries, they really shame American productions–which still have a ways to go on this score. Racial diversity, on the other hand, not so much.)

I also think relaxing all night last night with some immersive television programs was an enormous help to me falling asleep last night. I mean, I could have taken care of the kitchen and the laundry last night, but it was also nice to sit in my easy chair and relax.

I also watched the virtual book launch of the new MWA anthology, When a Stranger Comes to Town, edited by Michael Koryta, which was pretty amazing–such an impressive array of talent! One of the great things about the pandemic related switch to virtual events is not only bigger turnout, but also the fact that the events can be recorded, and others can watch them later. I was only able to see about the first half hour, but since it’s archived on-line, can go back and watch the rest while doing the dishes or folding laundry, etc. If you want to watch, here is the link. Speakers included Alafair Burke, Michael Connelly, Tina deBellegarde, Jacqueline Freimor, Steve Hamilton Joe Hill, Tilia Klebenov Jacobs, Smita Harish Jain, Joe Lansdale, Emilya Naymark, Jonathan Stone, Elaine Togneri, and Amanda Witt–as I said, an amazing array of talent.

All right, I think it’s time for me to head back into the spice mines. I’ve got to get this kitchen under control before I start making condom packs, and after work tonight I am going to head to the gym. It doesn’t look like the weather is going to be as shitty today as it has been for the past two days–torrential rain, thunderstorms, and flash flood watches–so that should be okay.

Have a great Thursday, Constant Reader!

Rock the Shack

Wednesday, and the day my income tax refund is due to hit the bank. It’s too early to check; the bank doesn’t update accounts until 8 am–which is actually pretty annoying, particularly since this is a new development since my bank was bought out by another. Well, hello and surprise–it was actually there! Huzzah!

We had an amazing thunderstorm last night–it’s still pretty nasty outside this morning–and yes, I was awake through the storm because yet again I passed another sleepless night. That’s three nights of insomnia in a row. Heavy sigh. Maybe tonight I will be able to sleep. I had hoped to make it to the gym tonight, but I can’t imagine not being tired after I get off work this afternoon. Looks like we are also in a flash flood warning for most of the day–not really feeling like I’d want to walk to the gym in torrential rain, either. But…if i do go, perhaps that would wear me out so I could sleep tonight? One can dream, I suppose.

We only have one episode left of The Innocent, and we really have enjoyed the hell out of this show. I’m going to terribly sorry to see it end tonight–and I am sure there are some twists and turns left to play out in this story.

Not sure what we are going to watch next, but there’s a Spanish language show on Netflix called Who Killed Sara? that looks interesting.

I am still trying to decide what to read next–I have such a plethora of riches on hand to go through as it is already, and some of my favorite writers (Alison Gaylin, Megan Abbott, and Laura Lippman) are releasing new books later this year, and S. A. Cosby’s follow-up to Blacktop Wasteland drops in July. Can’t wait to get my grubby paws on all of those, believe you me.

I’ve been too tired to write or do much focusing of any kind this week–three days of insomnia and counting will do that to you–but I’ve been thinking about a couple of my short stories lately and wanting to get to work on those at some point. Maybe tonight I will get some sleep so I can both read AND write tomorrow night, which would be lovely.

And, tired as I may be, it’s time to drag my tired ass into the spice mines. Have a great Wednesday, Constant Reader!

Paradise

Bouchercon 2021Anthony Award Nominations

Best Hardcover Novel

​What You Don’t See – Tracy Clark

Blacktop Wasteland – S.A. Cosby – Flatiron Books

Little Secrets – Jennifer Hillier – Minotaur Books

And Now She’s Gone – Rachel Howzell Hall – Forge Books

The First to Lie – Hank Phillippi Ryan – Forge Books

Best First Novel

​Derailed – Mary Keliikoa – Camel Press

Murder in Old Bombay – Nev March – Minotaur Books

Murder at the Mena House – Erica Ruth Neubauer – Kensington

The Thursday Murder Club – Richard Osman – Pamela Dorman Books

Winter Counts – David Heska Wanbli Weiden – Ecco Press

Best Paperback Original/E-Book/Audiobook Original Novel​

The Fate of a Flapper – Susanna Calkins – Minotaur Books

When No One is Watching – Alyssa Cole – William Morrow

Unspeakable Things – Jess Lourey – Thomas & Mercer

The Lucky One – Lori Rader-Day – William Morrow

Dirty Old Town – Gabriel Valjan – Level Best Books

Best Short Story“Dear Emily Etiquette” – Barb Goffman – EQMM – Dell Magazines

“90 Miles” – Alex Segura – Both Sides: Stories From the Border – Agora Books

“The Boy Detective & The Summer of ’74” – Art Taylor – AHMM (Jan-Feb) – Dell Magazines

“Elysian Fields” – Gabriel Valjan – California Schemin’ – Wildside Press

“The Twenty-Five Year Engagement” – James W. Ziskin – In League with Sherlock Holmes – Pegasus Crime

Best Juvenile/Young Adult

​Midnight at the Barclay Hotel – Fleur Bradley – Viking Books for Young Readers

Premeditated Myrtle – Elizabeth C. Bunce – Algonquin Young Readers

From the Desk of Zoe Washington – Janae Marks – Katherine Tegen Books

Holly Hernandez and the Death of Disco – Richie Narvaez – Piñata Books

Star Wars Poe Dameron: Free Fall – Alex Segura – Disney Lucasfilm Press

Best Critical or Nonfiction Work

​Sometimes You Have to Lie: The Life and Times of Louise Fitzhugh, Renegade Author of Harriet the Spy – Leslie Brody – Seal Press

American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics and the Birth of American CSI – Kate Winkler Dawson – G.P. Putnam’s Sons

Howdunit: A Masterclass in Crime Writing by Members of the Detection Club – Martin Edwards, ed. – Collins Crime Club

The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia – Emma Copley Eisenberg – Hachette Books

Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman behind Hitchcock – Christina Lane – Chicago Review Press

Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit, and Obsession – Sarah Weinman, ed. – Ecco Press

Best Anthology or Collection

​Shattering Glass: A Nasty Woman Press Anthology – Heather Graham, ed. – Nasty Woman Press

Both Sides: Stories from the Border – Gabino Iglesias, ed. – Agora Books

Noiryorican – Richie Narvaez – Down & Out Books

The Beat of Black Wings: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Joni Mitchell – Josh Pachter, ed. – Untreed Reads Publishing

California Schemin’ – Art Taylor. ed. – Wildside Press

Lockdown: Stories of Crime, Terror, and Hope During a Pandemic – Nick Kolakowski and Steve Weddle, eds. – Polis Books

Shake it Up

Well, I wrote the timeline for Bury Me in Shadows last night–lame as it was; I am waiting for my editor to write me back and say, um, you could have made more of an effort on this. But it’s done, and I am well relieved to be out of those woods–for now, at any rate. I am kind of mentally fatigued; two books back to back like this will tend to do that to one–although I used to do it all the time; book after book after book. But I also didn’t used to have to get up at six three days a week, either, nor did I ever have the insomnia issues like I do these days. Last night was another of those nights where Morpheus chose to not visit my bed, but I feel relatively okay at the moment, as I swill my first cappuccino. I am sure I will hit a wall later today. Tonight is also supposed to be a gym night, but…we’ll see how that goes.

I’ve decided to put aside the Thomas Perry novel for now. It’s very well done, but I am not connecting with it, which is more my problem than Perry’s; I am just not in the mind space right now for a hired killer thriller. I’ll come back to it at some point, I am sure; so it goes back into the TBR pile rather than into the donation box. I’ve actually gone on a tear with buying ebooks on sale (or for free) lately, and I’ve also gotten some wonderful e-galleys stored in my iPad–including this year’s titles from Laura Lippman and Alison Gaylin, not to mention some sparkling debuts and some wonderful classics. Yesterday I finally figured out how to sort my ebooks (I am such a Luddite) in the iPad by title, so I could see how many duplicates there were–and there were quite a few, so I deleted all the duplicates to free up space as well as make it easier to find things in there. I think when I go visit my parents, I may just take my iPad instead of books with me to read–although I am taking the hard copy of From Here to Eternity with me–that way I can read through take-off and landing…although I suppose one could just put the device on airplane mode but I still think they make you power it down. It’s been so long since I’ve flown anywhere, it’s hard to remember. I just ordered some more books with points from credit cards that should be arriving this week–yes, yes, I know; I shouldn’t continue buying more books when I still have massive TBR piles–but I’ve cleaned out so many books over the past few months that I thought why not use the points and get some new titles, as well as the Laurie R. King backlist. I am still planning on reading something else before treating myself to A Letter of Mary–I just haven’t decided what just yet. I am torn between She Who Was No More by Pierre Boileau (which Les Diaboliques was based on) and The Cook by Harry Kressing, which was filmed as Something for Everyone with Michael York and Angela Lansbury–a classic and bizarre queer film from the early 1970’s–it’s on Youtube.

Or…maybe something else.

We watched another episode of The Innocent last night; this show is so damned good and full of didn’t-see-that-coming plot twists! Of all the Harlan Coben shows on Netflix, this is my favorite so far–not really surprising, since Paul and I have fallen in love with Spanish-language crime shows (cannot WAIT for season 4 of Elite to drop)–we talked about this last night, and Paul said–and I agree–this particular show wouldn’t be as good in English, or if it was set in the US or England or France.

Of course, hot Spanish and/or Mexican actors might play a part in our thought process. Just sayin’.

I also have a story in yet another anthology that is dropping in June and can be preordered now: Unburied, edited by Rebecca Rowland, from Dark Ink Press. My story is “Night Follows Night”; which I wrote an original draft of years ago for an MWA anthology–I think–that didn’t get accepted. I revised and rewrote it a number of times, and when this call for submissions was forwarded to me by Felice Picano (thanks, Felice!) I thought, well, “Night Follows Night” loosely fits this call, and sent it off–and was very delighted to hear back from Rebecca that she loved it and wanted it. Yay! This was the same period last year where I sent off five stories in one day and sold three of them within 24 hours–which was exactly what I needed to have happen at the time, as I was going through one of my malaise periods…nothing like selling three stories in less than twenty-four hours to get you past that hump (the other two were rejected, but that was expected; they were long-shots to begin with).

And on that note, tis off to the spice mines with me. I hope I have enough energy to make it through this day–I was planning on going to the gym tonight, but the lack of sleep for two days running means that probably won’t happen….

Run

Monday morning, and we had some amazing thunderstorms last night. I didn’t sleep great–I had hoped, being worn out from the gym, on top of the thunderstorms, would have done the trick but no such luck, of course. I don’t feel terribly tired or exhausted this morning–at least, not yet–but I am also not exactly bouncing off the walls or hanging from the ceiling, either.

Sigh. Just another day to get through, really.

I’m glad that I got the revisions finished and turned in–note to self: get timeline typed up and sent in today–and I think the book is fairly decent, not bad at all, really (I actually had worried my mind would change on that score after a day or two but no); and now on track for the fall release, which will be lovely. I also have an out-of-control inbox again this morning (as always) and am desperately going to try to get that under control again, or at least make it manageable, by the end of today.

I read The Butcher’s Boy for a while yesterday, but it’s not terribly compelling; it’s interesting, and I like Mr. Perry’s writing style, but at the same time it’s not really a page turner–or I haven’t gotten to the part where the story kicks heavily into gear yet; which is fine. I’d hoped to finish reading it over the weekend, but if I spend some time with it every night for a few hours, I should be able to dive into Laurie R. King’s A Letter of Mary without guilt this weekend. I am also going to try to get a short story revised and/or finished this week; I simply haven’t decided which one. Who knows? I may not ever even pick one–my mind is always such a sieve these days.

We started watching Harlan Coben’s The Innocent last night on Netflix, blowing through four episodes (halfway done), with episode four ending with a massive plot twist/cliffhanger. It’s a Spanish show, and the lead actor is incredibly, almost ridiculously good-looking (Mario Casas), and the show is very well-cast, well-written, and full of almost constant surprises. It’s much too complicated to try to do justice, but the lead, Mateo, accidentally kills someone in a fight outside a bar, goes to jail for manslaughter for four years, and then comes out and falls in love…flash forward a few years and his girlfriend has mysteriously disappeared, someone is trying to kill him, and a nun commits suicide….all of these disparate threads are inevitably connected….which is the big surprise at the end of Episode 4.

Cannot wait to dive back into it tonight.

Ah, the caffeine and the coffee cake are starting to kick in; the question remains how long will this last? Hopefully long enough to see me through this Monday. Can you believe, Constant Reader, that is already May? Where did the first third of this year go already? #madness. It just astounds me how endless 2020 seemed, and now 2021 is running through my hands like mercury. But I still hope to get my novellas and short stories and some other things done this year…FOCUS, Greg, FOCUS.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. Have a fabulous day, Constant Reader.

Plastic

Sunday and a gray morning here in New Orleans. We’re supposed to have thunderstorms (some severe) throughout the day; of course I have to make groceries and go to the gym at some point–which means watching the weather to see when I can make a break for it. But other than that, I have the entire day relatively free; I finished the revisions of Bury Me in Shadows and turned them in yesterday to my editor. I think I caught everything; it’s a tricky manuscript. But as I revised and edited yesterday, I was pretty pleased with it, overall; which is a switch from the usual. I also realized one of my problems with reading my work once it’s finished is that I am rarely, if ever, able to turn off editor-mode; because I generally read my work with an eye to editing and fixing and making it stronger–and I use that mindset when I go back and read things after they’ve been published. I don’t know if there’s a switch in my head I can flip to make that change, but here’s hoping.

Paul went to a party last night–I could have gone, but was a little worn down from finishing the edits, so I stayed home and watched a documentary series on the Smithsonian Channel called Apocalypse: The Second World War, which was quite interesting to watch. Almost all of the footage used in the series was shot either by professional documentarians or journalists covering the war, or amateurs…I never cease to be amazed when I see how young the American military were during this conflict. World War II is endlessly fascinating to me, because it was such an enormous turning point for the world and civilization; the world was a vastly different place after the Axis surrender than it was before the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. It’s been a while since I read any fiction about the war–when I was a teenager I read a lot of it, as well as a lot of post-war fiction–and I realized I’d rarely read any fiction from the point of view of soldiers actually fighting on the ground or in the air (other than The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw, for the most part I read things like Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War/War and Remembrance, etc.). I’ve never read Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead, for example, or any of the post-war novels that sort of glutted the market in the decades following. I got down James Jones’ From Here to Eternity–I bought a copy of the unabridged version, which was released by the estate sometime in the last decade, with all the parts the publisher originally removed restored–and I think I am going to take that with me to read when I go visit my parents later this month. It’s one of my father’s favorite books and movies–it’s also been a hot minute since I’ve seen the movie–and since my main character in Chlorine served, it’s probably not a bad idea for me to read it. I read the first couple of pages yesterday evening before I went to bed, and it’s actually quite good…so I am looking forward to reading it. After I finish the things I need to get done today, I am going to curl up and read The Butcher’s Boy with an eye to finishing it today, so I can dive into A Letter of Mary by Laurie R. King.

One of the more interesting things about having all these streaming services and apps is the ability to find treasures like the Smithsonian Channel buried inside of them. As Constant Reader has undoubtedly noticed, I love documentaries, and now that we have such a glut of streaming services we pay for, I am now searching through them for documentary channels and so forth, and have been enormously pleased with what I have found thus far. (I also took advantage of a special deal for Shudder yesterday–two months at 99 cents each, before reversion to regular pricing, so am going to up my horror game for a while) There’s really never a reason to be bored, is there, with the wealth of streaming services out there? I can certainly always find something, no matter how obscure–which is also why I refuse to “rent” something to stream–although I am thinking about biting the bullet and paying to stream The Last Picture Show, which I really do want to see again.

I cleaned and organized and filed yesterday as well, which has left the kitchen looking–well, if not tidy, certainly in much better shape than it had been in–and I also started another donation box of books. I also want to start clearing out the storage attic here in the Lost Apartment, which isn’t going to be easy, and will certainly make a mess in the living room–which still looks like a storm struck it–but I really do want to start getting rid of things we don’t really need anymore, and there are a shit ton of boxes up there of unnecessary things. Progress may be incremental, but progress is progress.

And I should probably, at some point, start revising and editing the Kansas book, but I think I am going to take this week off from novels.

I started writing a short story this past week–really, just the opening sentence and a second paragraph–which also came from a novel idea. The book idea arose from a joke with some writer friends about noir fiction and noir covers, with their scantily clad sex bomb femme fatales; I joked that someone should write a noir about a strip club in the French Quarter and call it Girls! Girls! Girls! so the cover could have poll dancers and so forth on it; which then of course started the wheels in my creative brain turning and meshing the gears. A character I introduced in the later Chanse books–who eventually got her private eye license and he took her on as a partner–had worked as a stripper in the Quarter to put herself through UNO; I liked her a lot (even though her name is escaping me at the moment) and had even thought about making her the main character in a series, with Chanse as part of her supporting cast. But this was different, and called for a different character–for a while, when thinking about this, I toyed with the notion of an undercover cop or FBI agent; but then thought, in this time, could a woman be assigned to go undercover as a stripper? Maybe, but it could prove problematic. And then I remembered an intern from years ago, when I worked at the Community Center, who worked part time at the Hustler Club as a “shot girl”–her job was walking around with a tray with shots in test tubes. When someone bought one, she’d place the test tube in her cleavage and have to lean forward to dump the shot in his mouth. She hated it–she was a lesbian–but the money was so damned good she only had to work two nights a week and made enough to pay the rent and the bills and so forth. Someone could easily go undercover a shot girl–which, while still demeaning, wasn’t as demeaning as stripping. But the other day for some reason I was thinking about this again, and the thing that made the most sense was that one of the shot girls gets picked up by Vice and is forced to become an informer….which would make her walk the line between the cops and her crooked, organized crime employers, as well as with her co-workers. So, when the opening occurred to me the other day, I wrote it down and saved the file as a short story called “Shot Girl” (thereby adding yet another file to the “unfinished short story” list). I think maybe this week I’ll work on one of the unfinished stories in the drawer.

And on that note, it’s time to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow morning.