Category: diversity

Little Willy

Today’s title song always kind of amused when it was a hit; I was a tween at the time and since willy is also a euphemism for…well, you can see where this is going.

I found it highly (if more than a little bit juvenile) amusing that someone wrote a song about a small penis.

Hello, Monday morning of my sort-of-vacation! The vacation starts Tuesday evening when I get off work, actually, but it’s also kind of lovely to know I only have to work my two long days at the office this week before I can lounge around the house and do what I want when I want to do it. How lovely, right?

I did manage to squeeze out about thirteen hundred words or so on the WIP, and I also printed out the pages of the manuscript i am suppose to be dedicating myself to finishing in July. (I’ve already redone the first four chapters of it before I had to push it to the side for Royal Street Reveillon, whose time had come.) I did look at the first few pages again, and liked what I was reading. So, I’m still undecided about what to do. Should I push through on the WIP, getting that first draft finished, or should I get back to work on what I scheduled myself to do for the month of July? Truth be told, I am actually thinking that what with the five day vacation looming, I could theoretically go back and forth between the two; but the voices are so terribly different, I’m not sure how well that would work.

Yet another example of why writers drink.

I started reading Mickey Spillane’s I the Jury yesterday as well. It’s a short novel, really, and I can’t imagine it taking a long time for me to finish. I’ve never read Spillane, but of course I know all about him, his writing, his character Mike Hammer, and everything he kind of stood for. Spillane was one of the last writers who kind of became a folk hero/celebrity of sorts; it was a lot more common back in the 1950’s and 1960’s; Hemingway, Spillane, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, and Norman Mailer all were celebrities of sorts; I believe Spillane even played his own character in one of the film versions of his work. He also used to regularly appear in commercials and advertisements as Mike Hammer in the 1970’s, which is kind of hard to imagine now. It would be sort of like Stephen King being hired to do commercials and print ads for, I don’t know, Jim Beam? The author as celebrity is something I’m not sorry we’ve gotten away from as a society and a culture, quite frankly. The idea behind reading I the Jury as part of the Diversity Experiment is precisely because it’s the kind of book I’d never really read; Sarah Weinman asked the other day on Twitter if Spillane counted as camp (I personally think it does; my responses was something along the lines of “Imagine Leslie Nielsen playing him”) and then realized I needed to read at least one of the books, as part of the Diversity Project.

But Gregalicious, you might be wondering, why are you reading a straight white male novelist writing about what basically is the epitome of toxic masculinity in his character Mike Hammer?

Well, first of all, the name of the character itself: Mike Hammer. It almost sounds like a parody of the private eye novel, doesn’t it, something dreamed up by the guys who wrote Airplane! and not an actual novel/character to be taken seriously. We also have to take into consideration that Spillane’s books were also, for whatever reason, enormously popular; the books practically flew off the shelves. (Mike Hammer is actually one of the best gay porn star names of all time; alas, it was never used in that capacity.)

But it’s also difficult to understand our genre, where it came from, and how far it has come, without reading Spillane; Spillane, more so than Hammett or Chandler, developed the classic trope of the hard-boiled male private eye and took it to the farthest extreme of toxic masculinity. Plus, there’s the camp aesthetic I was talking about before to look for as well.

Chanse was intended to be the gay version of the hardboiled private eye; I patterned him more after John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee than anything or anyone else. But reading a macho, tough guy heterosexual male character from a toxic masculine male author is also completely out of my wheelhouse; and therefore, it sort of fits into the Diversity Project along the lines of well, the idea is to read things you don’t ordinarily read; not just writers of color or different gender identities or sexualities than your own.

And there’s also an entire essay in Ayn Rand’s nonfiction collection of essays on art devoted to Mickey Spillane; it should come as no surprise to anyone who’s ever read any of Rand’s fiction that she was a huge fan of Spillane. Given what a shitty writer Rand was, that’s hardly a ringing endorsement–but it also gives me something else to look out for as I read Spillane’s short novel.

There’s also a reference to Spillane in one of my favorite novels, Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show–in which some of the  boys are wondering if blondes have blonde pubic hair, and “the panty-dropping scene in I the Jury” is referenced.

Interesting.

And now back to the spice mines.

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You Are The Sunshine of My Life

Sunday morning. It took me awhile to fall asleep last night; the last time I remember looking at the clock it was around three in the morning and I was still pretty much awake.  I did manage to doze off around that time, though, and while I still woke up around eight thirty, I feel somewhat rested this morning.

I didn’t do any writing yesterday; I wound up cleaning and organizing and doing that sort of thing for most of the day, interspersed with reading. It was, despite having to go out in the heat and humidity of the early afternoon, kind of a lovely day, really. It wasn’t as terribly hot as I feared it would be, and once I was back inside the cool of the inside of the Lost Apartment, I was able to get some things I needed to get done finished; I also need to finish the organizing I started yesterday but never quite finished. I also came up with some amazing and key things for the WIP, which technically I should be finishing up today–big surprise, it’s not finished nor will it be by midnight–so I am also trying to figure out what I want to do; should I follow my schedule and reluctantly put it to the side, to go back and spend the month revising the other I’d planned on working on for July, or should I go ahead and work my way through this first draft, trying to get it finished this week, and then diving back into the other?

Decisions, decisions.

I suspect I’ll keep working on the WIP, if I am going to be completely honest. Yes, it’s been horrible, like extracting teeth by gripping them with my fingers and yanking really hard, but also last night I had some more breakthroughs about the main character as well as the story I am telling. I also remembered some more things I need to go back and litter through the first sixteen chapters I’ve written–not that big of a deal, as they are all early draft and intended to be worked on more any way–but I am always feeling pressed for time, as is always the case.

Paul is departing to visit his mother for a week, starting tomorrow; I am taking a stay-cation of my own built around the 4th of July holiday. I am only working Monday and Tuesday this week before having a delightful five consecutive days off from work; suring which I have deeply ambitious plans to get a lot of cleaning, organizing, and writing done…as well as a lot of reading. I am going to step away from the Diversity Project with my next read–triggered by a Twitter conversation with the amazing Sarah Weinman–and am going to read Mickey Spillane’s I the Jury next. In a way, though, it’s really still a part of the Diversity Project, just not the way I’d originally seen it: a necessary adjunct, or rather, corollary to the Diversity Project should be reading, and examining, and critiquing, the crime genre’s long fascination with a particular type of masculinity; the Mike Hammer novels are certainly the perfect examples of that, almost to the nth degree.

And can I really call myself a student of my genre without reading Spillane?

I am sure the books themselves are problematic; almost everything from that time period is in some ways (I still remember reading a James Ellroy novel–I don’t remember which one–which had some incredibly horrible homophobia in it; it was painful and difficult to read, but absolutely in line with the thinking of cops in the 1950’s; and I do believe sometimes it’s necessary to read these problematic texts, to critique and understand them and the time period from whence they were originally written and published.

A conversation I had on Twitter with Rob Hart (whom you should also be reading; his next novel The Warehouse, sounds absolutely terrific and I am eagerly awaiting its release) also triggered a thought; that perhaps a non-fiction/memoir type book about me, my reading life, and queer representation in mainstream crime novels might be an interesting thing to write; whether or not there’s an audience or a publisher for such a work remains to be seen, of course, but it does sound like an interesting intellectual challenge.

It might also be horrifically difficult, but reading is about learning, isn’t it?

And on that note, none of this stuff is going to get done unless i start doing it, you know?

Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader.

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I Will Survive

As Pride Month comes to a close, here is a list of all the queer crime writers I posted about over the month; a handy list for anyone wanting to check out queer crime writers. This is by no means a comprehensive list, either; there are so many wonderful queer crime writers and there were only thirty days in June, alas.

I am also going to list the book whose cover I used in the post I made.

Ready? Here goes.

Joseph Hanson, Fadeout

Barbara Wilson, Murder in the Collective

Michael Nava, Lay Your Sleeping Head

Katherine V. Forrest, Murder at the Nightwood Bar

George Baxt, A Queer Kind of Death

Ellen Hart, Wicked Games

J. M. Redmann, The Intersection of Law and Desire

John Morgan Wilson, Simple Justice

Randye Lorden, Brotherly Love

Nathan Aldyne, Cobalt

Mark Richard Zubro, A Simple Suburban Murder

Sandra Scoppetone, I’ll Be Leaving You Always

James Robert Baker, Adrenaline

Mary Wings, She Came by the Book

R. D. Zimmerman, Closet

Dean James, Faked to Death

Claire McNab, Blood Link

Mabel Maney, The Case of the Good-For-Nothing Girlfriend

Keith Hartman, The Gumshoe, the Witch, and the Virtual Corpse

Christopher Rice, A Density of Souls

Greg Herren, Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories (guest posted by the amazing Jeffrey Marks)

Grant Michaels, A Body to Dye For

Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr. Ripley/The Price of Salt

Jaye Maiman, I Left My Heart

Neil Plakcy, Mahu

Ann Aptaker, Tarnished Gold

Michael Craft, Eye Contact

John Copenhaver, Dodging and Burning

Rob Byrnes, Straight Lies

Kristen Lepionka, The Last Place You Look

Renee James, Transition to Murder

Dharma Kelleher, Chaser

Anne Laughlin, A Date to Die

Do bear in mind that this is merely a good starting point; there are so many terrific queer crime writers writing terrific queer mysteries. There are also a lot of non-queer people who are writing terrific queer mysteries these days as well. I couldn’t name everyone; and in fact, on the last two days of Pride Month I had to double (triple today) up to make sure I used all the writers I wanted to talk about.

Thanks, everyone, for playing along; your likes and comments and shares were deeply appreciated.

A better resource for queer mysteries and queer crime writers, if you’re looking for something a bit comprehensive, check out either Judith A. Markowitz’ The Gay Detective Novel: Lesbian and Gay Main Characters & Themes in Mystery Fiction, and Drewey Wayne Gunn’s The Gay Male Sleuth in Print and Film: A History and Annotated Bibliography.

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Brother Louie

I’m feeling a little better.

I think part of the problem was just exhaustion, in addition to some stomach upset. I spent most of the day yesterday (other than doing the laundry) pretty much curled up in my easy chair with Scooter sleeping in my lap while I read. What did I read? Nothing I loved enough to talk about publicly, frankly; my rule is to never post about a book that I didn’t absolutely love, or at the very least truly enjoy. I slip up with this from time to time, and have taken potshots at authors from time to time; it’s not something I’m terribly proud of, but reading is, after all, subjective; something I hate may be more to someone else’s taste, and I’ll never denigrate a book or author publicly because I know how much work it is to produce a novel.

At the very least, I like to show respect for a colleague’s hard work. And make no mistake about it, producing a novel is very hard work–hell, just typing  a novel is hard work.

After finishing the disappointing novel, I turned to Anne Somerset’s Unnatural Murder, which is about the notorious murder of Sir Thomas Overbury in the Tower of London during the reign of King James I of England; the murder was masterminded by the wife of one of the King’s notorious favorites. It was one of the most scandalous trials involving the royal court in English history, and the resolution, the revelations in the trial, and the later pardons from the King to both the favorite (Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset) and his beautiful wife Frances Howard, began an undermining of the monarchy, which inevitably led to the English Civil War, the downfall of the Stuart monarchy for a time, and the execution of King Charles I.

King James I, the man who brought the crowns of England and Scotland together in the same monarch, had male favorites rather than female; beautiful men he showered titles and honors on throughout his life. Whether James ever acted physically on his attractions and love for beautiful men is not known; he himself vehemently denied any kind of physicality with other men; but he certainly preferred the company of beautiful men to that of beautiful women. Robert Carr was only one of the many male favorites the King loved during his lifetime; Carr was followed by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who was also close to James’ son, King Charles I. Whether the favorites themselves were gay–they also, like James, always had wives and children–or even bisexual is unknown; certainly in the case of Buckingham the King was the only male he was ever linked with. I do think it’s possible that James never had a physical relationship with any of his favorites; it may have been a “look and love, but never touch” sort of thing for him. He was deeply religious and his desires were, of course, anathema to the church, and he also had a very real fear of being murdered and/or deposed; his mother was deposed and later beheaded (Mary Queen of Scots was his mother), and his father was murdered (Lord Darnley), most likely in a plot masterminded by his mother’s lover. He was less than a year old when he became King of Scotland; he was nearly forty when he followed his mother’s bitter rival Elizabeth I to the English throne.

It is interesting (at least to me) that in this Elizabethan/Jacobean period (and shortly thereafter) produced many royals with same sex attractions; Henri III of France ruled during this time and his affections for male favorites was quite well known; Louis XIV’s brother Philippe Duc d’Orleans was also infamous for the same reason. There have been other sexually suspect kings and royals throughout history; James’ own granddaughter Queen Anne was, if not one in fact, a lesbian by inclination. (See The Favourite.)

This morning I feel much better; my stomach seems settled and I slept well, after resting and relaxing for most of the day yesterday. Today I need to venture out into the stifling heat and humidity, and I also need to write. Oh! Yes, I did spend some time in my easy chair with my MacBook Air going over the copy edits of Royal Street Reveillon, which is inching closer and closer to publication date, which is lovely. It’s been a while since the last Scotty book–Garden District Gothic, which I think was released in 2016? Has it really been three years since the last Scotty book? Then again, it’s also hard to wrap my mind around the idea that my first book was released seventeen years ago.

I also think taking a day away from the pressure of trying to get caught up on the WIP was a smart thing to do. I may try to write a chapter later today. I don’t know. I am wondering if I should just keep plowing through this until the first draft is finished before seeing if i can get the other manuscript revised in what time is left before August 1, when I have to dive into something else entirely for two months. There’s also short stories to write, revise, edit, and so on, and so forth. It truly never ends for me, you know. And there’s still yet another unfinished manuscript in a drawer that needs to be worked on as well. Heavy heaving sigh.

And let’s not forget, I also started writing another Chanse book this past weekend.

Heavy heaving sigh.

Focus, Gregalicious, focus.

I also need to figure out what I’m going to read next, quite frankly. I may take a break from the Diversity Project and read one of the many books in the dusty TBR pile…I don’t know. I’ll just, after getting everything done that needs to be done to day, just look through the bookcases and the piles of books and see what’s there to read.

And there’s always non-fiction, of course. It’s not like I don’t have a massive pile of books on Louisiana and New Orleans history and folklore I could get lost inside.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines.

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Playground in My Mind

Wednesday morning, and the week is now on its downward slope into the weekend. Paul is going to visit his mother on Monday for a week; I am going on vacation myself starting a week from today through the following Monday–basically a long weekend around the 4th of July. With Paul absent, I am hoping to get a lot–as always–done.

We’ll see how that goes. My track record isn’t the best, after all. But in fairness to myself, I do–frequently–overestimate what I can get done when I am home by myself. But last night I managed another three thousand (terrible) words on the WIP–even though I’ve recognized that this is a story draft, I still wince at how awkward the scenes are and so forth, but the plot is moving forward and I think once I have it all down on paper and it holds together, I can actually make this into something truly terrific. Of course I’m absolutely terrified I am going to put a foot down wrong or something along those lines; it’s a very tight rope one walks when writing about race and homophobia in the South, particularly when one is white–it’s very easy to go wrong, and when one had always benefited from the systemic racism of our society and culture, when one has to retrain and unlearn so much…I’m always worried something will slip through, unnoticed and unrecognized…but I’m also not certain that my work gets enough attention from the world at large to merit a call-out Twitter-storm of fury, either.

There was an interesting discussion on Facebook the other day about sensitivity readers, and whether they are necessary; and what, if any, compensation is due them for reading the work in question. Should it be a professional courtesy, done as a favor and for the greater good, or is not compensating the sensitivity reader for their time and expertise another form of exploitation and devaluing not only their personhood but their experience? I’m hesitant to ask anyone to read my work as a sensitivity reader because I do believe people should be paid for expertise; the biggest mistake made on this issue was branding them as sensitivity readers–the term should be sensitivity editors. Editors, you see, get paid to read manuscripts and find problems, mistakes, errors, things to be corrected; the sense is that readers do it for free, because who gets paid to read? Readers are fans, editors are professionals; the terminology here has been wrong from the get-go (words matter, people!) and this is why the question has arisen in the first place. I can’t afford to pay someone to be a sensitivity editor for me; and I am not the kind of person who likes asking others for favors (the only thing worse than asking for a favor is asking for money), and I certainly would never ask someone to read an entire manuscript for free to give me advice and input. (I have, however, done this before; but I didn’t ask, I merely accepted when other authors have offered to read something for me–and yes, full disclosure, I probably hinted a lot until they offered. Yes, I am a capital H Hypocrite. I will come right out and ask someone to read a short story to get their input; I do this for others as well, so it’s kind of a circle-of-life kind of thing.)  I personally am not terribly comfortable being a sensitivity editor for other writers, to be completely honest; I cannot speak for the entire LGBTQ+ community and say with authority “no one will find this offensive” because my own level of offense is pretty low, and remember, I have been accused of writing gay stereotypes more than once.

So, how could I possibly be a sensitivity editor?

I am also reluctant to ask people for blurbs because I am aware that I am asking for an enormous favor; reading a manuscript takes time–time that could be spent doing something more beneficial to the person being asked–and usually, it’s an electronic file and I, for one, hate reading electronic files….I’m not big on reading print outs, either, to be honest. I don’t want to spend any more time staring at a screen–be it a monitor, a reading device, or a phone–than I already do, which is quite a lot.

Heavy heaving sigh.

This entry sure wound up all over the place, didn’t it?

It’s very strange, because as a gay man, I often get included in discussions about institutional diversity; I served on the board of Mystery Writers of America for four years (which I did specifically to try to make the organization more open to diversity–it was more open than I thought it was when I joined, frankly, and I’m not certain I had much of an impact there but it certainly was an enormous boon to me, personally and professionally); I currently serve on the Bouchercon board (which I joined for that reason and also to assist with the production of the anthologies); and of course, I write the diversity column for the Sisters in Crime quarterly. So, diversity is on my mind a lot; it’s also why I chose to start the Diversity Project this year–alas, I am not reading as much this year as I have in previous years, burn out from being an Edgar judge last year I suspect–but I also cannot escape the fact I am white, with all the privilege that entails; if I were straight I’d have hit the American jackpot, you know: white straight cisgender male. (Which, of course, is infuriating to hear the  you chose to be gay bleatings of homophobes; why would anyone deliberately choose a more difficult path in life, particularly a more difficult path to being a published writer, which is fucking hard enough already as it is?)

I like to think my status as outside-the-status-quo, oh-so-close-but-not-quite-hitting-the-privilege-grand-slam, has made me more empathetic and sympathetic than I would be had I hit the grand slam; but I also believe in the butterfly effect; me being straight would have changed, certainly my life, but would have also dramatically altered the lives of everyone around me, and the ripples would have continued to flow outward from there.

I like my life, thank you very much, and I am most grateful for it.

And today’s three thousand words aren’t going to write themselves, so I’d best get back to it.

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Will It Go Round in Circles

  Well, I wrote over two thousand words on the WIP yesterday, so whatever the fuck that was is hopefully over. The words aren’t good, of course; in fact, I suspect they are really quite embarrassingly awful. Not nearly as magical and wondrous as those words I wrote on Sunday, of course, on the project that has to be pushed to the side even though I already know what the second chapter is, and yes, it’s perfectly shaped in my head. Complete, even. I could probably bang it out in an hour or two.

But I must not. I can not. I must go back to the wretched WIP and write some more awful words on it tomorrow. But what was holding me back–the knowing how badly I was botching it, and not wanting to continue moving forward…but also finally understanding that of course this is going to be the case.  This draft isn’t about any of that; it’s about getting the story down and correct, a very complicated and twisty plot, more so than anything I’ve tried before, fixed and correct and down,  before I go back and make everything else right–the dialogue and the characters and the scene and so forth. I hate when I have to write what I call a story draft–a draft where I am working the story out as I go because I am not entirely certain where it’s going to end, so I have to focus solely on that–because I hate not focusing on the things I like the most about reading and writing.

I also resent the time I spend wrestling with story drafts.

But the story is taking shape, and I set the stage with this transitional chapter (I also think I hate writing transitional chapters more than I hate writing anything else; they always seem so forced and tedious to me) for the rest of the book here. Now comes the tricky part; the final act where all the various threads of the book and the subplots have to all start coming together.

Heavy sigh. And you KNOW I am itching to write the next chapter of this Chanse book that I shouldn’t even be thinking about yet. Such is my life.

I finally slept fairly decently again last night after two bad nights; I was on a roll last week, sleeping great every night and even slid into the weekend feeling incredibly well-rested. I do feel somewhat rested this morning, but also feel like another two hours in bed would be the bee’s knees, to throw out another silly cliche.

We watched the third episode of season two of Big Little Lies, and while it seems like the show isn’t getting as much buzz in the second season as the first did, I think the second season is even better than the first. The women are all dealing with the aftermaths of their personal traumas, as well as the big lie they are all concealing–that Bonnie pushed Perry down the stairs, and in their shock and horror after it happens they all agreed to lie to the police and claim he just fell–and the reverberations from that lie, while forming a deeper bond between the women, is also wrecking their marriages and their lives. Meryl Streep is just absolutely stunning as Perry’s mother, come to town and very suspicious about all the lies being told–she also, as a loving mother, cannot wrap her mind around the idea that her son is this monster–and while she reads as terrible (her insensitivity in her own grief is wince-inducing but also understandable as she tries to wrap her mind around the truths of her son’s life, while wading through the lies her love for her son refuses to allow her to believe), her addition to the show was simply genius on the part of the writers and showrunners. I highly recommend this, if you aren’t already watching, and the performances themselves–Nicole Kidman, Streep, Laura Dern, Shailene Woodley, Zoe Kravitz, and Reese Witherspoon–are all award-worthy.

Just stunning television.

And now back to the spice mines. Pray for me as I start to sort out the third act of the book.

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My Love

Monday morning gave me no warning, of what was to be.

Heavy sigh.

I’m still reeling from a highly productive day yesterday that, ultimately, achieved nothing. Writing the first chapter of a new Chanse novel–when I had thought I was finished with the character, outside of short stories–was probably not the smartest way to go with my work, but at the same time I’m not terribly upset by it or see the day as wasted. I did managed to write over three thousand words in less than two hours, and they were actually good words, ones that I probably won’t be discarding if I decide I want to work on this more–I can always keep it there in my back pocket, and if I get stuck on something else I’m working on, I can work on it, and therefore never lose a day to not being able to figure out what’s going to happen next with anything.

Sigh. I told you I have creative ADD. The struggle is real, yo.

I’ve not worked on the WIP now for two solid weeks, which is completely insane. I’d hoped to have the first draft finished by the end of June–which now is not very bloody likely–so I could move back to the Kansas book and get it revised by the end of July. I’d like to keep to that schedule somewhat; if I can somehow manage a chapter a day on the WIP I’d be awfully close to finished by the end of the month, and the revisions on the Kansas book might actually allow me to go back and forth between the two throughout July. It would be awesome to have both finished by the end of July, although not very probable; the heat here is going to start picking back up again (it’s already in the nineties every day) and the heat and humidity are such energy drains. My preference for a New Orleans summer would be to never go outside unless absolutely necessary; that unfortunately isn’t possible, so I try to deal with it the best I can…which is changing my socks regularly, washing my face every few hours, and praying for October to arrive.

Football season is also just around the corner, and experts are predicting terrific seasons for both LSU and the Saints; we’ll see how that goes.

I started reading Howard Zinn’s The Twentieth Century over the course of the weekend; while I still want to keep up with the Diversity Project–which has been amazing so far–I think I might spend the summer reading mostly non-fiction. I have all these books about New Orleans history, as well as Louisiana history, and I really should start making my way through those as well. The primary problem, of course, being that reading nonfiction often kickstarts my creativity genes into gear and I start coming up with other ideas for stories and novels–as it is, if I spent the rest of my life writing the ideas I’ve already had, I’d never be able to finish writing them all, so having new ideas all the time is hardly the best thing for me…although don’t get me wrong, I don’t ever want my creativity to ever just completely shut down on me, either.

I can’t imagine ever having my creativity just completely shut down.

I hope it never happens–although I always worry it will.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines.

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Crocodile Rock

Oh, Louisiana.

My beautiful, beautiful state. Louisiana is basically a lush, fertile state chock full of important natural resources, and also sports the nickname “Sportsmen’s Paradise,” because outdoor sports–hunting, fishing, etc.–are abundant here. Lots of hunting, lots of fishing, that sort of thing.

But Louisiana also is known for corruption, being backwards in many ways, and some truly bizarre politics/politicians. It’s easy to say that Louisianans have a very cynical view of politics and politicians–no one is really surprised when one of our elected officials is caught doing something criminal or morally questionable; the basic presumption is that they’re all crooks and liars unless proven otherwise. We can never forget that one gubernatorial election featured bumper stickers and campaign slogans that read Vote for the crook, it’s important–when Governor Edwards, convicted for taking bribes in office, was running again after serving time and his opponent was notorious racist and former Klan Grand Wizard David Duke.

And for the record, that election was in the early 1990’s–not that long ago.

As I said yesterday, I watched a four hour documentary on Hulu this past week called Murder in the Bayou, about what is called the “Jeff Davis 8”–eight women murdered over a period of less than three years in and around the Jefferson Davis Parish village of Jennings. The women all  had issues with drugs, and also came from really poor backgrounds. The documentary was interesting, and seemed geared to the idea that there was a serial killer operating in the parish–and for some reason, the cops simply couldn’t track said killer down, and eventually the killings stopped.

I also remembered that there was a book about the murders, with the same title, by New Orleans journalist Ethan Brown, and I had a copy. So, after I finished watching the documentary Friday afternoon, I got the book down from the shelves and looked to see if there were any photographs included. There weren’t–just the flyer with the reward posted, with photos of all the victims on it. I started reading…

murder in the bayou

On May 20, 2005, Jerry Jackson, a soft-spoken slim African-American retiree with a short salt-and-pepper Afro, prepared to cast a fishing line from a hulking bridge over the Grand Marais Canal on the outskirts of Jennings in southwest Louisiana. Jackson peered down at the muddy rush below, the corroded, cylindrical rain pipes along the canal belching water, the collapsed pedestrian bridge far out in the distance. As he prepped his fishing line, Jackson imagined the catch that day, white perch, a small bass with a strong spine that’s so abundant in Louisiana it’s the state’s official freshwater fish. In low-lying southwest Louisiana, where rain is constantly siphoned to prevent flooding, drainage canals are as common as the perch. These canals provide sustenance for poor Louisianans for whom fishing is both a generations-old tradition and a day-to-day necessity. For hobbyists such as Jackson, who made the approximately ten-mile trip to Jennings from his cramped trailer on a dead-end street in nearby Welsh, drainage canal democratize fishing. Expensive shrimp boats and fishing equipment aren’t necessary–all one needs to do is drop a line into the water.

As Jackson peered deeper into the Grand Marais Canal, he spied the outline of a human body. “It had come up on the news that someone had stole some mannequins,” Jackson told me, “so I thought that one of the mannequins ended up in the water somehow.” Jackson focused his eyes on the figure. “I saw flies, and mannequins don’t attract flies.”

It didn’t take me long to get into the book to realize there was information, crucial information, about the victims in the book that wasn’t included in the documentary; in fact, the documentary left a lot of important information out. Yes, the women all had addiction issues, but they also were sex workers–turning to sex work to either get drugs, or to get the money to buy drugs. The police didn’t cooperate much with Mr. Brown, and the sister of one of the victims played a very prominent role in the documentary; she was only mentioned by name once in the book. Brown also shared the information that many of the victims were witnesses to other crimes, and theorized they were all killed to silence them–and that it wasn’t a serial killer after all. Brown also isn’t convinced completely that the police were so inept and incompetent to handle these kinds of investigations (something that came up a lot in the documentary), but that the parish police were actually corrupt, involved in the drug trade, and connecting all the dots also led to a peripheral involvement by a powerful politician. Naturally, the police and the politician disagree with Mr. Brown’s theories and conclusions…but he also includes, in the book, other crimes in the parish that may or may not have been connected to the murders, as well as corruption within the police department; things that were not in the documentary.

One of the things that struck me, while watching and again when reading the book, is how tragic the cycle of poverty is in these small towns, not just in Louisiana, but across the country. The class divide–marked in Jennings by literally railroad tracks that separate the good part of town from the bad–is truly staggering; I would imagine it’s much the same in big cities only not as obvious. The poor and uneducated people in places like Jennings are trapped in a terrible cycle of poverty that they cannot seem to break, which is truly sad, and the disruptive nature of the families they were born into doesn’t help much, either. And once someone starts spiraling down into drug addiction, there’s nowhere to turn to for help getting off the drugs…and there’s no money for rehab, which is incredibly expensive.

I can’t imagine how horrible it would be to stuck like that, with no hope for the future.

The book is very well written, and it’s not terribly long; I read it in one day, and it’s a terrific read. I do recommend it, and I also recommend watching the documentary as well. I’m curious about why they chose to leave some stuff out of the documentary that’s in the book–perhaps it has something to do with both using the same title but not adapting the book or using it as source material, or something along those lines–but it’s very interesting to see the two very different takes on the murders.

And yes, learning more about these murders did, in fact, give me an idea for another Chanse novel; the first idea I’ve had for a Chanse novel since I wrote Murder in the Arts District. I can easily see fictionalizing this story, with Chanse as the investigating private eye…or someone else, really; it doesn’t have to be Chanse, and the issues at play here–the disposability of drug addicted sex workers, class distinction, and corruption in the parish power structure–are things I would love to explore in a novel.

Like I don’t have anything else to write already, right?

And now back to the spice mines.

Killing Me Softly with His Song

Strumming my pain with his fingers…

Much as I love this song, I’ve always found it a bit odd. I mean, that opening line alone! And I have to admit, when I was twelve and I first heard this song on the radio–it was played a lot–it took me a long time before I realized the sentence wasn’t strumming my thing with his fingers…which is an entirely different meaning.

My week of deep and restful sleep continued last night. It’s odd, but I think adding Breathe-right strips to my nightly routine–those things that you put on the bridge of your nose and they help you breathe better–this week might have made the difference. Between breaking my nose as a teenager and having it never re-heal properly (the cartilage is detached from the bone; I can literally flatten my nose by pushing on it), years of drug abuse in my twenties, and the sinus issues I’ve had since moving towards New Orleans, breathing during my sleep has become more of an issue, and since the nose strips seem to help me sleep better, it makes me tend to think that is the real answer to my sleep issues.

Whatever may be the case, it’s lovely to have slept well every night this week. I cannot recall the last time I had an entire week of sleeping well. We’ll see what, if any, difference it makes in my life and my productivity–and never fear, Constant Reader, I will keep you posted as things develop.

I have a three day weekend this weekend, which is why I am not already at the office and instead am at my desk, swilling coffee and getting the laundry (it’s Bed Linen Friday) accomplished. I had thought about running errands today–I need to go to Costco, get the mail, and do some grocery shopping–and while it’s somewhat easier to do those things on Friday while most people are at work, I am thinking today might just be a good day to stay inside, clean, edit, write, organize, and etc–and I can run the errands tomorrow, when I am fully recovered from a week of work.

I got off early yesterday, as I do on every Thursday (except this coming one; it’s National HIV Testing Day; know your status, New Orleanians!) and stopped at the grocery store on my way home from the office, and did some straightening and cleaning up around here before venturing out to the neutral ground to catch the streetcar, so I could meet an author in from out of town for work at the Aloft Hotel on Baronne Street, Alexia Gordon (you can check out her books here, they sound interesting! Can’t wait to dive in myself), and a good time was had by me–although I’m not sure about whether she had a good time or not; as is my wont, I babbled nervously almost non-stop, barely giving her a chance to get a word in edgewise–which is why I have so few friends…well, one reason at any rate) but it was lovely. I love taking the streetcar, and I had some serious streetcar luck; the streetcar downtown was almost completely empty–just me and one other rider, and then the one uptown’s money machine was broken so the ride was free! It was also, once the sun went down, a lovely warm night with a delightfully cool breeze, and walking the two blocks home from the streetcar stop was lovely as a result. There was also a drunken white woman in cut-off jeans standing in the street as I turned the corner to my block. She looked terribly confused and was weaving a bit, her cell phone in hand, and as I drew nearer she said, “My car was towed and I don’t know who to call.”

“You should ask them at the bar,”  I said, gesturing back to the corner. “They can probably help you.”

Perhaps not very gallant or gentlemanly, but she was clearly intoxicated. Also, cars are rarely, if ever, towed from our street, and they certainly wouldn’t be after dark. So, my best guess was her car had either been stolen, or in her intoxication she’d forgotten where she’d actually parked it. And when last seen, she was walking back to the bar, so I am sure she was able to get assistance in figuring out where her car was.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that if her car had, indeed, been towed by the city, she wouldn’t be able to get it until today (been there, done that).

Life in New Orleans.

But as I walked home from the streetcar stop, enjoying the warm evening and the cool breeze, I thought what a lovely evening this was, and it is lovely to get out and enjoy my city, albeit briefly, I should get out more and try to be more social–which I think whenever I am social and have enjoyed myself. But then the iron gate closed behind me and I unlocked my door and was safely back inside the Lost Apartment, and my tendency to be a shut-in hermit came rushing back…as I watched The Real Housewives of New York (again, the gold standard for reality television), I began planning my weekend so I can leave the house as little as possible.

Some things, you see, never change.

And so now, it’s back to the spice mines, and getting this apartment under control.

Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader.

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Let’s Get It On

A half-day today before a three-day weekend.

Huzzah!

So, I started rereading short stories yesterday that I thought were finished and had sent out to markets only to suffer cruel rejection….and as I read the first one, catching mistakes as I went from beginning to end, I literally cringed to think other people had read it as it was. Heavy heaving sigh. I do love the story, and I love the idea behind the story, and I love what I was trying to do with the story; I just need to work on it a little harder. Short stories are so my Kryptonite. I don’t know how or why I struggle with them so much, but I do, and it really sucks.

Heavy sigh.

But I keep writing them, keep struggling with them, and keep hoping that I am going to someday find the magic key that will somehow make writing them easier.

And yes, I’m still looking for that magic key to make writing novels easier, as well.

Hopefully this weekend I’ll find the time to revise these stories–maybe work on the WIP as well–and get things finished. I feel right now like I have all of these pending things hanging over my head– some things I do remember and other things I keep forgetting about and then remember, with horror–and so I need to get sorted. I slept really well again last night–this week has been odd in that I’ve pretty much slept extremely well every night this week; here’s hoping this turns into a regular trend–and maybe it means I’ve at long last reset my body clock.

I also want to get a lot of cleaning done, as I always do. I think tomorrow will be my “run-the-errands/clean-the-house” day, and then I can spend Saturday and Sunday actually, you know, writing and getting some things done. I also am going to sit down (probably tomorrow afternoon, after the errands are done) and reread the WIP. I’ve not worked on it or touched it or done anything to it in several weeks. This is a concern, of course; and the longer that goes the more likely it is to get shoved into a drawer and join other aborted manuscripts which I will not allow to happen. Like I’ve said before, the WIP is a struggle for me, but it’s also a book I’ve been wanting to write since the late 1980’s (which is when I wrote the original short story the book developed from) and I do think/believe that what is holding me back on writing this, why I am struggling with it so much, is fear: fear that addressing the issues I am trying to address in this book are out of my wheelhouse and things that I am not good enough to write about, if that makes any sense? In other words, it’s a crisis of confidence, but I also believe strongly that the books and stories that are the hardest to tell, the ones that trigger all these things, are the ones that need to be told. If I fail at what I am trying to do, I fail.

Which is the issue I have with another short story, another one of the ones I am rereading. I’ve not sent this one out to any markets; I am again attempting to address a social issue in this story, and I am worried that telling it from the point-of-view I am telling it from might be problematic. But problematic stories are sometimes necessary, I think; maybe I am crazy for trying to be so ambitious and should stop chasing waterfalls, sticking to the rivers and the lakes that I am used to….oops, sorry for getting sidetracked there; had a TLC moment.

And on that note, it’s time to get back to the spice mines.

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