I don’t remember when and where I first met Tara Laskowski; my memory has become a sieve over the years and the bout of long COVID in the summer of 2022 didn’t help much, nor did any of the things that have gone on for the last three or four years. But I’ve liked her from the very first–I love that she loves Halloween and centered one of her books arounnd it–and when I read her debut novel, I became a big fan. She, along with Carol Goodman, are killing the Gothic suspense novel genre, which has always been one of my favorites ever since I was a kid and discovered Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt and that Phyllis A. Whitney also wrote books for adults. She followed up her sensational debut One Night Gone with the Halloween book, The Mother Next Door, and it was also magnificent.
So I really was looking forward to her third novel, and Constant Reader, it did not disappoint.
Ever since Zack told me about The Weekend, it’s all I’ve been able to focus on. Most people would naturally be at least a little nervous to meet their significant other’s family for the first time.
But most people aren’t dating a Van Ness.
“Earth to Lauren.” Zach snaps his fingers, grinning over at me. He left work early to get on the road sooner and didn’t have time to change, so he’s still wearing his suit, purple tie slightly askew but knotted even after hours of driving.
“Sorry,” I say, tugging the ends of my hair. “Zoning out.”
“You look like I’m driving you to your death,” he says, then grabs my hand and squeezes. “Don’t worry. I promises it’ll be fun. Even if my family’s there.”
This is a great opening, and it sets up the story perfectly. Our sympathies are immediately with Lauren. Laskoswki has put her into a situation we can all relate to: the terror of meeting your partner’s family and the discomfort that comes with it, the self-doubt, the need to be liked and accepted. Zach is a Van Ness, too, and while we aren’t really certain what that means yet, it’s important and stressful enough so that Lauren, in communicating her thoughts and feelings, thinks it bears mentioning and we should understand how she feels. It works, and that outsider feeling (and haven’t we all felt like an outsider at some time? See Saltburn) keeps the reader’s sympathies with Lauren completely.
But there are three more point of view characters–two other women, one a Van Ness by blood and the other by marriage–which is always a difficult feat for an author to pull off, but making those voices distinct and clearly different from each other is what makes the book work. Harper, Zack’s sister, is harsh, tough, cold and vindictive. She runs her own beauty company and blog, VNity, which is struggling. Elle is married to Harper’s twin brother Richard, who oversees the vast Van Ness holdings, and like Lauren, has some serious “pick me” energy too; she joined the Van Ness family and has wiggled her way into the family by asserting herself as well as trying to take over the role of family matriarch, as their mother is dead. Their mother, Katrina, was a tough woman who was hard on her children, but babied the youngest, Zack–which the twins have always resented. The retreat, this Weekend, is a celebration of the twins’ birthdays, with a huge party being thrown the Saturday night of that weekend, spent up at the Van Ness Winery, in the Finger Lakes section of New York.
So yes, that Gothic feeling is there almost from the start. The wide-eyed young innocent, coming to the big family estate in a remote part of the country (see also, Beware the Woman by Megan Abbott) into a situation where she’s not sure she can entirely trust her boyfriend. The house is filled with secrets, too–hidden rooms, secret staircases and passage ways–and a lot of sibling resentment, bitterness, and anger begins bubbling up to the surface almost immediately.
There’s also a fourth POV character, known only as the Weekend Guest, who hates the Van Ness siblings and is trying to bring the entire family down as a brutal winter storm bears down on Van Ness Winery…
What a terrific read! Get a copy–you can thank me later.
This is probably one of the most famous songs about New Orleans of all times, and of course, doing a deep dive into the history of the song–which began as an English folk song, of all things–was a pleasant way to spend a few hours. I heard the recording by the Animals when I was a kid, and honestly never cared very much about it. I always thought it was about a house of prostitution in New Orleans–Storyville, probably–but never gave it much more thought than that. But when I was looking for titles of songs about New Orleans to use for blatant self promotion for Mississippi River Mischief,it was kind of an obvious one. And when it came up on my list for this next post, I realized I didn’t really know very much about the song other than I didn’t care for it very much. It originated in the 16th century as an English folk song, and gradually evolved into an Appalachian folk song called “Rising Sun Blues” (great title, I may abscond with it, frankly) before finally becoming a folk-rock hit for The Animals in 1964 with its current name. (Musicologists suggests it’s thematically related to the old English folk song “The Unfortunate Rake,” per Wikipedia.)
I do find that kind of thing interesting, even if I don’t have any use for that information. (Although Barbara Michaels did a great job of using classic traditional folk songs and their history as the foundation for her underrated but marvelous novel Prince of Darkness–which I would love to revisit.)
If you were playing Family Feud and the question “what is New Orleans known for”, the top two answers would probably be Bourbon Street and Mardi Gras. This annoys the locals and the natives to no end; and it’s understandable. Boiling New Orleans down to those two things is incredibly reductive. But they are major facets of the city, and both are responsible for a lot of tourist revenue, which the parish, city and state desperately need because our state and local governments (all of Louisiana’s cities and parishes) are complete and utter failures. When we moved here in the mid-90s, New Orleans had a strong base of tourism, but it was nothing like now. Since Katrina the city’s primary focus has been building the city into a tourist destination, putting all of the proverbial eggs into that particular basket. The pandemic wound up killing businesses that Katrina couldn’t; the St. Charles Tavern at the corner at Martin Luther King didn’t survive COVID, as one example. (They had amazing fried mushrooms; we used to get them every once in a while as a delicious greasy breaded and deep-fried treat.)
When I first decided to start writing about New Orleans (much as I hate to say this, but New Orleans really IS my muse, and I love that I live in the neighborhood of the Muses here), one of the things I was determined not to do was use clichés about the city in my work. It wasn’t until my fifth novel that I wrote about Carnival/Mardi Gras, which is where most writers about the city inevitably start (cliché as it may be, you also cannot write about New Orleans without eventually having to write about it); I wanted to get more established as a writer before I went there. Part of the reasons the first two Scotty books were set around Southern Decadence and (to a far lesser extent) Halloween was because those were also important holidays for the gays here. I did address Bourbon Street with the first Scotty; I knew that title (Bourbon Street Blues) would tell anyone that it was a New Orleans story, so yes, I took advantage of a cliché there. But I also realize now that most of my New Orleans writings were very provincial in a way; I mostly write about the “sliver along the river”–the Marigny, the Quarter, the CBD, the lower Garden District, the Garden District, the Irish Channel, and Uptown. There’s way more to New Orleans than these neighborhoods–sometimes I send them over the bridge to the West Bank or out to Metairie; there was a very vivid post-Katrina scene where I sent Chanse out to Lakeview, but for the most part I’ve not done much about other neighborhoods here. The West Bank, City Park, the East, Gentilly; all of these rich and vibrant neighborhoods–as well as the diverse ethnic make-up of the city–are very fertile ground for someone writing about New Orleans. Generally, the neighborhoods I write about are the neighborhoods writers who don’t live here focus on because they are the better known ones.
And of course, I’ve rarely, if ever, touched the history of the city–and it is rich, compelling, and fascinating…and super dark.
That’s kind of why I wanted to move this recent Scotty out of the city and into one of the rural parishes not far from the city limits. I have fictionalized these parishes before–I try not to fictionalize New Orleans, but have no problem inventing parishes and towns in the rest of Louisiana. St. Jeanne d’Arc parish is loosely based on St. John the Baptist and St. Charles parishes, known as “river parishes” because they run along the river north of the city. Redemption, also an invention I’ve used in other books, is based on the “bayou parishes”–not along the river, but between the river and the wetlands/Gulf of Mexico; those are Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes. Louisiana is just as interesting as New Orleans, and also has an amazing and interesting history of its own. Of course, the next Scotty will be back in the city–his next few, if they go as planned, will all be within the city–but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to keep writing about Louisiana and my fictional parishes, either.
There really is so much material here I could never run out of ideas.
Monday morning after a relatively relaxing and stable weekend. I did a lot, mostly chores that needed to be done and reading, but it was also very nice. The Saints won their game yesterday, which was a very pleasant surprise, and we finished watching this most recent season of Élite, which I realized yesterday I’ve always put the accent on the wrong e, but it’s pronounced ah-lee-tay, so it made sense to me for the accent to go there.
Or maybe I’ve been saying it wrong.
Anyway, this seventh season was disappointing, as the storylines and the crime focused on parents rather than the students–which was a major error, I felt. The season did end with a murder–I’d wondered how long that character, an abusive and controlling lover, would last without being killed or redeemed; I got my answer in the finale–but the primary issue with the season is I don’t really care very much about any of the characters anymore. One of the show’s greatest strengths in those early fantastic seasons was how well the characters were developed (and the talent of the actors playing them) was that they were multi-faceted; even when they were being bad or doing terrible things, you understood them and why they were doing it so they were sympathetic. Now they are all just kids who bad things happen to who have no control over anything that happens or what they do–which is the problem. Before, in the earlier seasons, the kids had agency, and while originally the show was the Gossip Girl we all deserved, it slowly turned itself into Gossip Girl, which was fun but had little depth. A pity. We’ll stick around for the eighth season, which is the last one, while mourning its former glory.
Tomorrow is Halloween, and I signed up to make a cheesecake. The mistake I made was forgetting that I have to go to the dentist tomorrow morning before work, and the other was I must have gotten rid of my cake carrier during one of my pandemic decluttering purges, so I have nothing to carry it to work with–and I don’t like the idea of it sitting in my car while I am at the dentist. Going back home to get it after the dentist isn’t an option, either, because I am trying to spare paid time off as much as possible with the surgery coming, as I also have to run off to UNO after lunch to record “My Reading Life with Susan Larson”. Big day indeed. I guess I can just put the cheesecake into a box and bring it while still in the springform pan? AH, well, all I know is when I get home from work tonight I have to make a cheesecake and figure out the rest tomorrow.
These difficult life decisions, seriously.
I did manage to read Mike Ford’s The Lonely Ghost yesterday which I quite enjoyed; middle-grade books tend to read a lot faster than those for older readers and there will definitely be more on that to come. I will say for now that had he been writing when I was a kid, Ford would be one of my go-to authors, like Phyllis A. Whitney.
We also watched a hilarious (to us, anyway) movie on Prime yesterday, Totally Killer, which starred Kiernan Shipka in the lead of a hilarious mash-up of Back to the Future with a slasher movie playing Jamie, whose mom was the final girl of a spree killer thirty-five years earlier, who comes back in the present day to kill her mom. Her mom is obviously very into self-protection and more than a little paranoid–which of course makes Jamie even more sullen and distant. Her best friend is trying to build a time machine as a science project out of an old photo book, and for some reason the science fair takes place at an old, abandoned amusement park. Anyway, the killer kills her mom and chases her into the amusement park, she ducks into the photo booth and accidentally turns it on, and then the killer stabs the console with his butcher knife–which activates the time machine and sends her back to 1987, with a new task and mission: catch the killer before he kills anyone and thus save her mother–and with the benefit of her knowledge of the history, she knows who is going to be killed and where. A great plan, of course–but her being there slowly starts changing the future. It’s very clever and funny, and the juxtaposition of a modern teenager into a teenager back in the highly problematic 80’s and the cultural/societal differences are absolutely hilarious–especially to those of us who lived through them the first time. It’s light and fluffy, fun and entertaining and not to be taken terribly seriously. Also, because it’s Halloween Horror Month, I’ve been reading a lot of books that would fall into the slasher versions of horror–Clown in a Cornfield, Final Girls–so I’ve been thinking about the trope a lot lately too.
Maybe my next y/a should be a slasher novel? It could be fun.
And on that note, off to the spice mines! Have a lovely All Hallows’ Eve Eve!
Saturday and no LSU game, so the day stretches out in front of me a yawning empty chasm. But I feel incredibly well rested after a very relaxing deep good night’s sleep, which is simply marvelous. I have things to do this weekend–out of the ordinary things, different from the usual to-do list–so I have to figure out when to get those things done. I’m going to need to make a grocery run at some point–I have to make a cheesecake for a work potluck this week, and I am thinking it’s probably smart to make some white bean chicken chili in the crockpot at some point (soft food, after all); regardless, I need more ice cream and microwave ramen. I really like that super-hot ramen, and am also very low on yogurt. Maybe I’ll get up tomorrow and head for a grocery run on the West Bank or to the Rouse’s on Carrollton–which I could also just do this afternoon, depending on how I feel. I want to really clean up the house and get stuff done–filing, organizing, and so forth–and I can always have the football games playing on my computer while I am in the kitchen, which desperately needs work. I also want to go for a walk around the neighborhood later on today, to get a look at how the neighborhood has dressed up for Halloween.
Yesterday was a pretty good day. I managed to get my work-at-home duties taken care of and made it to my pain management appointment, which was unnecessary as I am not in pain–I think my surgeon thought I was in pain from the injury, which is cute–I wouldn’t have let it go this long had I been in actual constant pain from it. But it was one more box to check off on the list of things that need to be done before the surgery, so that makes it one step closer to when I am going to be rehabilitating the arm. I think having this hanging over my head isn’t helping much with my anxiety or getting things done; I can try to compartmentalize all I want, and try not to think about things, but the truth of the matter is I cannot control my subconscious–especially when I don’t know what’s going on with it. I think I’ve been more relaxed and rested this week because I’ve not been trying to get much done or worrying about anything; I just came home, sat in my chair with Tug sleeping in my lap (Paul is calling him Puma now, because his claws are so sharp), and read or watched television. I did watch another episode of Moonlighting yesterday while doing work-at-home chores (“My Fair David”) and then finished reading The Dead Zone but also Adam Cesare’s marvelous Clown in a Cornfield (more on both later), and am now trying to decide what horror to read next before Tuesday–which is the end of Halloween season as All Hallow’s Eve itself falls on Tuesday. I am leaning toward Mike Ford’s middle grade The Lonely Ghost, which has been in the TBR pile for far too long, and then maybe something by Chris Grabenstein if I get that done quickly–The Hanging Hill looks like it could be quite fun, or perhaps a reread of my favorite ghost story of all time, Ammie Come Home by Barbara Michaels. I also have a kids’ ghost story anthology–Alfred Hitchcock Presents Ghosts and More Ghosts, actually edited and compiled by Robert Arthur, who created one of the best kids’ series of them all: The Three Investigators. After Paul got home from the gym we also watched this week’s The Morning Show.
And just looking at the college football television schedule, I am not seeing anything other than Georgia-Florida to watch with any degree of interest, and it’s tough–I despise Florida with every molecule of my existence, but I also kind of want Georgia to lose…but I just can’t root for Florida. (Georgia always winds up being my default team in the East because I hate Florida and Tennessee both with the white-hot intensity of a dozen burning suns, and pretty much everyone else is kind of irrelevant. Kentucky and Missouri never break through, nor does South Carolina, and Vanderbilt is…well, Vanderbilt.) I’m trying not to get overly worked up for the LSU-Alabama game, which is a must-win for both. I don’t get nearly as worked up over college football as I used to, which is a good thing–as I have slowly began to recognize that while they may be athletes, they’re also kids, and they shouldn’t be subjected to the scorn from fans. The coaching staffs and administrations, on the other hand, can have all the scorn, as can the conference hierarchy AND the NCAA. I’m not overly excited about all the conference expansion because I’m not so certain that the needs of the student-athletes are being taken into consideration as much as they should be in the pursuit of the almighty television deal dollar, and that NIL stuff isn’t something I quite understand other than that college athletes are now getting paid.
I can’t get over how good I feel this morning, and how good I felt all week, frankly. I’ve got to get all this filing under control and work on the kitchen, too–the living room and the laundry room are complete disasters; although I did start working on the laundry room shelves a bit yesterday. I do get to go for the final fitting for my dentures on Tuesday morning (the same day I am taping Susan Larson’s “My Reading Life” at UNO), so I am hoping to get back to solid food in a couple of weeks–and I am definitely going to reboot my eating habits once I have teeth again. I now am down to somewhere between 205-209 pounds, depending on the day and what is in my pockets, and I’d like to get down to 200 again; but until I am able to exercise again I am going to have to do that by changing the way I eat. I’ve frankly enjoyed the ramen (and the Velveeta shells and cheddar) and may continue to eat it going forward–same with the yogurt–but the calories from Haagen-Däzs will need to be replaced by something healthy. It wouldn’t hurt me to go back to having turkey sandwiches and salads for lunch occasionally. It’s the heavy steady diet of red meat I need to dial back on, mostly; and some of the other fatty stuff I eat far more regularly than I should–and go back to looking at Five Guys as an occasional treat for good behavior.
I can but do better in the future.
And on that note, I think I am going to indulge myself in some self-care this morning and get cleaned up before taking on the rest of the day. Have a great Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back soon enough, no worries–I have blog posts on “Don’t Look Now”, The Dead Zone, and Clown in a Cornfield to finish writing, too.
Wednesday Pay the Bills day has rolled around yet again! I slept well again last night–I’ve been getting very good sleep lately, which has been lovely–and I don’t feel tired the way I generally do on Wednesdays, which is kind of nice. I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon so I have to leave work a little early, but not a big deal–this is a routine follow-up to all the tests she had ordered when I switched primary care physicians, which was a huge relief to my mind about everything–and I am going in for my next fitting for my teeth on Halloween morning. We’re having a pot luck at the office that day, so I am making a cheesecake–which I will probably do on Sunday so I don’t have to mess with it on Monday night, which I won’t want to do, guaranteed. It has been a hot minute since I’ve made a cheesecake, and I think this weekend I am going to make white bean chicken chili, too.
And no, I am not wearing a costume to work that day. I also have to go tape “My Reading Life” with Susan Larson that day, and yeah–not wearing a costume to the studio at UNO for this. I also can’t believe that it’s already almost November. LSU has a bye week this weekend, so technically there’s not any real reason to watch games this Saturday, but I will have it on in the background as always and hopefully there will be some good games on this weekend; I haven’t looked yet to see who is playing.
I also spent some time with The Dead Zone again last night, and marveling at the way the novel is constructed; I don’t think anyone today (other than perhaps King) could get away with structuring a book the way he did this one, but it actually, absolutely works 100%. One of the things I’d forgotten in the years since I’ve read the book the last time is how many point-of-view characters there are, and how King uses them to build the structure of the book. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say the main character–John Smith, the most simple and basic male name of all time, no middle name, either–is in a terrible car accident and is in a coma for nearly five years, only to wake up with some psychic abilities. This is compelling and interesting enough–the concept of losing five years, how much the world and society can change in that short a period of time (even now, if you think about it, if someone went into a coma in October of 2018 and just woke up this month…think about everything that happened in that five year span, and then imagine having to get caught up on all of that after suffering a traumatic head injury and spending five years in a coma–with a psychic gift/curse of some sort on top of it. But that structure he uses–the first person point of view of the Castle Rock Strangler (Castle Rock’s first appearance in a King novel, too); the lightning rod salesman, and of course the book’s big bad, Greg Stillson (and yes, the similarities between Stillson and a real life politician struck me as far back as 2015)–all of these things are set-ups for story that comes later–the Castle Rock Strangler pov was something else–even all these years later the the words I’m so slick raise goosebumps on my skin. I’d also forgotten how sad the story actually is; Johnny’s mother’s descent into religious mania, in part triggered by his accident; his broken father, crushed by his son’s accident and losing his wife to insanity; Sarah, who was falling in love with him and would have married him but for the accident; and so on. As a teenager reading the book I marveled at how real all the characters were, how fully realized and actualized and developed; they seemed like people I would know and King’s marvelous skill at depicting the conflicting thoughts and impulses through internal monologues was something that blew me away, something I as a writer wanted to try to emulate.
I worked briefly on a short story last night; I wasn’t really tired when I got home, but Tug wanted to sleep in my lap and the story was a struggle, so it wasn’t hard for me to walk away from the computer, in all honesty. Tonight I am going to let him play with the red dot; he needs to play and exercise as he is a kitten, and I have to break myself of the oh Scooter just wants to sleep and never wants to play mentality; he had the zoomies again this morning and it amazes me how he can just leap and bounce off surfaces to launch to a new spot and then flies off the counter and gallops into the living room. My arms and legs are, of course, all scratched up (I also have a long scratch next to my nose; he launched onto my face from the ledge above the bed one night last week), but he’s so cute and adorable; it’s hard to stay mad at him even as he scampers over my keyboard and fucks things on the screen up.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and sorry I am so dull this morning. My life generally tends to be not all that exciting, really. Maybe tomorrow will be better.
It’s hard to believe that it’s October already; but this year has also seemed to last forever, which is bizarre and weird. I slept really well last night, and had a pretty relaxing day overall yesterday. I ran my errands yesterday morning and got them all done, which was lovely and then came home to watch some football games. It was an odd day, and my primary takeaways were that LSU needs a new defensive coordinator because they’re defense is getting worse rather than better; Georgia looked surprisingly vulnerable; Florida looked terrible; and I think Alabama–even in an off year–is going to wind up winning the conference because they’re the only team with an elite defense. Paul went to the gym during the Auburn-Georgia game, and Tug slept on me the entire time he was gone, which was lovely and relaxing. I’ve missed that. There really is nothing quite as calming as having a cat sleeping on you.
It’s so lovely having a cat in the house again, and I’d forgotten what it was like to have a kitten. Scooter was supposedly two years old when we got him, but Skittle was a six month old kitten. Tug isn’t quite five (still not sure about that name) months yet, but he’s definitely got BIG KITTEN energy, He’s absolutely fearless and not shy at all. It’s also nice hearing his paws on the stairs as he comes down them. I’ve missed the sound of a cat coming down the steps. He’s not heavy enough for me to hear him jump down from the bed yet, but I’m sure he’s going to grow into a nice size. It’s always fun getting to know your new pet’s personality–and like I said, he can make a toy out of anything. Scooter also wasn’t the kind of cat who would knock things off surfaces just to see what happens–Tug appears to be both the kind who will accidentally knock things off but also will do it on purpose. He also wanted my ice cream yesterday! Like I said, he’s completely fearless–will explore anywhere, and he is also fascinated by the windows. He also can jump pretty high, and I think we don’t need to worry about bugs in the house anymore.
I’m trying out cacao instead of coffee again this morning; it doesn’t have the bitter bite of coffee that I really like, but the real test of cacao will be tomorrow morning. I have been having one cup before switching to coffee–and yes, I do wonder if it’s the caffeine addiction that makes me switch over after the one cup–but tomorrow I think I’ll have a cup of coffee when I wake up and then take cacao in my go cup for the office. I don’t think I will ever give up coffee entirely, but I think I need to bring down my dependence on it, and I should probably never have more than three cups a day anyway (the most I have when I go into the office; I drink more when i am home).
Today I have a lot to get done. I was lazy yesterday after the errands and just watched games all day. The Saints play at noon today, but I doubt I’ll have the game on today. My kitchen/work space is a disaster area, and there’s things to do–dishwasher to unload, more dishes to wash, things to file and put away–and I’d like to do some writing today if i can. I didn’t finish Shawn’s book yesterday as I’d planned, so I will finish it this morning and then move on to reading horror for the month for Halloween and do some writing this afternoon. I want to get some of these short stories edited and/or finished, and there’s some other writing clean-up that needs to be done. I also need to make a to-do list. So, I am guessing the cacao certainly wakes up my mind in the mornings, as mine is now racing. I feel a little asleep still physically, if that makes any sense, so I’ve moved on to coffee and there’s that bitter bite I like. But I am definitely going to be productive today, and the first step of that is to finish Shawn’s book. After that I’ll come back into the kitchen and clean up in here–as well as write about Shawn’s book–and do some organizing before some writing. I have so many projects in progress right now that I need to be better organized, and definitely better motivated. I know the organization thing is a by-product of the anxiety (if I stay organized I won’t get anxious worrying about things I’m forgetting to do; if I stay motivated I won’t get stressed by deadlines, and on and on and on), but coping mechanisms work and exist because they work; and anything that brings down my anxiety is okay with me.
And on that note, Shawn’s book is calling to me, and so it’s off to my easy chair with me. I’ll probably check in with you again later. And if not, have a great day, Constant Reader!
But my God, fasting is the worst. The doctor visit went extremely well, and I am actually kind of excited about going forward with a primary care physician who, um, cares. Everything went well, we are getting ready to move ahead with my next surgery, we’re coming up with a plan to deal with the anxiety (bye bye, Xanax; but you didn’t really work for that anyway, only the symptoms), and I got my flu shot. I think I’ll probably swing by CVS to get a COVID booster and the RVS shot tomorrow. I have to go drop books off at the library sale anyway, I want to wash the car, and now that the excessive heat is over, maybe now I can properly air my tires and get the pressure in them to balance again. But I weighed only 200 pounds per their scale (with my wallet, belt, shoes and keys on me), which must be a result of the fasting? I can’t imagine how i dropped five pounds since yesterday.
I was also thinking that this soft food diet/tooth thing is really the perfect time for me to reset my eating habits and go forward with a more healthy eating plan. I need more vegetables in my life, and fresh foods. I don’t need the junk anymore except as a treat–I’ve rather broken the habit while not being able to snack these last couple of weeks, and let me tell you, last night I wanted a snack of something crunchy and salty so badly there’s no telling what I would have done to be able to have something like that. I’ve also come to realize that I actually like ramen. I generally have tried avoiding the foods that I consider “poverty indicators”–the stuff I could afford in college or during my leaner financial days–and those are things like ramen, box Mac’n’ Cheese, and tuna. But only being able to eat soft food and reverting to ramen reminded me that I do, in fact, actually like it–I always love any kind of noodles, really–and what is easier to take for lunch than that? I’ve been taking leftovers, and usually only cooking a big meal on the weekends to have something to take for lunch…,but ramen is easier, tasty, and filling (which is why it’s such a great poverty food). And you can always dress it up; one of my roommates in college had a Japanese mom and what she could do with a package of ramen, spices, and some vegetables was something I’ve tried duplicating any number of times without success. And once my arm is healed, I need to get back into working out again. Now that the weather is getting cooler I am probably going to start taking walks in the mornings on the weekends; the city is getting ready for Halloween and I have so many friends who are into Halloween that I love sharing pictures showing how overboard New Orleans goes for it.
I’ve never really done any Halloween writing about New Orleans, now that I think about it. Jackson Square Jazz was supposed to be the Halloween book, but I wound up setting it earlier in the month and only mentioned Halloween costumes in the epilogue. A Streetcar Named Murder was also set in October just before Halloween–hence the masked ball Valerie and Lorna attend–but I’ve never done Halloween itself. My story “The Snow Globe” actually began life as a Halloween story; I wrote it for a Halloween anthology and it wasn’t accepted. The original opening line was Satan had a great six-pack, and was inspired by me standing on the balcony at the Pub/Parade on Halloween and looking across the street just as someone come out of Oz dressed as sexy Satan–red body paint, red bikini, face done up, and red glitter everywhere–and I actually had that thought: “Satan has a great six-pack” and stored it away as an opening line. When I was looking through the files for a Christmas holiday story for the anthology benefiting my chapter of Sisters in Crime, I realized Santa is an anagram for Satan (which is interesting in and of itself) and I can switch the story from Halloween to Christmas, which makes more sense anyway for its outcome. Ironically, the story actually worked better as a Christmas story!
I definitely need to do a Scotty Halloween book. Halloween Season Hijinks? That actually could work….hmmm.
And on that note I am going to make myself some lunch (hello, Lipton’s double noodle soup and Ritz crackers!) and dive into the spice mines to get my work at home duties completed for the day. May the rest of your Friday be as awesome as you are, Constant Reader! I may be back later–one never knows–but if not, definitely on the morrow.
The weather has cooled down (Those Not From Here would scoff at the idea that temperatures ranging from 82-90 during the day signals a “cooling down,” but they can be forgiven because they clearly didn’t live through what was the hottest summer in New Orleans history. We broke records for everything. It was so hot and it hadn’t rained for so long we were in a wildfire alert, being cautioned not to cook outside–although why anyone would want to if they had another choice is beyond me. But yesterday morning when I left the house I thought, ah, this is lovely as I walked out to the car. As I indicated, the appointment went well, and now I know the backside of Tulane’s campus as well as where the football stadium is. I probably should explore that part of town more. I had an idea for (yet) another mystery series that would be set in the University area, or at least anchored there, but I am not as familiar with that part of town as I should be. I am very neighborhood limited here in New Orleans, but my own neighborhood and the one right next to it are so interesting and fun to explore that it’s hard to get out of my own neighborhood. Now that the weather’s nicer I think I might start taking walks after work when I get home. It’s Halloween season, after all, and New Orleans does like to decorate.
I was tired yesterday when I finished my work-at-home duties, and curled up in my chair while watching a gay critique of Barbie and the camp aesthetic by James Somerton before falling into a mindless wormhole of football highlights, reaction videos, and the occasional news clip. I am very tired of these times in which I find myself living this last third of my life. I did not have the potential collapse of American democracy and society on my life BIngo card; I’m not sure anyone really did. I think part of the reason I was so tired yesterday was the release of the inner tension and stress I was experiencing leading up the appointment. I was doing a pretty good job of handling the anxiety, I thought, refusing to let my conscious mind spiral (the curse of having a very fertile mind and a tendency toward pessimism is just how convincing the absolute worst I can imagine happening can truly be), but I also forget that the subconscious is also affected, and I’m not sure I can learn how to control that part of my mind, or if that’s even possible. Anyway, the reassurance that I am in very good hands and he has done the procedure many times successfully released all that stress and tension, and I think it left me drained and exhausted.
I was able to read more of Shawn’s book at the appointment while I was waiting to be seen (a book is such a better diversion than doom-scrolling social media on your phone) and my initial fear about the direction the book was taking–a mass school shooting–were unfounded. Shawn’s writing style is so rich and vibrant, too. I can almost hearing him reading the text aloud in my head as I read along, and I am very interested to see where the book is going to go. Shawn is one of those authors whose books I like to go into knowing nothing; all I know is who the author is and the title of the book. I don’t read reviews, I don’t read the jacket copy, I don’t read anything. (There are a handful of these writers; I also only have to know they are the author to buy it as well.) I hope to spend some more time with it this weekend. The LSU game is on at the ridiculous hour of eleven in the morning, which is the absolute worst time for an LSU game for me. I hate when they play early; if they play poorly it casts a pall over the rest of the day, and even if they do win, the rest of the day always feels anti-climactic. Anyway. So, maybe I will get to spend the rest of the day reading; stranger things have happened.
Tomorrow I have to spend doing some work; I’m not even going to try to pretend that I am going to get anything written or revised or edited today after the LSU game. I did manage to launder all the bed linen yesterday, and I also unloaded the dishwasher and cleaned the kitchen last night, too. So that’s something, right? If the game is at a decent hour next Saturday I’ll take these surplus beads to the donation bin, drop off all these boxes of books at the library sale, and maybe I’ll be able to eat something a bit more solid by then? I’m worried about losing weight because I’m afraid I’ll lose weight after the surgery too. Never thought I’d be worried about losing weight, but I also never thought I’d make it to my sixties, either. I have to eat something besides protein shakes and ice cream, so tomorrow I am going to try baby food again, and maybe mashed potatoes. It’s so exciting to be me these days, isn’t it?
But the kitchen and workspace area looks better organized this morning, which is pleasing to me, and I have another load of dishes ready to go in the dishwasher. I also figured out how to end two in-progress short stories that have stalled, so I call that a win, too. And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines.
So, Greg, you have a book coming out from a new press in October, and the main character is a drag queen? What the actual hell?
Well, therein lies a tale.
I never thought I would write about a drag queen, in all honesty. It’s not that I’m opposed to drag or anything like that; drag has always been an important part of gay culture (I really wish someone would do a history of drag that’s not academic in tone and therefore accessible to everyone without a PhD) and I’ve always appreciated it as an art form. Yes, some queens are better at it than others, and there are some who are just really tragic…but I admire and respect every single one of them who puts on the dress and wig and heels and make-up and goes out there to perform. My own anxiety manifests itself whenever I have to perform or speak in public (although I managed to successfully control it and get through Boucheron panels swimmingly; I don’t think my stage fright is a thing of the past yet but I’m getting better); I can’t imagine the courage it takes to do drag that first time.
I also never considered doing drag because of my vanity–I wouldn’t look pretty in drag and I would want to be pretty. Shallow, party of one, your table is ready. I’ve seen many performances over the year and even have friends who do it, but my primary interest in drag has always primarily been in it as an art form and political statement critiquing gender roles, masculinity, and femininity; and it holds a very important place in queer culture. I once did drag, for a Showgirls-themed birthday party–I looked like Stockard Channing, which isn’t a bad thing–but it was more of a costume than a real attempt at doing drag. My friend Mark always wanted to make me up for Halloween or Fat Tuesday as Joan Crawford–it was the shoulders, the eyebrows, the narrow hips, and the shape of my face more than any striking resemblance to Ms. Crawford, I think–and while I was interested in being transformed into Ms. Crawford, one of the things I hated the most about doing plays in high school was the make-up. I hated having that shit all over my face, and it never did what it was supposed to in the first place (I inevitably always played old men, so they had to try to age me, and it’s not like we had make-up artists who knew what they were doing in high school.). And the padding? The wig? The dress? Not to mention the lack of pockets and the difficulty in using the bathroom– yeah, not for me. Drag does show up in my work sometimes–not very often–and the most fun thing for me about that is coming up with drag names for the characters. I know I’ve used Floretta Flynn a number of times, to the point where in my New Orleans universe she’s probably one of the bigger and most successful queens in New Orleans. Two of the biggest names in drag came from New Orleans–Varla Jean Merman and Bianca del Rio are both from here. We used to go to Drag Bingo hosted by Bianca and Blanche Debris at Oz on Sundays before she left for New York after Katrina–and Bianca was just as funny and just as big of a bitch then as she is now. She always drew crowds, and of course I met her a few times out of drag (I am quite sure Roy doesn’t remember me).
And believe me, I was very careful not to attract her attention while she was holding a microphone.
I also once wrote a short story that opened with one character saying in the Clover Grill, “You sure see a lot of tragic drag in this town at four a.m.”
Paul and I also were fans of RuPaul’s Drag Race for awhile, too–but like Project Runway, we stopped watching one season when it was obvious that it wasn’t being judged fairly (it was fucking blatantly obvious) and that was it for us. Don’t serve me competition reality when the competition is obviously rigged for a particular competitor. I do love some of the queens we did watch on there–it’s been amazing watching Jinkx Monsoon’s star take flight–and I always liked Tatianna, and just to name a few–Ben de la Creme, Adore Delano, and Manila Luzon are all fabulous. Paul follows a lot of them on Youtube, and of course I do enjoy Trixie and Katya’s We Like to Watch on Netflix.
And naturally, we love Bianca because she’s a New Orleans queen.
But it never crossed my mind to write about one as a main character. It wasn’t my milieu, so to speak (and just typing that made me want to bang my head on my desk. Take risks! I should always take risks in my work!), and so while every once in a while I’d think “maybe I should write a drag queen into this story”, I never did.
Last summer, I am not exactly sure when (2022 was pretty much a blur of misery), I got an email with a request for a ZOOM meeting with two very dear friends, along with another friend of theirs I may have met once over twenty years ago, James Conrad. He wrote Making Love to the Minor Poets of Chicago back in the days when I was a reviewer/worked for Lambda Book Report, and the purpose of the call was they wanted to talk about a possible project for me. You know me, I am always up for a new project and a new possibility…so you can imagine my surprise to find out what they wanted was for me to write a cozy with a drag queen main character. James owns and operates the Golden Notebook bookstore in Woodstock, and decided to start a publishing company through the store and wanted this to be their first venture into crime. I pointed out that I a) knew next to nothing about drag and b) I’m not really a cozy writer (the Scotty series can be classified that way except for a lot of cozy rule-breaking; and yes, I did write A Streetcar Named Murder, which wasn’t out yet and I wasn’t sure if it was even any good), they pointed out that I am a writer who can write anything (this is true, but there are some things I can’t and won’t ever write–and yes, as I typed that I was thinking there you go limiting yourself again–maybe those are the things you should be trying to take on), and then I also remembered a few things–some of my co-workers at the day job do drag, and in fact, my former supervisor had attend a “drag school” here locally, started by a queen who’d retired here from San Francisco after a lengthy and successful career in drag; Paul even knows the queen who runs it. I sent James an early electronic uncorrected proof of Streetcar, so he could get an idea of my writing style, and waited to hear back.
While waiting, I asked some of my co-workers if they’d be okay with me asking them questions–which of course they were more than happy to do–and the more I thought about it, the more it made sense for me to approach this in the same way I approached writing Streetcar–I knew nothing about antiques, so I made my character the same. So, if I am going to write about a drag queen, I needed to write her origin story first–and I decided to make her an accidental drag queen; forced to step in when a queen doesn’t show for a performance. But how would that work? I realized my character had to already know about hair and make-up, so I decided to make him a glam artist, hired to do make-up for women on special occasions and styling them. How did he wind up doing glam? His grandmother, who was from New Orleans, used to have her own Uptown beauty shop on Magazine Street that was frequented by upper class New Orleans women, who would also hire her for special occasions to style them. He spent his childhood summers in New Orleans; his grandmother was the only family member who had no problem with his sexuality, and she taught him all about hair and make-up (and classic Hollywood). He went to cosmetology school instead of college (his grandmother paid for it) and he worked in a high-end salon in Dallas until his grandmother died, leaving him the house and most of her money.
I also had a great idea for the opening, which I quickly wrote up and James liked it…and so we moved forward with the plans for it. I had a Scotty book under contract, and I knew I could juggle the two and get them both done on time.
Of course, I didn’t realize how much work it would be to turn MWA over to my successor, I didn’t know Mom was going to go into the final decline ending with her death during this time, and….well, hindsight is twenty-twenty, isn’t it?
“I don’t know, Jem,” Lauralee Dorgenois said, frowning and raising a perfectly plucked eyebrow as she looked back over her shoulder into the three-way mirror set-up in her dressing room. “You’re sure that this dress doesn’t make my butt look big?”
Okay, I’m going to take a sidebar right here to give y’all some free-of-charge advice that is more than worth its weight in gold. There is only one correct answer to be given without pause or hesitation any time a woman asks you if something she is wearing makes her butt look big: “No.”
You always, always,ALWAYSsay no.
If that is, in fact, a lie—you say “I don’t know if that cut drapes right” or “I don’t like what that color does to your skin”.
There are literally a thousand other options besides making the incredibly foolish mistake of saying ‘yes’ or the seemingly safe, non-comital ‘maybe.’ Marriages, engagements, friendships, and relationships have all ended over this question being answered incorrectly—and no, it’s not a trap question. Women are bombarded from childhood with images of what they are supposed to look like and what they are supposed to wear. They are taught to fear fat cells and fatty foods, spend millions on diets and gym memberships and personal trainers. They are gaslit into thinking that being any size larger than zero and not having big firm breasts and not having a wrinkle-free face aglow with the dewiness of youth means they are doomed to grow old alone and unloved. So, they try to fight aging—and the fear of being traded in for a younger model—by having poison injected into their faces, excess skin surgically removed, and their hair constantly colored and touched up. Centuries of societal and systemic misogyny, of telling women they don’t measure up, echo in those sad, simple words: does it make my butt look big?
My heart breaks a little every time I hear them.
However, I get paid to make them look good. My opinion must be honest, but I still need to be delicate. Why be hurtful when you don’t have to be?
I tilted my head to one side and brought my eyebrows together as I looked her up and down yet again. “You’re curvy, Lauralee,” I replied finally, fluffing the peacock feathers on her shoulders to spread them out further. It was true. Lauralee was about five seven, and maybe could stand to lose a pound here and there. Her hourglass figure had thickened a slight bit once she hit forty, but it was barely noticeable. I’d picked out a green silk dress for her because the color made her green eyes sparkle like emeralds. It clung perfectly to her hips and was cut low in the front to shove off the ample bosom, highlighted by an emerald pendant handing from a gold chain just above the cleavage. I’d braided her long auburn hair into a French braid that dropped about half-way down her back. I’d woven some extra pieces of auburn into the braid to make it thicker. “And there’s nothing wrong with that, you know. We’d put Marilyn Monroe on a diet today.”
Several years ago, I tried writing a third series set in New Orleans with a gay male protagonist. It was a character I had already created; he showed up in a couple of Scotty books: true crime writer Jerry Channing, who’d gotten rich on a true crime novel about a child murder case in the Garden District in the 1990’s called Garden District Gothic, (which also became a Scotty title when he and the boys got sucked into that ancient cold case) and wound up solving it. I had wanted to write a fictional story based on the very real Jeff Davis Eight murders, and thought who better to center in the story than a true crime writer researching the case for an article or perhaps even a follow-up book than Jerry Channing? But as I started developing the character out from the sketchy details provided in earlier Scotty books, I suddenly realized what I was actually doing was combining Chanse and Scotty into a single person, so I shelved the story–or at least, the new series, because if all I was going to do was just merge two previous characters into one, there was no point in bothering. I had then gone on to create a new series with a straight woman as the main character (A Streetcar Named Murder), and I was determined that, with this new potential series set in New Orleans, the last thing I needed was to just rip-off previous characters.
So meet Jem Richard, twenty-something glam artist and New Orleans home owner. Jem lives in the 7th Ward (not far from my day job office, actually; over on St. Roch Avenue between Claiborne and St. Claude), and the house flooded during Katrina–Jem remembers coming down with his family to help work on the house for his grandmother, Mee Maw of sainted memory–and I gave him a pole-dancing roommate who also works at Crescent Care. (Another Easter egg is the book opens with Jem being enormously disappointed to be ghosted by someone with whom he had several dates –a Tulane grad named Tradd. Bury Me in Shadows readers may remember Tradd as the asshole who broke up with Jake and sent him into the alcohol/drug spiral that landed him in the hospital when that story opens. I also want to use Tradd again somewhere else…but that is indeed a tale for another time.) Jem does well for himself, but has no health insurance and never is guaranteed work–but he also really doesn’t want to go back to working in a salon again, either. (He also sometimes books gigs with film, theater and television companies.) He’s kind of a lost soul, not really sure what he wants or what he wants to do with the rest of his life–but he also is lucky: he owns his own home, for one, and has several marketable skills. He kind of feels like he’s been spinning his wheels and not getting anywhere since coming to live in New Orleans. Jem has considered doing drag before–he’s very into costuming, and has won the Bourbon Street Award for Best Drag Costume on Fat Tuesday the previous two Carnivals–but he (like me) is haunted by stage fright. He did a play while in high school and the stage fright was such a horrible experience he gave up his dream of being a performer and started working as the make-up and hair person for the school productions.
So, when he’s hired to be a back-up glam artist for a fashion show at Designs by Marigny, only to find out the models were drag queens. A little taken aback, he rolls with the challenge, and when one doesn’t show, Jem gets pressed into service (he can fit into the dress). The show is being managed by the same person who runs the local drag school–a sweetheart named Ellis, whose drag name is Mary Queen of THOTS. Jem has a bad history with Marigny the fashion designer–she’d hired him todo the make-up for a previous show, and her check bounced–so the friend who recruited him to do the show makes sure he gets paid in advance. Of course, since the models are drag queens, the show attracts anti-drag protestors–there’s a suspicion that the designer, Marigny, deliberately used queens hoping to attract a protest and more publicity. Throughout the course of the evening Jem overhears Marigny arguing with several different people, and the next morning wakes up to the news she’s been murdered–and somehow Jem is not only a suspect but he’s also a target.
But why?
Jem also has a black cat named Shade.
As I said, while it had never occurred to me previously to write a drag queen character, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do so. Drag queens are currently under attack by the forces of bigoted evil. Part of this comes from the right-wing demonization of transwomen, spear-headed by hateful bigoted lying trash like Libs of TikTok (if you’ve ever retweeted the Axis Sally of the Proud Boys, know that’s why I blocked you and we will never, ever be friends again) and Moms for Liberty, who are both so fucking ignorant and clouded with hate that they think drag queens and transwomen are the same thing. The idea that children need to be protected from drag queens at all costs because it’s somehow sexualizing them is disgusting and ignorant and offensive on its face; merely rephrasing Anita Bryant’s vile claim that queers need to recruit children, i.e. all queers are pedophiles. They prove they’re liars on a daily basis and that it really has nothing to do with “concern” for children and everything to do with bigotry and hatred, because they never go after religious organizations, youth pastors, Boy Scout troop leaders, and Republicans–you know, the ones who are being convicted of child rape and child porn on a regular, almost daily basis –but only the queers are their primary concern. First off, not all drag queens are transwomen and not all transwomen were drag queens. Yes, some transpeople start their transition by doing drag, to get a better idea of whether or not they are more comfortable as a woman than as a man. I work with a lot of transpeople, and have for quite some time. I’ve witnessed people transition and evolve, and I’ve also seen the change in demeanor, confidence, and emotional well-being when they do.
What better way for a writer to fight back against ignorance than writing about it? And I loved the deliciousness of fighting homophobic and transphobic bigotry by writing a cozy series.
Here we are back on another Monday morning with another work week staring us in the face and not blinking. Great, right? It was a lovely weekend around the Lost Apartment, if a bit lonely; Scooter was definitely needy all weekend and it’s weird to have the bed almost entirely to myself (not including Scooter). I felt well rested both weekend mornings when I arose; yet after running my errands on Saturday and doing some cleaning I became extremely fatigued, which sent me to my chair. I did manage to get some things done once the fatigue set in–I think low blood sugar had an awful lot to do with it, to be honest–and it’s irritating, frankly. I had wanted to be a lot more productive on Saturday than I actually was; but c’est la vie and all that nonsense. I do think I am going to need to do some restructuring of the opening chapters on my book, but that’s cool; it certainly makes more sense for me to order it the way that I am going to restructure it all. And no, I didn’t get a lot done this weekend. Maybe a restful weekend of recharging my batteries was just what the doctor ordered; who knows? I am trying not to get overly stressed out about everything that is pending for me.
Stress is the mindkiller.
I’ve oddly enough been sleeping better and more restfully recently, despite the addition of cappuccino to my morning routine every morning–but maybe the caffeine crash is why I am so tired in the afternoons. Maybe, but I was also tired in the afternoons before I got the new espresso machine (which I love, if I’ve not made that clear enough already) so who knows what the new normal/Greg’s reality is anymore? I certainly don’t know.
And it’s Halloween, of course. Happy Halloween!
I was going to rewatch the original Halloween last night, but instead I rewatched Robert Wise’s 1962 adaptation of The Haunting, based on the novel by Shirley Jackson. I originally saw this movie when I was a kid, staying up late one night to catch it on the late movie, and it was absolutely terrifying. It’s exceptionally well done, and Julie Harris is so definitive as Nell–the cast is all so definitive in their roles, really–that I can’t help but see them every time I reread the book. It really is a stunning performance by Harris–she really embodies Nell–and the entire thing is so claustrophobic and terrifying, really; the concept of what you cannot see being more terrifying than what you can played up perfectly by Wise’s incredibly capable direction and camera shots–and the editing ratchets up the suspense and terror perfectly. It follows the book incredibly closely–one of the most faithful adaptations of book-to-film; up there with Rosemary’s Baby, really–and as I watched, not terrified because I’ve seen it so many times so thus able to watch for the direction and the editing, which were superb, as was the black and white cinematography, I couldn’t help but marvel at what a great job Wise did with the cast and the film. The remake was terrible, absolutely terrible–unwatchably bad; which remake a classic in the first place, especially when you’re just going to go crazy with the CGI budget, which takes away the most important suspense/terror aspect of the book and the original film: you don’t see the monsters, you don’t see whatever it is that is haunting Hill House and it is never explained. I also don’t usually like movies that have voiceovers to show a character’s thoughts, but the book itself is so intimately from Nell’s point of view that it would be hard to translate that on film and get the same feeling–and the emotive way Julie Harris does the line reading makes it work, draws the viewer in, and makes the viewing experience incredibly intimate and claustrophobic at the same time, which is exactly how Jackson wrote the book.
I also recorded Alexia Gordon’s Cozy Corner podcast yesterday, and it was a lot of fun. We talked for a very very long time–we both lost track of the time, really–and talked about a lot of things. It was seven by the time I got off the ZOOM call, and when I got up to make myself something to eat was when the fatigue hit me. Was it related to the podcast and social intercourse, which also required me to think and be smart and actually put thought into my answers? I don’t know, maybe it was but I was pretty tired by the time I made my grilled-cheese-and-bacon sandwich for dinner and repaired to the living room to watch the movie. I didn’t stay up much longer after I finished watching either; I was watching some documentary on Youtube about the Hapsburgs and started nodding off, so I decided to just go on up and go to bed early–more sleep never hurt me, after all.
I may even go to bed at nine tonight. Perish the thought!
But I think my restful weekend did the trick, and it was clearly what I needed. I do feel refreshed and alive and rested, both physically and mentally, this morning–or it could be the cappuccino. I guess we’ll find out this afternoon when the caffeine wears off.
So on that note, without further ado, I am heading into the spice mines on this lovely cool Monday morning in New Orleans. And may your day be lovely and bright, Constant Reader–I will talk to you again tomorrow morning.
Queer and Loathing in America 