Tag: football

What It Feels Like For a Girl

On my Agatha Award nominees panel for Best Children’s/Young Adult at Malice Domestic a few (has it been that long already?) weeks ago, moderator Alan Orloff asked me the following: Greg, your book tackles multiple contemporary societal problems. How do you balance writing about such tough topics with ensuring that your work is compelling and hits the right mystery/suspense notes?

It was a great question, and as usual, I hadn’t read the questions before the panel so I answered off-the-cuff (I don’t know why I do this rather than prepare; I guess it’s either a preference to try to think quickly in the moment or sheer laziness or a combination of the two) and while I do like the answer I provided on the panel, the question lodged in my brain and I’ve been thinking about it ever since, and thought, hey, this could make a good blog entry, so here we are.

On the panel, I said something along the lines of how it’s often very difficult for people to understand situations or experiences they haven’t had themselves; which is why it was important to write about these things–so that the reader can see and feel, even if peripherally, what it’s like to go through something incredibly hard and life-changing, and develop empathy and sympathy by being able to put yourself into that moment and situation and wonder how would I handle something awful like this? As much as we like to shield young people and children from problems and suffering and so forth (or at least pay lip service to it; think of the children is far too often used as a cudgel to bludgeon non-conformists with), the reality of life is bad things happen. Never think bad things can’t happen to you because they happen to everyone without rhyme or reason or provocation. If one person reads this book and it makes them change the way they think about the topics covered in it, or enables them to feel sympathy for someone else in that situation, then the book had the effect intended. I have always tried to include social issues in my work because it’s important to me. I write mysteries and crime fiction because I want to see justice in an unjust world–and that hatred of injustice drove me to write this book.

And it isn’t difficult to balance the mystery/suspense notes with a social issue; if you build the crime around the issue, you’re still writing a crime novel, just one illustrating a social issue.

Basically, I wrote this book because I was angry.

The Steubenville rape case–there was a parallel one in Marysville, Missouri, that didn’t get nearly as much attention as the Steubenville story–made me very angry. And the more I read about both cases, the angrier I got. It shames me to admit that it took these two cases to finally break through my own societal grooming as a male to finally understand what it was like to be female in our society. It shames me to admit because it shouldn’t have taken me so long to get it, to understand. It took me a very long time to finally wrap my head around feminism and feminist issues…mainly because I could never understand the mentality that women were somehow lesser than men. Women aren’t another species, after all, and yes, the mores and expectations of our culture and society do shape boys and girls in different ways, marking the differences with sexist and misogynist tropes and ideas. I never understood why a girl who had sex was a slut, while the boy was a stud. I remember when the story about the Spur Posse in the 1990’s (I collected a lot of articles about them; I had wanted to write a book called When Stallions Die based around that case) broke and how that also kind of changed my world-view a little bit. (I often say that I spent most of my adulthood unlearning everything I was taught before I was an adult.) When I was growing up a husband could rape his wife and not be charged; as her husband he had a right to her body, and even rape itself was rarely reported (women didn’t want to be shamed, understandably, and it was always her shame, not the rapist’s), if ever prosecuted. I remember when I was in college there were rumors about a campus rapist–the girls whispered about it amongst themselves, and of course, they talked to me about it–which I also always wanted to write about.

So, in the wake of Steubenville and Marysville, I decided that it was long past time to write about it.

I had been toying with something I called “the Kansas book” for years. I had created this town and these characters when I was actually in high school, and wrote a rambling, disorganized, really bad handwritten first draft between the ages of 16 and 23. When I finished it I knew nothing would ever come of it because it was beyond repair. However, I have borrowed characters, scenes, and storylines from that original manuscript numerous times over the years since; and I had been trying to write a newer, better version of it. I knew I wanted the story to start with the discovery of the dead body of a star football player at the local high school, but I never really could get any traction with it. I kept thinking, this is trite and tired and been done so many times already.

But after Steubenville, while also having conversations with my women friends, it clicked in my head and I knew how to make the story work: rip it from the headlines! And I knew the body was one of the players who’d been involved in the “she deserved it” rape of a cheerleader over the summer. I knew that I wanted to make it damned clear how misogynist and sexist our legal system is, as well as our culture when it comes to protecting young girls and women. I started remembering things from my own past, things that made me embarrassed and ashamed and angry at myself. I had participated in the culture of toxic masculinity myself. I’d indulged in petty gossip about girls, and slut-shamed. I remembered a story I’d been told about how a cheerleader in another town, when I was in high school, had gotten drunk and pulled a “train” on six football players–a story I still remember, over forty years later.

And I wondered about that. That story made the rounds–and I didn’t even go to the same high school. And everyone shook their heads and clucked their tongues in shame at this girl’s slutty behavior. Can you believe what a slut she is?

I started thinking that maybe, just maybe, they had gotten her drunk? Too drunk to resist, too drunk to know what was happening? And I began to think that was probably a much more likely story than the one I’d been told. No seventeen year old high school girl goes to a party thinking “I’m going to take on the football team tonight!”

I think it was 2015 when I decided to change how I wrote. I was on a treadmill back them, book after book after book, deadline after deadline after deadline. It seemed like my life was nothing more than a long series of deadlines, one after the other and I could never relax because I had another deadline. I was tired of the stress involved in producing and the shame of missing deadlines, which meant missing the next and the dominoes would fall, one after the other. I decided I was going to not sign contracts for anything until I had a completed manuscript, so I wasn’t starting from scratch every time I turned something in and started the next one.

And finally, in July of 2015, I sat down and started writing a book I was no longer calling ‘the Kansas book’ in my head, but rather #shedeservedit.

I wrote over 97,000 words in one month–that’s how angry I was–and there wasn’t even a last chapter because I didn’t know how to finish the book. I sat on it for years, pulling it out every now and then, tinkering with it some more, but never really feeling it was ready–and I still didn’t know how to end it. I finally signed a contract for it because otherwise I probably would have never finished it and just kept futzing with it until I died, and I thought it was an important book to get out there. Sure, I went around and around about it; am I the right person to tell this story? Should someone else be writing it? I started reading other y/a novels about sexual assault, but they always left me feeling unsatisfied; the endings never really worked for me, which was the same problem I was having with this book. But I finally decided the best thing for me to do was sign the contract and give my editor a chance to look it over and give me input…and I am incredibly blessed to have an exceptional one in Ruth Sternglantz. The book is much better than it ever could have been without her insights, her vision, and her sensitivity. I was also very proud of this book when it was released, and I still am. I was both honored and shocked when it made the Agatha shortlist; even more so when it made the Anthony as well.

Alex jogs down the gravel path, his rubber cleats making crunching sounds on the shiny, sparkling white stones. The field, still lit up from the game, looks forlorn and lonely. The sod is chewed up from impacts and cleats and falling bodies. Some debris blows around in the slight warm wind, heavy with coming rain—plastic bags, strands from purple and gold pom-pons on a stick, wrappers from cheeseburgers and hot dogs sold at the concession stands. State championship flags snap and crackle on their poles on either side of the scoreboard.  The janitorial team works their way up from bottom to top, picking up trash carelessly left behind by the crowd who’d filled the iron rows of seats.

The scoreboard still reads HOME 48 VISITORS 7.

He’s forgotten his arm pads on the sideline by the bench. He took them off when Coach Musson pulled the starters from the game when the fourth quarter started because the game was already won. He didn’t realize he’d left them behind until Coach Musson’s short post-victory pep talk was over and he went to his locker to take off his pads. His mom always says he’d forget his head if it wasn’t attached. Maybe she’s right. He could just get new ones, sure, but he’s superstitious about these arm-pads. He’d worn them all season last year when they’d won State again. 

He knows it’s stupid, but why risk jinxing things?

He’s coming down from the adrenaline rush of the game, beginning to feel tired. His arm pads are right where he’d tossed them, underneath the bench where the big orange coolers of Gatorade sit during the game. The pads are just lying there, graying gold, his name written in purple marker on them.

He’s thirsty but wants to just sit for a minute. Let the locker room clear out a bit before he goes back to shower and change.

The wind is picking up. The summer has been long and hot and dry, but it’s supposed to start raining around midnight. There’s a bruise on his right calf, purple outlined in yellow and orange. He doesn’t remember getting hit there. He never remembers the hits. The games go by so fast. He spends every Friday afternoon with his stomach knotted. The pre-game warm-up seems to last forever. But once the whistle blows and the ball is kicked off the tee, time flies. Later his muscles will ache, the bruises will come up, his joints will start hurting.

He knows he can’t sit for long. India, his girlfriend, is waiting for him. He’s hungry—he can never eat before a game. He wants to grab something to eat before he has to be home. He hates his stupid curfew, but as his dad likes to remind him all the damned time: my house, my rules.

This wasn’t the original opening; originally the book opened with the quarterback missing and Alex, his best friend, goes out looking for him only to find his body floating in the river. But my editor recognized that wasn’t where the story began; we needed to see the night before and not in flashback, to set up everything for the rest of the story. (I am very stubborn and often need someone else to say to me, this isn’t working and this is why for me to give up on trying to make something work when it never will no matter how hard I try.)

I’m very proud of this book. I think for once I actually succeeded in what I was trying to do–and that was, of course, thanks to my editor’s wisdom–and while I most likely won’t win the Anthony (a very strong field), I am so pleased that the book got some recognition.

Chick-a-Boom (Don’t Ya Jes’ Love It)

I love football.

I know, it catches people off-guard that a sixty year old gay man is a massive football fan, but I’ve never subscribed to stereotypes. I love football, with an especial love for the college game (I used to only watch the Saints in the NFL, but have started rooting for the Cincinnati Bengals because, well, Joe fucking Burrow); I think everyone knows I am a massive LSU fan. (GEAUX TIGERS!)

There really isn’t anything else in the world like a Saturday night in Death Valley. I will remember the 2019 night game against Florida probably for the rest of my life. God, what a great game, and it was so much fun. I am aware that I am digressing.

Anyway, I grew up in a Southern football family (even if we didn’t live in the South, we were from the South and that’s all that matters), so it was inevitable that I should become both a football fan and a football player. I played all four years in high school, all of my cousins also played, and I have close relatives who played at both the college and professional levels (and I don’t mean some small college in the middle of nowhere; I mean in the SEC–Auburn and Alabama, and there may be even more that I don’t know about). I have relatives who were successful coaches. Every fall Saturday the television was tuned into whatever college game was playing–even if we weren’t fans of either team; it’s hard to imagine now with the 24/7 college football coverage, but when I was growing up ABC had a monopoly on all NCAA football games. They would usually play one game of national significance, and then the second game was regional–important to that region. As we did not live in the South, we rarely got to see SEC games other than Alabama–Alabama was almost inevitably the only Southern team of “national interest” throughout the 1970’s (I really don’t remember the 1960’s much, but we lived in Chicago so I imagine we saw a lot of Big Ten and Notre Dame games; I don’t really remember a lot of my life before the suburbs, really–some things, yes, but most things not so much)

I’ve never really read a lot of fiction about football, though; it inevitably winds up being something cliched and tired. I loved North Dallas Forty by Peter Gent; hated Semi-Tough by Dan Jenkins; but do remember enjoying End Zone by Don DeLillo (I was going to reread this recently; but there’s so much to read. I did try to to reread Semi-Tough–but when I opened the book there were racial slurs and other mess on page one, so I threw it in the trash; no thanks). And I’ve also enjoyed other books with football involved, even if it wasn’t necessarily what the book was about. (The Hardy Boys were on the Bayport High football team in The Crisscross Shadow–the only time football is mentioned in the series.) There’s also a tendency, in books about high school and football to make the football players and cheerleaders the villains of the story, which has never really sat right with me. I was never bullied by anyone on the football team, and maybe the cheerleaders weren’t bitches to me because I was on the team and my sister was a cheerleader, but that wasn’t my experience (one thing I truly appreciated about Stephen King’s Christine was the horrible bullies at Libertyville High weren’t the football players but the hard-case kids–which was also my experience; which is probably yet another reason the book is one of my favorites of the King canon, methinks).

But…I can also see why it’s so attractive to make the jocks and cheerleaders the villains of high school dramas. And I sort of did something similar in #shedeservedit, didn’t I? Those boys on the Marysville and Steubenville high school teams certainly fit the bill of villainy.

So, when people started recommending Eli Cranor’s debut Don‘t Know Tough to me, I wasn’t so sure. I just published a book of my own about high school football and the toxicity it can engender in a small town (#shedeservedit), and revisiting my memories of high school and football was harder than I had thought it would be; I thought I could be dispassionate about it all while writing about it (I often write about things to try to distance myself from them and gain some perspective) but I was wrong. It was hard to write that book, much harder than I thought it would be–and it took years (first draft was written in 2015; published in 2022).

But enough people whose opinions I respect were raving about the book, so I got a copy and once I started reading it, there was no way I could stop.

Still feel the burn on my neck. Told Coach it was a ringworm this morning when he pick me up, but it ain’t. It a cigarette, or at least what a lit cigarette do when it stuck in your neck. Just stared at Him when He did it. No way I’s gonna let Him see me hurt. No way. bit a hole through the side of my cheek, swallowed blood, and just stared at Him. Tasted blood all day.

Tasted it while I saw in Ms. Miller’s class. Woke up in Algebra tasting it. Drank milk from a cardboard box at lunch and still, I tasted it. But now it eighth period football. Coach already got the boys lined up on either side of the fifty, a crease in between, a small space for running and tackling, for pain.

This my favorite drill.

I just been standing back here, watching the other boys go at it. The sound of pads popping like sheet metal flapping in a storm.

“Who want next?” holler Bull. Bull ain’t the head coach. Bull coach the defense. He as mean as they come.

One of my favorite books of all time about small towns is Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show (I also love the film, which is extraordinary and one of, in my opinion, the best films made during the 1970’s). I did try to reread it recently–I was interested in refreshing my memory of its gay subplots and the mental breakdown of poor Joe Bob Blanton, but I’d also forgotten the part about the bored teenaged boys decided to fuck some calves, so when I got to that part I put the book down in distaste. But now that I’ve finished Don’t Know Tough, I kind of want to go back and reread The Last Picture Show again (I can skip that distasteful part…weird that I didn’t remember it).

Don’t Know Tough is yet another incredibly impressive debut, further confirming the truth of what I said at the Lefty Award banquet–the last few years have seen so many amazing and diverse and extraordinary debuts that the future of our genre is in very good hands. I won’t lie–when I started reading the book, I wasn’t sure I could keep reading it; I was worried that the entire book would be written in that grammatically garbled first-person voice but as I kept reading that first chapter I got into the rhythm of the language and started seeing the beauty and fluidity of the style choice–which is no small feat to pull off, and pull off consistently, throughout the entire book…to the point I was also a little disappointed that the entire book wasn’t done in that same style. Billy Lowe is the character whose voice this is; and the story of the novel revolves around him and the horrific Shakespearean tragedy that his life actually is. His mother is an alcoholic, and lives with an abusive piece of shit who obviously directs violence at Billy. He has a younger half-brother who was fathered by this POS; he also has an older brother who lives elsewhere. Billy’s situation has turned him into a wild beast of rage with an exceptional gift for channeling that rage into playing football. He’s not big enough in size to go major college, but his coach feels like there’s a chance he could get a football scholarship to a smaller college, and break the cycle of poverty he is trapped in at the moment. Billy is exceptionally compelling–it’s hard to read his first person point of view and not have your heart break for this kid; and hope that it’s all going to work out for him in the end, despite the disturbing pattern of violence in both his life and behavior.

Denton High has made the Arkansas state play-offs, but without Billy in the backfield their chances of advancing are practically nil. It’s important for Denton to do well in the post season because their coach’s job depends on it. Trent Powers is a born-again Christian, whose last coaching job in California crapped out–winning only three games in his final three seasons before being fired. This job is another chance for him, even though his wife and daughters hate relocating to a small town in Arkansas from California (much is made throughout the book of Coach Powers’ Prius, seen by the locals are weird and strange and almost otherworldly and unmanly). Coach Powers also has a very soft spot for his star player, and not just because he’s a star player–he actually feels compassion for the horror the young player’s life has been up to that point, and he wants to help–even if Billy doesn’t want any help from anyone. Billy’s future, to Billy at any rate, is already set, and he’s not going to end up going anywhere or doing anything or having a good life and decent future. He doesn’t see himself being worthy of anything or of doing better than his assigned lot in life.

The Powers family is a direct contrast to Billy’s; loving and nurturing couple, raising two daughters and trying to do right by them. How far is too far to go when helping someone in Billy’s situation, is the question. Coach’s wife–the daughter of a successful football coach who took Trent in when he was a kid from a similar background as Billy’s…and yes, he slept with his coach’s daughter and got her pregnant. So both Coach and his wife have the fear that the same thing will happen to their daughter and Billy–especially when the daughter starts opening up to Billy.

But one night Billy’s abuser is murdered. No one would blame Billy for killing the abusive bastard–well, the law would. But the story of what happened that night is far more complicated, and far more surprising, than the reader can imagine.

The pacing is also exceptional, and I love the contrasts between the third person point of view we see much of the novel in, with the Billy point of view chapters mixed in. The language choices and imagery are spare and tight yet full and rich and immersive–reminding me not only of Megan Abbott and her brilliant Dare Me, but also with a healthy dash of Daniel Woodrell, Tom Franklin, S. A. Cosby, and Kelly J. Ford (all masters of Southern Gothic) mixed in. The little touches of how claustrophobic small Southern towns can be, the class disparities between the haves and the have nots, and what teenagers in those types of environments was simply masterful.

I was completely blown away by this amazing work, and suspect that you will be as well. Highly recommended. I cannot wait to see what Eli Cranor does next.

Nothing But Heartaches

It’s cold again on this Martin Luther King Jr Day here in the Lost Apartment, and as always when it’s cold and I don’t have to get up, I malingered in my bed much longer than was absolutely necessary. I won’t apologize for not wanting to get out of a warm, comfortable bed and from under a pile of warm blankets to brave the cold, either. Our new system came on briefly the other day when it was cold, and since then–nothing. I don’t know what I may have done wrong with switching it from cool to heat, but as usual, the guys are going to have to come back out and reset it or do something to make it functional. It’s not that big of a deal–the cold never really gets to the point where it is so incredibly unbearable (like last year on Fat Tuesday) that I am not functional, but it sometimes skates very close to that edge.

Yesterday came dangerously close, frankly. I was freezing all day to the point where I needed to use the heating pad underneath my blankets in my easy chair, which finally made me feel close to comfortable. I did manage to finish reading Alafair Burke’s marvelous Find Me (which you should also read), and then we finished watching the second season of Cheer–which sadly kind of limped along to the end, and by the season finale, poor Monica was simply a wreck; I think the show’s producers might have hit the “cost of fame and how to handle it” a little bit harder than they intended; but that message did come across fairly clearly, so maybe that was their intent. Dealing with the fallout from the scandals that arose in the wake of the first season–especially in the case of the breakout star who was accused of sex crimes with young boys–certainly put the producers (and the cast) into an awkward position: how do we deal with this? The episode that did deal with it did a fairly good job, and it’s also sad to see that abuse of children is just as rampant in cheerleading as it is with other sports at this level (gymnastics, figure skating, wrestling, football).

We always hear so much about how “children” need to be protected from books and ideas almost every day–and yet protecting them from sexual and physical abuse doesn’t seem to be as big a priority with people. Hate to break it to you, but a book never sexually assaulted a child.

The sun is out this morning and I feel much better than I did yesterday morning. I overslept yesterday, if you remember, and felt sort of unable to engage my ignition yesterday and get the Greg started, if you know what I mean. I did make some notes yesterday and I did clear out the spam from my email inbox, but today I actually do have to get work done since I didn’t do much of anything yesterday. Today I am going to work pretty hard on the book, and I am going to try to read a Laura Lippman short story later on as a kind of reward for getting work done. My kitchen this morning is in pretty good shape overall; I do have a load of dishes to put away and some laundry to do around the writing schedule today. But I feel this morning like I can actually get stuff done tonight and not be derailed or distracted…probably because it’s not as cold this morning as it was yesterday (and believe you me, I am dreading getting up at six tomorrow morning). But I am going to get this finished, work on a review of the new Alafair Burke while drinking coffee and folding clothes and putting away clean dishes, after which I am going to get cleaned up and dive back into my manuscript.

I feel more like me today, if that makes any sense. It’s been a hot minute, frankly; I don’t know if it was subconscious depression over not being able to go to New York or something, but today is the day I would have been home–I was flying back yesterday–and so maybe my mind/subconscious was depressed and/or mourning the loss of the trip? I think I probably slipped into an alternative mindset/reality the moment the trip was cancelled and it’s taken me until when the trip would have been over to get over that loss, if that makes any weird kind of sense. Maybe I navel-gaze too much, but I know I can tell when the chemistry in my brain is off, and it always affects everything in my life. But the point is I can look at my to-do list and not be concerned about it to the point where I panic and think I’ll never get that all done but rather, “one task at a time gets all the jobs done”–which is kind of where and how I am feeling this morning. This is, of course, a good thing. I will admit that I had some ideas last night while watching Cheer (reading Alafair’s book helped in that regard as well) about other things to write and other things i need to get done. I also have edits on a short story I have coming out in an anthology next month–quick turnaround, what can I say?–but I have to say my year is getting off to a good start–despite the cancelled trip to New York.

Fingers crossed the year continues to remain not only on track but continues to get better rather than worse. But one can never tell these days–if we’ve learned anything from the last five years it’s not to constantly be optimistic that things will inevitably get better as we continue to move along.

And on that note, it’s time to drive right back into everything and get my act together once and for all for today. I will check in with you again tomorrow, Constant Reader.

Cruisin

FRIDAY.

It was an interesting week, as I try to readjust to the new realities of my life. The older I get the longer it seems to take to make those necessary adjustments, but I eventually do make them. Change is good, for the most part; I often find myself in a comfortable rut that makes things seem easier–but ultimately hinders creativity and adaptability. And for a writer, things that hinder creativity and adaptability are not good things.

It’s funny,  my career has gone on so long now that I can barely remember the time before I was a published author, and my memories of those pre-Katrina years as a new author are hazy and scant. For some reason, last night I was thinking about those days for some reason–I think it had to do with the Saints being the number one seed in the play-offs, and the first game coming up this weekend; I started reading old blog entries from the season the Saints won the Super Bowl, and I started remembering back then…like how we watched the Return to the Dome Game on Monday night football while we were living back in the carriage house on a tiny little black and white television while the Lost Apartment was under construction, and how I used to always say Life is material for your writing.

It’s kind of crazy. This month–January 20th, to be exact–is the anniversary of the publication of my first novel, Murder in the Rue Dauphine, and it’s been sixteen years since it came out. It is no longer in physical print, but sixteen years later the ebook still sells. It was a completely different world back then…my first book will be eligible for a driver’s license in nine days! Madness.

I am hoping to somehow be productive this weekend, around going to see a movie tomorrow and the Saints game on Sunday. Regardless of whether the Saints win or not, it’s been a great football season for us here in the Lost Apartment; LSU was only projected to win six games at most yet wound up 10-3 and in a New Year’s 6 Bowl game, and ended up ranked Number 6 in the final polls. The Saints are currently 13-3 and had some absolutely amazing, heart-stopping wins (kind of like the season when they won the Super Bowl); and, as I said, hold the Number One seed so all their play-off games will be in the Dome. We also need to finish watching Homecoming, and I want to start watching Titans on DC Universe.

The reread of Pet Sematary is coming along nicely; it’s really a well-written book, and there are some amazingly keen insights into relationships and marriage in these first 100 pages. I remember hazily that the book’s primary theme is about death and how to face it, how to deal with it; one of the reasons it bothered me on so many levels. I know, I know, I always hold that mystery and horror fiction are two sides of the same coin; that both genres are about death, but Pet Sematary deals with it on such a micro-level, worming its way into the reader’s thoughts and memories. The death of a pet, the death of a sibling, the death of a child; King takes on all of these horribly human experiences, confronts them, and puts an all-too-very-human face on all of them. I am glad to reread it, because I am really appreciating the genius of it this time through.

And now, back to the spice mines. Today is only a half-day for me, as was yesterday, and while yesterday I’d intended to get a lot done last night, I procrastinated and didn’t get anything done; I cannot allow that to be the story of this day.

Have a great Friday!

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