Sunday morning after yet another low energy Saturday. I slept late again and did next to nothing yesterday, other than a couple of errands (more on that later) and a load of laundry. I spent most of yesterday hanging out with Paul and Sparky and watching television; there was a gymnastics meet that LSU competed in as well as the figure skating finals for men’s and ice dance. That was my entire day, really, and I also was lazy enough to let everything slide, so I have a messy kitchen and living room to deal with this morning. I didn’t read, and we didn’t watch much of anything else other than some news and other clips on Youtube between the gymnastics and figure skating. I do feel more rested today, which is a plus, and I slept late again this morning, too. No worries, I decided yesterday that regretting sleeping longer than usual is counter-productive. I need to rest, and it’s not laziness if you want to sleep later. One thing I need to unpack and process and get over this year is the fear of being thought lazy–and you’re not lazy if you’re not doing something productive every minute and second of every single day. (Thanks, Mom!)
I have no idea what today is going to be like and I am not really making definitive plans for the day. I do need to update my to-do list, make a grocery list, pay some bills, and I do need to do something about the kitchen/living room. I did notice the other day that the barricades for St. Charles’ Carnival Slalom Course are already out on the neutral grounds on the Avenue, which is going to be fun driving down on my way home from work during the parade weeks as I rush to get home before they close the Avenue off, sealing those of us who live in the Box off from the rest of the city. I forgot to bring home boxes from work to pack up more books for the library sale, having finally reached the acceptance phase of knowing I’ll never read all the books I have on hand and should give someone else the opportunity to read them. I paid for them already, after all, so the authors have gotten a royalty from me so why not let someone else have them, right? Books aren’t for decor, they are to be read and enjoyed and shared, and I no longer need to have books stuffed on every available surface and into cabinets and the attic and so forth, to feel comfort. I always used to be afraid I’d run out of something to read and so always needed a big TBR pile. I don’t need that anymore, and I will never run out of things to read so long as I have my iPad.
I also don’t have the anxiety that drove the book hoarding anymore, either.
I see that the Virulently Anti-Black Queens offered a non-apology yesterday that went over almost as well as their racism and misogyny did in the first place. I believe people when they show me who they are the first time, thanks. I also loved seeing gay white men telling Black people on social media what is and isn’t racism. Way to beat the allegations that we’re racists, guys. It also pisses me off because I always want to support queer people and their art, but I can’t be supportive of problematic gay men, especially when they target Black people for disdain and contempt that is clearly rooted in white supremacy–there are plenty of white gay men who think because they’re marginalized they can’t be racist. Au contraire, mon frere–being marginalized yourself doesn’t mean you can marginalize and belittle others because you’re white or have proximity to whiteness. Do better, people. I’m not perfect and make mistakes all the fucking time–but I also try to take responsibility for my words, and learn. We all have to unpack things we learned and absorbed from the culture and society we were raised in–those things aren’t our fault entirely, but not unpacking them and clearing them out of our psyches IS.
It’s not really that hard to look at other demographics through a lens of humanity first, and it really shouldn’t be that difficult for all of us to be more empathetic and to call out dehumanizing behavior and language.
When I picked up the mail yesterday, my box o’books for Hurricane Season Hustle had arrived. And while it’s always a thrill to get said author copies–that never gets old–I did have a bit of a pang, thinking Yay! followed by Christ, where am I going to keep these? That was a new reaction, and probably due to not having the anxiety anymore and being more pragmatic about the book hoarding. The kitchen was too messy to take a picture of the box o’books to post the way I always do; so I’ll have to get some work done on the room before I can unpack the box and do my usual routine with the books.
And on that note, the kitchen isn’t going to clean itself and Sparky wants my desk chair for his morning nap, so…I am going to close this and head into the spice mines, whether I want to or not. Enjoy your Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning before work.
Saturday in the Lost Apartment, although I suppose it’s Championship Saturday. I’ll have the games on for background noise but I don’t care about their outcomes. If they’re good games, I’ll watch; if not, I can just check in periodically while I do other things. I still need to put things away from yesterday’s Costco run, and some other touching up around here today, while organizing and pulling all my notes together for my new project, which I intend to commit to entirely tomorrow morning once I rise. Sparky let me sleep late this morning like the little darling he is, even cuddling with me the last few hours before I got up. I feel good and rested this morning. Paul is seeing his trainer today, and will inevitably (like always) spend a few more hours at the gym on the bike. I am looking to get back to the gym myself, probably after Mardi Gras. I feel terrific. My doctor agreed with me that I probably had been experiencing the colitis for several years before it finally got so bad this past spring, and was why I experienced so much fatigue. There’s also a possibility that I have “pernicious anemia” (I love the name. Pernicious–such a fun word!), an opportunistic autoimmune situation that sometimes tags along with colitis and causes Vitamin B-12 deficiency…which can affect memory and fatigue, and would require me to get a monthly shot. Yay.
I also have to get labs drawn again this coming Friday–the same day my next Skyrizi injection arrives in the mail.
We started watching Heated Rivalry last night, and I will have thoughts on it once we’ve finished. (And…it’s another one of those newsletter essays that will play into my series about masculinity.) I also caught up on the news last night after unloading the car and heating a pizza up for dinner. I am debating whether or not to watch The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, since I detest most of the cast and don’t enjoy watching it anymore. It’s not even a fun hate-watch anymore. I also started my reread of The Postman Always Rings Twice, which is so marvelous and nasty and, above all else, working class, that I see why it bothered people so much when it was originally published in the 1930s. It’s also hella racist, which I didn’t remember–which also explains the casting of Lana Turner in the film; no one would ever mistake her for Hispanic/Latino like Cora in the book. I am also very glad that I am rereading it, because it has that edge of nastiness that noir needs, and isn’t currently present in the first three chapters of Chlorine, and while roaming the aisles at Costco yesterday I was thinking about how to rewrite it. My main character is not a hero, and I have to remember that why I write him. That’s a significant mind shift for me when I write, really.
In football news, Tulane won their conference championship last night and are going to the play-offs for the first time in school history, but reports they were hiring LSU’s Brian Baker proved untrue as it was announced Baker would be staying on in Baton Rouge. LSU football is all over the news still down here, indicating a statewide level of excitement for the new coach that wasn’t there for Brian Kelly, ever, other than after that overtime win over Alabama his first year…but that excitement died down very quickly. Ironic that his best season was his first, rebuilding year, isn’t it? I think part of the excitement is joy at being rid of Kelly, frankly. I was willing to give him a chance, but he never really delivered.
At least he broke the streak of losing season openers that has plagued the Tigers this entire decade, and he did beat Alabama in a thriller in 2022. And he signed Jayden Daniels. Three good things out of almost four seasons.
And on that note, I am heading to my chair to read some more of Postman before getting cleaned up and getting to work on the apartment. I am also going to make chicken chili today, and some chicken salad for Paul. A very big day for me! It’s also gray and chilly and supposed to rain all day, too–an excellent day for reading under a blanket with the television on. I may watch an episode of The American Revolution, which I am really enjoying; it’s so nice to see our history without all the myths and legends that sprang up about it after the second world war.
So have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in on you again tomorrow morning, deal?
But nobody walks in LA, as the song says. I did a few times, and always heard this song in my head as I strolled down Santa Monica Boulevard. I do miss my annual visits to Los Angeles to sign at A Different Light. I don’t miss the stress and anxiety of signings (will anyone show up? Will I make an utter fool of myself?), but yes, I used to walk down Santa Monica from my hotel and shop on my way to visit the store.
Ah, the good old days…
But it’s Pay-the-Bills Wednesday, always a fun exercise in depression that always ends up with the plaintive cry where did all my money go? At least I can pay them–for now, at any rate. I just really hate paying them and trying to remember all my user names and passwords; nothing makes me feel older than not remembering things.
I was tired when I got off work last night–and actually, was kind of dragging all damned day yesterday. I’m not sure why, either; I was kind of mentally lethargic–and when I am that way, I inevitably come up with new ideas…which is my brain trying to get me to not stress too heavily about not doing any writing: but at least I had some ideas! Insanity, but that’s the way my mind has always worked. I’ve really been wanting to write some more essays for the newsletter; I already have several done that I don’t want to send because I don’t want to become that annoying person dropping into the subscribers’ (I can’t believe I have subscribers!) inboxes all the damned time. I don’t think all my book/movie/television reviews need to necessarily go there? I don’t know. I originally decided to use the newsletter to write longer form essays–ones that were too big to go here–but somehow that evolved into my writing longer reviews of books and movies and television shows there as well. Heavy heaving sigh. I guess I am having a newsletter identity crisis….but now that I am up this morning, I’m thinking I don’t need to write reviews there; I can do shorter ones here and do the longer ones, the ones where I really have something to say about the art, on the newsletter.1
We watched some more of Olympo last night, and there was finally some more gay storyline; Roque, the gay rugby star, is now getting involved with a teammate (Sebas) who is only now beginning to experience same-sex desire, which should be interesting to see play out. Both are gorgeous, too–so was the closeted guy Roque was hooking up with until the closet case turned on him–and as Paul said, “the most interesting characters are the men–the women are unlikable.” He was right, of course, and I don’t think that is gay misogyny at play; they really are unlikable. It’s not as good or as involving as Elité, which took off like a speeding freight train from the opening of the very first episode; this one is more of a slow burn–the primary story of the season is doping, as it would be in most shows about up-and-coming Olympic hopefuls. There are some curiosities about the show–little mysteries that might become bigger story-lines as the show goes on, but for now, the doping is the primary story–as well as the homophobia Roque is experiencing on the rugby team and in the school.
Plus, I love that name: Roque.
I only have one more day of work this week after today thanks to the 4th of July holiday, which seems kind of muted this year. Not surprising, since the entire country is being reshaped in the image Christian Nationalists have been pushing for since Brown v. Topeka Board of Education was decided by a decent Supreme Court, as opposed to the conservative activists currently sitting on our present-day court. I mean, it’s not like the country has ever lived up to its ideals; our country’s sad history of racism, homophobia, and misogyny goes back all the way to Columbus arriving in the West Indies (Spain and Portugal really never get enough credit for kicking off colonization and inventing racism).
I started thinking our empire was beginning to crumble in the 1980’s–I just hoped it would wait to collapse into authoritarianism after I died.
Ah, well. Somber thoughts on this July 4th Eve Eve. I try not to talk about politics or what’s going on in the world; if you come here to read this blog periodically where I fall on the political spectrum shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. I try to leave talking about politics and world events out–I am hardly an expert, and adding to the angry on-line chatter isn’t really appealing to me: there’s no point in preaching to the choir, and anything I say isn’t going to convince someone who disagrees with me that they are incorrect (and vice versa; I don’t engage with conservatives because I will never agree with them on anything, really), and all it does is get me riled up. Sure, I’ll sometimes give in to the urge and go all Julia Sugarbaker here–ignorance and deliberate stupidity get under my skin like nothing else, but I try to resist the urge because I prefer to save my energy and time for productivity. I’m back to not engaging with anyone monstrous on social media–I find blocking trash more satisfying than scoring points off a troll anyway, which is performative in the first place, since all you are doing is showing your followers how witty and smart you are.
Sigh.
Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like this is a more New Orleans-style summer than we’ve had in years. It’s already miserable outside when I leave the house for work, and even more miserable later in the day when I’m running errands. I know it’s worse because my sinuses and allergies are really kicking in this year–wet and humid with the thick heavy air, the heat, and the sun beating down mercilessly from above; we’ve also had a lot more rain (another sign of insane humidity) this year than we’ve had in the last few. I think the weather, coupled with trip recovery (I was in a car for almost twenty hours over four days), is why I’ve been so out of it this week.
I kind of hope we have some delightful thunderstorms this weekend, too; so I can snuggle under a blanket in my chair while reading. Sparky has been very attached to me since I got back–demanding my lap to sleep in when I get home from work every day, wanting to ride on my shoulders while I do things, and being incredibly playful, too. He really is a dear thing.
And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably check in with you again tomorrow morning. Till then!
Seriously, where were all these muscular pro wrestlers during my adolescence?
Which means I’ll be moving some of those reviews from the drafts on my newsletter page to the drafts here; and deleting some of the ones in the draft files here. ↩︎
Ah, Sunday in the Lost Apartment and how are you doing, Constant Reader? I slept pretty well last night, didn’t want to get out of the comfortable bed this morning, but nevertheless, here I am, having already downed one piece of coffee cake and cup of coffee and about to make a second cup. I don’t feel completely awake just yet, but I am hoping by the time I finish writing this I’ll be all warmed up to get back to my writing. I did some yesterday, about a thousand words or so, and I need to get strapped in and back to work this morning. Yesterday was an okay day; I didn’t get as much written as I would have liked, but I got some writing done. I didn’t read much of my book yesterday. Paul was off getting another tattoo and brought home a pizza from Midway on Freret (which is amazingly good, for the record). He didn’t get home until late, so we watched the first two episodes of The Recruit (there are so many of these similar type shows we’ve watched that we aren’t really sure which one is which, and the plots all kind of blur together, but they’re entertaining enough to watch), and I was tired and went to bed. I did also run my errands yesterday as well, and was very tired when the second episode finished; I was dozing off during it, which was why I thought it best to just go ahead and go on to bed and be done with the day, which is always a good thing now that the timeline of my life is now in the “collapse of the country” final stage. Woo-hoo! Just what I always wanted and dreamed of.
I was thinking yesterday–I saw something somewhere on-line about people “needing to prepare to live in a dystopia”–and it hit me that I already lived in one; New Orleans after Katrina, with so much of the city in ruins and so much not open and so few people here. It was so eerily quiet in those days, a weird stillness that seemed so very wrong, and adapting to schedule my days around when things would be open because if you didn’t pay attention you could miss your window of opportunity to get groceries, of which there wasn’t much to choose from. Same with the gym, the post office, places to eat–there also was a shortage of workers, so that was another drawback to businesses opening. I considered getting a part time job on top of the ones I already had at the time, just to help out…I never did. That was also when I was probably in the best physical condition of my life, too–the only thing I had control over was my body, so I controlled it as much as possible. Good times, right? Sigh.
It’s also Black History Month, which isn’t being celebrated by the government this year since, you know, the country is being run by racists now–well, openly racist and proud of it trash–and are doing everything they can to take us back to the days when being queer was a crime, anyone racialized had no rights when it came to white people, and women were second-class citizens who were completely responsible for home and family (despite the fact that women have always been in the workplace as working professionals–but they were limited to what jobs they could have: secretary, teacher, librarian, waitress, flight attendant, etc.). I know it’s difficult for white people to read Black fiction because they aren’t used to not being the heroic center of the story1; but reading books by voices different than those that cater directly to you is necessary because you need to see other perspectives that are also valid. Works by Wanda Morris and Tananarive Due bring the reality of being Black during Jim Crow to vivid horrific life; I am still reeling from the horrific truth of both Due’s The Reformatory and Colson Whitehead’s Nickel Boys. I can’t encourage people enough to read Black authors, and not just for Black History Month, which is performative support as opposed to actual support–like your rainbows in June that disappear on the 30th, not to be seen again until June 1 of the next year. I appreciate even the performative support, honestly, but it doesn’t fool me that it goes very deep, either.
We all really just want to be left alone to live our lives in peace, you know?
But people who’ve never been oppressed will claim to be oppressed and play victim–how many times have we seen that play out? I’ve seen straight white women call gay men pedophiles (including me) publicly on social media, and then cry and make themselves the victim for the outraged reaction from the gay men. Yes, bitch, I’m the bad one for blocking you for calling me a pedophile. Drink bleach, bitch. I don’t forgive or forget homophobia; it’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back every single time. There’s never any coming back from that–and microaggressions also add up until I can’t make excuses for people anymore–and another life lesson of the last five years have been that even a microaggression has to be called out. If it talks like a homophobe and acts like a homophobe…yeah, they are inevitably a homophobe…and yes, even people who think they are allies can be homophobes. I never wanted to be THAT gay, you know, the militant constantly pointing out how offensive people are being and so forth…but why protect the delicate feelings of snowflakes who clearly don’t give a flying fuck about how I–or any other queer–feel?
I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of the schadenfreude of watching those racist white bitches who gleefully wouldn’t vote for the highly qualified Black woman finding out they are also DEI hires, that they were the primary beneficiary from equal opportunity laws, and now they can just put up with the sexist jokes and the not getting paid the same and not getting promoted that turned working women into feminists in the first place. What’s even more interesting, at least to me, is that the anti-feminist women (Phyllis Schlafly, Ann Coulter, and others of their ilk) who benefited from feminist activism worked to undermine their success–and undermined all other women in the process. I really wish someone would just say to Ann Coulter when she’s bloviating (hilariously, MAGA hates her and the Left will never go anywhere near her, so who precisely is her current audience? Racists who hate Trump? Huge audience there, Ann, well done.) “shut up, no one cares what you think, you’re just a woman who couldn’t get into an Ivy for law school.” (Which is why she hates the Ivys, right there. There’s a lot wrong with the Ivys and the public perception of their ‘greatness’–but not letting Coulter in is worthy of applause.) The hilarity that they also voted to preserve their abortion rights but voted for Trump–you just can imagine how fucking smug they felt in the voting booth–who might ban abortion nation-wide with an executive order made me roll my eyes at the mental gymnastics those smug racist misogynist skanks had to perform to rationalize their votes.
White women have always propped up white supremacy because they “believed” that it protected them. I would even go so far as to say it also afforded them a taste of power that they didn’t get to feel otherwise in their lives (Southern women really lean into that ‘steel magnolia’ thing, which has always bugged the shit out of me. Just say you’re proud to be trash and be done with it), because in antebellum times they had power over their enslaved (check out They Were Her Property sometime) and after emancipation, they were still “above” freed Blacks, even with the power of life or death over the men. (Louisiana’s bizarre inheritance laws, which I researched again for A Streetcar Named Murder, have everything to do with rich men down here having both white families and biracial ones; so they couldn’t disinherit the white family in favor of the biracial one…which was enough of a problem that it had to be legislated here.)
Ugh.
And on that somber sad note, I will head into the spice mines and get to work. Have a lovely Sunday, and I may be back later. One never can be sure.
Precious delicate little snowflakes that they are. ↩︎
I slept late this morning, but feel good now that I am awake. I did stay up later than I should have watching games last night, but I couldn’t turn off the Georgia-Kentucky game until the end. Georgia survived their closest non-Alabama game in quite a while, before prevailing 13-12 in a nail-biter in Lexington. My coffee tastes wonderful this morning, and I am slowly swimming up from the depths of Morpheus-induced slumber (strongly aided by Trazodone). When I first got up I debated maybe you don’t have to make groceries today but I really do need to. The Saints game starts at 1, so I’ll probably go during that to avoid traffic and other shoppers; New Orleans is a ghost town during games, and as long as I am home to catch the second half, that should do the trick. I did have a good day yesterday, despite all the games I watched; I was able to get more work done on the Scotty Bible (finding more discrepancies in the series), I did read some more of Everybody Knows, I got the dishes done finally, and did some cleaning around here, which is cool; it was nice coming downstairs and not seeing a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. I also worked some more on the books and straightened up the living room. Still need to do more cleaning, but am very pleased with the State of the Lost Apartment.
LSU played early yesterday, and it was a nail-biting, sloppy game with lots of penalties (and I feel like the officials kind of had their thumb on the scale a bit for LSU; some of the calls they made raised my eyebrows, and I was rooting for LSU. They did wind up winning, 36-33, but they look like they haven’t completely gelled as a team. Garrett Nussmeier can throw for sure, but there was also some incredibly stupid play-calling by the offensive coordinator (I was reminded of the Les Miles era; I wasn’t the only one because a headline on the Times-Picayune reads “Les Miles would have enjoyed LSU’s sloppy 36-33 win”). It was also weird because we actually don’t know how good South Carolina really is; they trounced Kentucky last week, and last night Kentucky almost knocked off Georgia, only to lose to LSU this week. After the LSU game ended, I watched Florida’s season start circling the drain again as they got trounced at home by Texas A&M, who lost to Notre Dame last week; you see how this is going? This is, I think, going to be an extremely strange season, and right now I am picking Texas to win the SEC.
Tulane also lost to Oklahoma yesterday, but they gave the Sooners what-for before going down to defeat.
I did run out yesterday to the Fresh Market to pick up a few things–fresh ground hamburger for grilling, and a meal kit of shrimp scampi for tonight–and so heading over to the West Bank today (which I was on the fence about when I got up) doesn’t seem as daunting now that I am waking up. Paul might have his trainer today, and thus will be gone for a bit anyway; perfect timing, and I can also stop for lunch at either Five Guys or Sonic; this decision is a tough one, frankly, but will probably go for Sonic. (These are the important decisions I face down every day, you know.)
I also took notes on the next chapter of the book, which I hope to tackle at some point this week. It’s Chapter Five, where I always have trouble in a first draft (come to think of it, Never Kiss a Stranger also stalled out at Chapter Five), but the good thing to come out of Hurricane Francine is now I remember how it goes and how it feels and how it sounds to ride out a hurricane. I know this is where Venus and Blaine turn this into an actual crime story–the dead body in front of their place the boys find in Chapter One–and it’s going to be really fun figuring out the rest of this book, I think. But I think I have an excellent grasp of what this chapter needs to be to move the story forward, plus it’s more of an intellectual puzzle of sorts because they can’t really go out and do any investigating because of the storm conditions. It’s so nice to feel excited about writing again, Constant Reader, you have no idea.
The story of Springfield, Ohio, and its perfectly ordinary Haitian immigrant population, working hard and building a better life for themselves and their families in this country with the opportunities here, despite the deeply imbedded racism and xenophobia they’ve surely encountered since being recruited to immigrate to Springfield to keep the town from dying. Now that the right’s candidates have decided to target that small town with blood libel and slander and racism, the town’s public schools, city hall, and hospitals have all been receiving bomb threats, because the Right has embraced stochastic terrorism for years now. There’s nothing American or patriotic about any of this, and the Right thinks it’s funny and laugh about it, particularly their Queen of Sewage, Chaya Raichik, who should be in a women’s penitentiary trying to explain how she’s not a racist to the brown women in there. Imagine being a “brand” and making money on being a stochastic terrorist, and celebrated for it. I’d actually like to see an IRS audit of Moms for Liberty and their bitch goddess to see where their money is coming from. We really don’t utilize the IRS nearly enough when it comes to lawbreaking cults and psychopaths when they are white, which is completely despicable, but part of those horrific baked-in values of racism in American society, carefully developed and nurtured over four hundred years. When I first saw they were targeting Haitian immigrants, I had two thoughts: 1. I was surprised the old blood libel about Haitians and HIV/AIDS weren’t dug up (it took just another day and 2. since it was pets, I was a little surprised it wasn’t the blood libel of Haitian satanism/voodoo’, i.e “they’re stealing our pets for ritual sacrifice!” Thanks, by the way, to perennial presidential candidate and new age lunatic Marianne Williamson, for making that connection for everyone. She’s fucking trash, and someone else Oprah owes us all an apology for platforming. She actually has quite a track record for charlatans and frauds, doesn’t she?
And on that note I am going to get another cup of coffee and perhaps some coffee cake for breakfast before I head into the spice mines. Have a great day, Constant Reader, and I may be back later, one never can be sure.
TRIGGER WARNING: Racism, homophobia, and archaic racist terms.
I learned long ago that the best way to deal with assholes was to develop a razor-sharp quick wit. I don’t know how I trained myself to be snarky and fast with my sense of humor, but at some point in my teens—in college, I think—I realized that not being filtered, and not being able to recognize most social cues, could actually prove to be a powerful defensive tool, if controlled. It has worked marvelously for me ever since. I also learned that a really good thing to do was say things to people I disliked that could be taken as either a compliment or shade, leaving it up to them to decide what I meant.
A few years ago, I had an experience at Left Coast Crime in Albuquerque where my usual biting sense of humor deserted me when I really needed it the most. I’ve grown used to dealing with homophobes and contemptuously cutting them off at the knees; I even relish doing it at times. But this? I’d never dealt with this kind of bigotry before, and my only excuse is that I was caught completely off-guard. I’ve also turned what happened over and over again in my mind in the time since, wondering how I should feel about it. It still hasn’t finished processing yet, and I’ll probably keep processing it for a few more years.
This was my first (and so far, only) time attending Left Coast Crime (unrelated; I want to go again but it just hasn’t worked out). I had always heard wonderful things about it, but the timing was always difficult for me to actually attend; all too frequently it is around the time of the Festivals here. I’d come home to the locks changed, methinks, were I to go away at that time.
At the time, I was still serving as Executive Vice-President of Mystery Writers of America. It was 2021, we hadn’t had any kind of crime publishing events since March 2020, and the events were just starting to slowly to come back. MWA had signed on to sponsor the Lefty banquet, and I felt someone should be there to rep the org at the event, and it wound up being me. I felt a bit uncomfortableabout registering and agreeing to do panels; we were a sponsor, and I didn’t want Programming to feel pressured to give me anything because of that (I tried very hard not to use the position to promote myself; I may have been a bit over-zealous on that score, but better safe than sorry). I arrived in Albuquerque on Thursday, had a quiet dinner with a friend, and the next day I went to panels, ran into people, and had a lovely time. I also had dinner plans for Friday that I was excited about–I was having dinner with Marco Carocari, whom I had just met at Saints and Sinners; John Copenhaver, whom I was starting to get to know better; Oline Cogdill, a dear friend of well over a decade; Mia Manansala, whom I met at New Orleans Bouchercon before she was published and I’ve always felt a bit protective of her (my neuroses, not hers) and someone new to me–Wanda Morris, whom I had neither read nor met before.1
Constant Reader, that was such a fun dinner, the kind I always dreamed of being a part of when I was that lonely kid in Kansas wondering what his future would be. We talked about books, writing, gossip, and I believe everyone, other than Oline and I, was up for a Lefty. We toasted their nominations, and when we headed back to the hotel I felt marvelous; giddy almost. I was having a good time and was excited to be around writers again, and I wanted it to keep going. I didn’t want the evening to end…
Little did I know what I was in for as we walked back into the hotel lobby, and we three gays decided to go have a drink at the bar, while the women wisely all went up to bed.
It started with a chair.
So innocuous, so nothing, just a little thing that happens in hotel bars all the time; you join a table without enough chairs so you grab a free one from the next table…but this time? Very different.
Basically, we had decided to join friends at a high-top table with room for eight, with all the chairs already taken and some others pulled up. There was a tall bar chair standing at the next table–a low table, so it didn’t really belong there in the first place–and several people were sitting around that table. I smiled, said, “is anyone using this?” and one of the three people shook their head no, so I took the chair…which bothered the woman who was sitting closest to me and who decided, in her inebriation, that I shouldn’t have the chair.
DRUNK WHITE WOMAN (Henceforth, DWW): You can’t take that chair because you have to sit here and talk to me.
I’d never seen her before in my life, but I’ve also been drunk in public before, so I just smiled as I sat down at the other table, and said politely, with no idea of what I was letting myself in for: “Can’t you talk to me if I sit here?”
DWW: Great!
I nodded to her, hoping that was the end of the interaction. I’d had two drinks at dinner, but wasn’t even slightly buzzed. I had a glass of Pinot Grigio in my clutches, I’d had a marvelous evening already, and I was looking forward to catching up with the others at the table. I started to turn back to the table to talk to my friends, when…she leaned towards me, narrowing her eyes, and saying, in a very low tone, “Are you a mulatto?”2
Needless to say, I was taken aback–not by the assumption, but the language.
I literally thought, are we really still using that word in this year of our Lord 2022?
I didn’t know what to say, I was so stunned and shocked that my ability to lobby back an icy, conversation ending retort, something of which I was so so proud, had deserted me. I just smiled and said, “no,” which she countered with a scoff, “Well, you’re at least a quadroon.3“
And rubbed each side of her nose with an index finger, adding with a knowing smirk, “Especially with that nose.”
I said, rather sharply, “I know who all my grandparents were, so no.”
Again, it wasn’t the racial profiling that bothered me, but it was the entitlement and the language she was using.
First and foremost, my racial heritage–anyone’s, really–is no one’s business.
She was being racist to me, but even as I floundered, I couldn’t figure out why I was so flustered and having trouble figuring out what to say next. It didn’t bother me in the least that she thought I was part Black (more on that later), but she was using racist language to inquire, which I was offendedby, and I was more than a little insulted by her condescending assumption that I’d lie about it? And again, what business was it of hers if I was or wasn’t? (I’m still not sure how to wrap my mind around this; two years later I am blogging about it in order to process it in my brain.)
DWW: (waving her hand, poo-pooing me) Oh, everyone’s mixed there.
Hoping this ordeal was over and still in shock, I turned back to my friends…only to hear her voice loudly asking me, “Are you gay?” I confirmed that yes, I was–and then she went on a long, incredibly tiresome (and repetitive) monologue about how she’s always been good with the “L and the G and the B and the T”, tried bonding with me over hot male asses (in horrific terms: think locker room talk), and just kept on until finally I was able to finally excuse myself. I got up and left my friends, never to return. Definitely made me uncomfortable, so yeah, it also counts as sexual harassment–what I do or don’t do in my bedroom, DWW, is none of your fucking business.
I still can’t believe that happened, that someone felt comfortable using that kind of language to, and about, me about my racial heritage (when I was a child in the 1960’s I knew you don’t use those words, and they usually only appeared in old racist books, like Gone with the Wind), not to mention trying to get into my bedroom and what I do there. It’s not okay for anyone to use those horrible, archaic old terms that were humiliating and degrading even when they were in common use…and I also felt like I’d failed. I should have stopped her, I should have called her out for using racist and homophobic language, not to mention the fact that she felt, in her drunken stupor, perfectly okay to treat me not as a person but as a thing.
That is the real shame I feel. Not that she used such language to me, but I allowed it. I have to do better than that. My silence was complicity.
And yes, I should have filed a complaint with the conference. I’m still ashamed that I didn’t correct her or say anything before I made my escape. But I sensed it also wouldn’t do any good. Alcohol brings your barriers down, after all.
It also wasn’t the first time this has happened–but at least the first time, it wasn’t so offensive.
This, for an illustration, was my second author photo.
Taken by Sylvester Q, a photographer in New York, he also loaned me the shirt and some other clothes for the shoot. It was my first professional author photo shoot, and this was the best image, in my opinion, to come out of the session. I used it for Jackson Square Jazz (when I got the book down to reread it for the new edit for the 20-year anniversary edition, I noticed the picture) and for several other books. I don’t remember which image I used to replace this one–I think it’s the black and white one of me sitting and hugging my knees–but I am very well aware that I need new author photos. The one I just referenced was taken in either 2008 or 2009; the one of me with my stack of books is from around 2013 or 2014 (and yes, old age has hit me very hard since those last ones were taken). I did a shoot at Sleuthfest with Morgan Sophia in the summer of 2022; the pictures look like me but I don’t like the way I look in them, so I’ve not really used them.
Anyway, this was the image I provided to the Louisiana Book Festival when I was on a New Orleans Noir panel for their program in 2007 (I think). I don’t remember everyone else that was on it, other than editor/moderator Julie Smith and the person I am about to mention.
I was a little taken aback when said contributor sat down next to me, and exclaimed after we were officially introduced, “But I thought you were Black!”
She’d only seen my photograph in the program.
I was more amused than anything else, and perplexed. But when I looked at my image in the program later, it had printed even darker than the image above, which was already pretty dark. I think it had to do with how the shot was lit more than anything else. It was kind of funny, and it became a story that I told sometimes over drinks.
That wasn’t the first time my genetic heritage has been questioned by someone.
White people have this strange curiosity thing about people’s backgrounds, always trying to figure out where you’re from. “Are you German?” “Are you Italian?” That sort of thing. I will comment on a name–“oh, is that French/Spanish/German etc.”–but I would never ask anyone what are you?
I’d never really thought about it before the LCC incident, but people have very often wondered–and asked–what I am.
And in all honesty, I’ve never liked being asked, mainly because I wasn’t entirely sure.
I guess I am what is I’ve sometimes seen referred to as “ethnically ambiguous5“; in other words, had I been a movie star in Hollywood back in the golden age I probably would have been cast in roles that today would be considered offensive for me to play. People have often–again, this weird thing white people have about trying to figure out “what” I am–taken me for everything from Greek to Italian to indigenous to Syrian to Persian to Latino. I’ve never given it much thought, and I don’t really see it. My skin tone is what is called olive, and I’ve always tanned easily, a very dark brown with some red mixed into it (I’ve only been sunburned twice in my life). My facial features are a curious mix of my family; I look like both my parents, and my nose was broken in high school, with the cartilage never reattaching to the bone. I also shave my head, which apparently adds to the confusion.
Almost all of the ancestors (that I’m aware of, but I only know my father’s side, and there’s not anyone left on Mom’s side who’d know more) were British (Scots, Irish, English and possibly some Welsh) but white people have this weird need to classify people. I don’t know if it’s an American thing, or what, but it happens. Not so much anymore as it used to–maybe people are finally starting to realize that it’s offensive or that it doesn’t matter or some combination of the two.
But still. Basically, the woman in Albuquerque othered me. She looked at me and was confused, so she just had to find out what I was.
What I am. “What ARE you?”
And for the record, what happened to me at Left Coast is the kind of horrifically racist and offensive behavior that racialized people have to deal with multiple times every damned day. In some ways I’m glad it happened; that I got to experience racism targeted directly at me, but at the same time…it shouldn’t happen. To anyone, regardless of who they are or how they identify. It also made me very aware of my own privilege, which is something I do need a reminder about periodically; I get so wrapped up in being marginalized as a gay man that I forget how horrible it is to be a person of color in this racialized country and society and culture.
And ultimately, white people? It’s really none of your fucking business in the first place!
And would people have considered me white in the antebellum South? is a question we might have to revisit at another time.
Part of the struggle in writing this all down and sharing it with you, Constant Reader, comes from not wanting to make myself seem like either a martyr or center the conversation about racist bigotry on me. Unsettling as this all was–the privilege on display, the language used, the shame in not putting her in her place–it was momentary, something that didn’t impact or effect my life in any way; another anecdote for cocktail parties or dinner conversation. The sexual harassment aspect of it, had that been all there was (oh yes, during the ass conversation she also talked about mine), would have merely been something I would have laughed about with friends later, but the racial component was horrible. All I could think about was, really, how lucky she was that I wasn’t biracial.
Which makes me squirm more for not reporting it to the conference–what if she does this to authors or readers of color at one of these events? Was I coward for not only not stopping her but not reporting her? It’s been two years now, and I still am not entirely sure what I think or feel about this, which is very unusual for me; it’s very rare that I am unsettled this way.
But putting it all down has helped somewhat. I probably should have written this years ago.
I did buy her book that weekend, and once I read it became a fan. ↩︎
If you aren’t aware of this word, it’s an old, ugly, and pejorative term used for biracial people during the human trafficking era and the Jim Crow time that came after it. I’ve not heard anyone say the word aloud in at least fifty or so years. AT LEAST. If you want to understand just how offensive it is, it’s root word is mule–the product of interspecies breeding. Go fuck yourself, you horrible racist. ↩︎
Again an archaic deeply problematic word that actually comes from antebellum New Orleans, indicating how much Black blood someone had. These were the days of the “one drop” rule, which meant any Black ancestry, no matter how remote, made you Black in the eyes of the state and the law. Quadroon means one quarter, so the person had a single Black grandparent, the “roon” comes from “maroon”, which is another old and archaic racist term for Black people. Despicable, really. ↩︎
Credit where it’s due, she was using racist language that originated in New Orleans. ↩︎
Wednesday pay-the-bills day, and I don’t feel terrible this morning. I slept decently, although I am not sleeping all the way through the night anymore, which doesn’t please me, although I am not tired nor is it difficult to get out of bed in the morning. And usually about halfway through my first cup of coffee any and all fog is lifted. Yesterday was a decent day, really. I didn’t get a lot of writing done, but I did write some. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to write anything these days, but here’s hoping that changes really soon. I swung by the post office last night and PT to pay my bill, then was going to buy gas at the Shell on Magazine and Jackson, but the pump’s card reader wasn’t working, so I got back in the car and left, more than slightly irritated. I mean, why would you not repair the convenient way for people to purchase from you?
I did some chores when I got home around writing and being excited because my new shoes arrived! I got a pair of solid black Oxfords, and another pair of black-and-white Oxfords, only in the saddle shoe style, which I love. I am going to wear them to work today–the black-and-white ones, I mean. Oxfords are incredibly comfortable, and are my favorite shoes besides slippers and sneakers (we always called them ‘gym shoes’ when I was a kid, because that was what they were; you wore them for gym). I am going to wear the black-and-white ones to work today to break them in for Saints and Sinners.
I guess it isn’t entirely true that I didn’t write much yesterday. For a few weeks or so now I’ve been trying to write a blog entry about the Incident from Left Coast Crime in 2021. I finally got an entire first draft done, had a friend read it for potentially offensive language or attitudes–it’s about racism and homophobia I personally experienced, and if you’re going huh how did he experience racism when he’s white–well, it makes for an interesting and rather eye-opening story about white privilege and straight privilege and why it’s so important for conferences–of any kind, really–needs to do some work about making their event a safe space for everyone attending. I didn’t report the incident to the conference because it really wasn’t their fault, and Stan and Lucinda are lovely people, which is yet another reason I’ve been hesitant about writing about it. I’m pretty much finished with it now, I am just going to reread it one more time before taking it to the public. It was such a weird thing, and I’ve still not fully processed it yet.
But then again, weird things always seem to happen to me, don’t they?
So much so that I am never sure if something is weird or normal. It’s not fun.
As April slowly closes in and March continues to slip through my fingers, I am still not terribly panicked about deadlines and so forth, which is odd for me. I do need to get back to the writing grindstone sooner rather than later, and I wish I could get it out of my head that I need to finish this short story before looking seriously into finishing the book (I came up with probably the funniest drag queen name ever for one of the pageant contestants–Trudy Tradwife).
But it’s about time for me to head into the spice mines, so have a great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later.
I have, after a long internal debate with myself that’s been going on since before my surgery, finally decided not to attend Bouchercon in Nashville. There were still a few things on the plus side for me to go–the proximity to Dad and the ability to visit him on the same trip; seeing friends that I usually only see at Bouchercon–but over the past two weeks the negative side of going has really been brought home to me.
I also realized this weekend that I can just go see Dad anyway, and the truth is that this Bouchercon is already spoiled for me. I just can’t get excited about booking the trip, scheduling how to pay for it, and everything else involved with planning the trip; this year just thinking about it felt like an odious chore that I kept putting off. I keep getting surprise medical bills, too, which also played a part in my decision. I kept pushing back making the decision and figuring out the costs because I didn’t know what else I was going to have to budget for in the meantime.
I want to be clear that not one single negative was enough to break the camel’s back with me, but the accumulation of so many negatives and missteps by this event ultimately was just too much for me. Tennessee’s ban on women’s freedoms and its archaic, hateful anti-trans legislation had already made me wondering about my own safety there1; the recent murder of Nex Benedict2 in a ruby-red state with these exact same kind of laws on the books, along with the very same accompanying dehumanizing rhetoric, was the last straw for me. I just can’t.
It might also be different if the local host committee didn’t make an incredibly egregious error in scheduling a Lifetime Achievement3 winner whose conduct and behavior doesn’t hold up under a closer scrutiny, and his insistence that a deeply problematic person interview him–bound to cause an uproar from the very start–may have been an oversight or something the host committee didn’t think would be a big deal…
NARRATOR VOICE: It was, in fact, a big deal.
I am not going to go into further detail here, nor am I going to mention names–they’re well known enough, and the kerfuffle was kerfuffly enough, for most people to know who I am talking about in the first place.
It also didn’t help matters much that they published the list of categories for this year’s Anthony Awards and ditched the cozy-friendly Best Humorous category, which essentially guarantees most authors who write funny aren’t going to have a chance to be nominated this year. After San Diego created the category last year (and yes, I was a finalist), I had hoped that future local committees would commit to keeping it, making the awards more inclusive and admitting that humor isn’t taken as seriously as darker, heavier books. 4
Just another disappointment to pile onto the others over the years.
NARRATOR VOICE: Humor is seen as lesser because it’s more “frivolous.” But if humor is somehow easier to write, why do so many writers avoid it? If you think writing funny is easy, try doing it some time.
There is a valid point to be made that the only way to effect change you want to see is to get involved and help make that change. It’s why I joined the national board before realizing it would never go anywhere and there wasn’t anyone really vested in change–there are board members now I know are fighting the good fight, but there are also some still mired in the 1980s who think “all change is bad!” No, fixing problems as well as anticipating others is not a bad thing. It never is, and those who are resistant to it should remember that stubborn adherence to antiquated rules, policies and ways of doing things results in stagnation, and the cracks such stagnation creates will soon be too apparent to miss when they start appearing.
NARRATOR VOICE: Change can be scary, but it’s a necessary part of life. This is also true for businesses, non-profits, and events. Not changing and adapting means no room for further growth. I am not the same writer I was twenty years ago, for example. I’ve never wanted my art to stagnate.
There’s also an email circulating containing screen-caps of questionable tweets by other people in the crime fiction community–misogynistic, borderline racist and definitely homophobic–and all the guys posting are people I know and consider friends. It was disheartening, as it always is to see proof of what straight guys will say when they don’t think any gays or women are around. It’s why I can never entirely trust straight people, to be honest. I know that white people will be racist if they think everyone around them is white–and those present who aren’t racist never call them out, just kind of smile uncomfortably. The difference between outright homophobes and those who are just there by defaulting to it is that I appreciate the honesty of the actual outright homophobes more than those who smile in your face and then make horrific gay jokes when I’m not around. This was also a bit disheartening, but while it’s disappointing its a needed reminder of why queer people generally can’t trust the straight ones.
NARRATOR VOICE: Only making homophobic jokes when no queer people are around doesn’t make you an ally–so don’t be surprised when queer people have issues trusting you.
I’ve been around publishing for a lot longer than I like to remember, if I’m being completely honest. I’ve seen a lot, experienced a lot, and all of this sort of bullshit makes me tired. RWA seems to think it’s a great idea to promote using AI to its members. There was another issue with the Hugo Awards that recently, horribly, blew up (John Scalzi did a great write up about the recent Hugo controversy here.). And of course, there’s these latest disappointments from Bouchercon, too.
So, it’s easier for me to bow out entirely and not participate this year. And finally making up my mind one way or the other was such an enormous relief…no regret at all, just relief.
And that’s saying something about how tarnished the brand’s Nashville franchise has become. (A local in Nashville went on a thread about this year’s controversy stating that if queer people don’t feel safe or welcome they should start their own event–which told me exactly what we’d be dealing with should we go. Bouchercon deleted the homophobic trash’s posts, but they were screen-capped, of course.)
I’m not calling for a boycott–that’s not for me to decide, and besides, there are some very valid points about going and establishing a presence at the event. But I am not going, and this is why I decided not to spend my money there.
“But you live in Louisiana and its laws aren’t much better” isn’t the “gotcha” you might think it is, so don’t bother. I am sixty two years old and can’t just uproot myself and Paul to move to a blue state at this point in our lives, without jobs or significant resources to fall back on. I am not encouraging anyone to move here, nor do I tell people to come here, either. Bouchercon is here next year, so I will go for sure, but that doesn’t mean I am okay spending money or time in a state where me or my friends might not feel safe, nor would I presume to tell them it’s okay to come here. ↩︎
You can claim the ME report said their death had nothing to do with their injuries from the beating they received, but I don’t trust anyone in law enforcement or anyone employed by that hate state. Until there’s an independent autopsy, I will not accept the ME’s report, period. ↩︎
He is anti-cancel culture–only dresses it all up in prettier language and what appears to be more nuanced thought. But I’ve never seen any “free speech advocate” who doesn’t also think that racists, misogynists, and homophobes shouldn’t get any pushback or consequence for using hate speech–so that tells me all I needed to know about this person. ↩︎
And don’t @me about how hard it is to run such an event. I know exactly how hard it is to run and plan such an event. It is what my partner does for a living, I’ve been on Bouchercon’s local committee before, I served on the national board, and I helped write the program for Dallas. I also chaired World Horror Con in New Orleans. ↩︎
I slept well last night but my blankets were all tangled up this morning, indicating the sleep was more restless than it has been for weeks. I also wasn’t in the mood to write my blog when I first woke up, so I decided to read, drink my coffee, and maybe have some breakfast before getting cleaned up. I usually write this over my morning coffee, and since I don’t reread or re-edit once it’s written, that could explain the run-on sentences, word repetitions, and occasional poor grammar no one ever points out to me. This blog began nineteen years ago (!!!) on Livejournal (the anniversary was 12/26), migrated over here in about 2016 or so, and still somehow keeps chugging along. It always surprises me that people read it, to be honest. It was always meant mainly for me, and was originally intended as a daily exercise to get me writing again. I guess it worked. When I started I had published four novels, a few anthologies, and some short stories. Nineteen years later, I’ve way surpassed that total, despite some fallow years in which I produced nothing.
I did some more picking up around here yesterday while watching football games. It was fun watching Mississippi beat Penn State, and don’t even get me started on the Florida State-Georgia game. I get the disappointment at not making the play-offs, but you also knew you were scheduled to play Georgia, another team disappointed in not making the play-offs, but instead of showing everyone that the committee was wrong and showing up to beat Georgia…and Georgia also had star players injured and over a dozen opting out and even more entering the transfer portal. This would have been a play-off game had either Auburn or Georgia beaten Alabama this year, but that’s how things go. Auburn went 13-0 in 2004 and wasn’t invited to the BCS title game. You don’t always get what you want in life or sport, and the question is how you handle that. If this was going to be the case, don’t accept the damned bowl bid. Your fans spent a lot of money to go to that game, and it was incredibly disrespectful to the team, the fanbase, and the university to show up and get embarrassed like that. After Coach O was fired in 2021, LSU went to its bowl game with 39 scholarship players and got trounced by Kansas State….but how does it appear in the record books? KSU 42, LSU 21. Twenty years from now when people look back at the history of college football and bowl games, it will read Georgia 63, Florida State 3. It’s a program and culture problem, and all the FSU fans apologizing for this disgraceful beating–do you quit when you don’t get a raise or promotion you worked hard for and feel like you deserved? The word for that is quitter…and for the record, Georgia played it’s back-ups, walk-ons and so forth in the second half and still beat your ass 21-0.
And if LSU went 12-0 and didn’t get picked for the play-offs…and pulled the same shit? Sure, I’d be angry about the play-offs but I’d also call out the Tigers for embarrassing the state and the university that way.
I’m really enjoying Danielle Arsenault’s Glory Be, and am savoring every word. What a fresh and unique voice! I have to say I am so glad I realized I needed to be better about my reading choices and should read more diverse writers. It’s been a great education for me as a reader, a writer, a person and a citizen. I’m still learning how to be better about race and gender and gender identity and sexuality; and I strongly encourage other readers to do the same. Crime fiction is so much stronger and healthier when it represents everyone, I think, and while I don’t consider reading diverse writers to be the total education I need on any social issues facing the country–I need to read more non-fiction and theory.
I rewatched The Birds yesterday after the football games, and it was pretty much as I remembered it. I’d only seen it twice before; originally as a child edited for television, when it frightened me so badly that I had nightmares (I was prone to them growing up) and for years could never see crows on a jungle gym or a wire without feeling uneasy and then again as a rental in college after I’d read the short story again and wanted to see how faithful the film was to the story. I didn’t care as much for it the second time around–the acting is really terrible and so is the script–but the suspenseful parts still held up and were scary. This third time around confirmed my second viewing; and I noticed some other flaws in the picture. Rod Taylor’s mother isn’t much older than he is, and why is there about a thirty year age gap between him and his sister? I think the short story is better than the film, but I can also see why people like it. I do consider it one of Hitchcock’s lesser films.
Since tomorrow is a day for thinking ahead and coming up with some goals for the new year, I suppose today should be a recap of sorts of this past year. It was, as I mentioned in a previous entry, a rather up-and-down rollercoaster of highs and lows with very little level ground in the middle. The recognition of mainstream award nominations for my work–even queer work–was a delightful surprise this past year. But even more important than that is I think my work is getting better. I had felt, some years ago, that my writing was becoming stale and that I wasn’t growing as a writer anymore; I’d become stagnant and that was one of my biggest fears. I wound up deciding to take some time away from writing books on deadline and write things just for me, things that I wanted to write but also wanted to take the time to do correctly. It was during this time that I worked on both #shedeservedit and Bury Me in Shadows in early drafts, and also started the novellas and working more intently on my short stories. I accepted the challenge of writing stories to themed anthologies, and produced some terrific ones of which I am really proud. When I dove back into series work with Royal Street Reveillon, I wanted to write something non-formulaic for the Scotty series. I also wanted to shake things up with Scotty a bit, as the series was getting a bit too comfortable and safe for me. Royal Street Reveillon certainly was neither comfortable nor safe, and neither was Mississippi River Mischief.
Bury Me in Shadows was not easy for me to write. When I went back to the book after setting it aside for awhile, I realized several things: I couldn’t ignore race and racism, I had to address the Lost Cause narrative, and I also had realized while doing more reading and research that the stories my paternal grandmother used to tell me about the Civil War and Alabama and the family were apocryphal stories you can turn up about almost everywhere in the rural South. The book wasn’t working, in fact, because I was trying to elide those issues because I was afraid of doing it wrong…so it pushed me to do better. And actually addressing those issues made the book easier to write. The same thing was true of #shedeservedit; I’d been working on this book in one form or another since I actually lived in Kansas. But again, I realized when I went back to it that what I was doing didn’t work because I wasn’t going there with toxic masculinity and rape culture because it wasn’t personal enough for my main character, and so I bit the bullet and made it more personal for him. It dredged up a lot of memories, some of them painful, but it also made the book better and stronger. I had been wanting to write a cozy for the longest time, and decided to try it for something different and new–and that became A Streetcar Named Murder. I was also very pleased with it, even though the deadline and the turnaround on it was a bit insane…but I still managed to take my time and turned it into something I was proud of when I got the final author copies.
My two releases of this year–Death Drop and Mississippi River Mischief–are also books of which I feel proud. I also published three terrific short stories this year: “Solace in a Dying Hour” in This Fresh Hell; “The Ditch” in School of Hard Knox; and “The Rosary of Broken Promises” in Dancing in the Shadows.
I think I’m settling finally into an acceptance that I am pretty good at what I do. I may not have the master’s or PhD in creative writing or literature of any kind; but I’ve never really wanted to be an academic writer. I never wanted to be Faulkner, but Faulkner did inspire me to interconnect novels and stories in my own fictional world (also Stephen King). I would like to do some non-fiction studies of genre and writers I enjoy, but in an accessible rather than academic way. Academics used to make me feel stupid and uneducated, and I also used to envy those writers who had that kind of background because I felt it made their work stronger than mine, or gave them insights into writing and building a novel that I’d never had, which made me and my work somehow lesser. But that wasn’t on them; that was on me. I was the one who felt inferior and lesser, not talented or good enough. That chip was on my shoulder and I was the one who put it there. My peers actually consider me a peer, and newer writers look at my longevity and my CV and are impressed by the prodigious output, if nothing else. I used to think all the award nominations were kind of hollow because I so rarely won; which was incredibly ungracious because some writers are never nominated for anything…but it doesn’t mean their work isn’t good. Now, I just find myself grateful to make a short-list of five out of all the possibilities for that slot, you know? I’m lucky, and I’m blessed.
I’ve reflected a lot on my life and my career this past year–Mom’s death had something to do with that–and I’ve identified, in many cases, why I am the way am by remembering the event that triggered the response in my brain of “okay, never want to experience that again” which led to so many self-toxic and self-defeating behaviors. But the bottom line of it all is I’ve finally accepted myself for who I am, have determined to stop self-deprecating, and take some pride in myself and my career and my life. I know the most amazing people and have the most incredible friends. I have a day job where I make a difference in people’s lives. I have an awesome life-partner, an enviable writing career, and I get to live in New Orleans.
I always say my first identity is reader; I was a voracious reader long before I realized that loving to read and loving books predestined me to become an author, a teller of tales. Certainly author is my primary, preferred identity; sometimes I worry that my identity is entirely too wrapped up in being an author. But trying not to worry and be anxious about anything and everything in my life is my new mantra.
Anyway, I had the great pleasure of meeting S. A. (Shawn) Cosby at Bouchercon in St. Petersburg. I don’t really remember much of the weekend–I met a lot of people and I drank way too much–but I know I met and liked him enough to get a copy of his debut novel, My Darkest Prayer. I loved the book, and saw in its pages an incredible talent, for character and place and dialogue and language, and when I reviewed it on here I predicted an incredibly bright future for him as a crime writer.
I was right,
Titus woke up five minutes before his alarm went off at 7:00 A. M. and made himself a cup of coffee in the Keurig Darlene had gotten him last Christmas. At the time she’d given it he’d thought it was an expensive gift for a relationship that was barelyfour months old. These days, Titus had to admit it was a damn good gift he was grateful to have.
He’d gotten her a bottle of perfume.
He almost winced thinking back on it If knowing your lover was a competition, Darlene was a gold medalist. Titus didn’t even qualify for the bronze. Over the last ten months he’d forced himself to get exponentially better in the gift-giving department.
Titus sipped his coffee.
His last girlfriend before Darlene has said he was a great boyfriend but was awful at relationships. He didn’t dispute that assessment.
Titus took another sip.
All the Sinners Bleed is Shawn’s fourth novel (as a solo author–he also co-wrote a book with Questlove). In the wake of My Darkest Prayer, he released two novels to extraordinary success and acclaim, Blacktop Wasteland and Razorblade Tears. Both were amazing, and somehow each book is somehow better than the preceding one–which is really saying something; I’d happily retire if I ever reached anything comparable to those two with any two of my own.
But they were just warm-up acts for this incredible new novel.
Something that has always interested me over the years is the integration of American police forces on every level. How do, for example, Black and/or Latinx/Hispanic cops feel when their fellow officers commit racially driven police brutality? How does it feel to be a part of a police force–particularly in the deep South, but also in places like Los Angeles–that has always been historically racist and oppressive to non-whites? For that matter, how does it feel to be a queer police officer?
All the Sinners Bleed takes on that question with our main character, Titus Crown, the recently elected first-ever Black sheriff in a pretty racist little corner of southeastern Virginia. Titus was born and raised there; his father and brother live there, and he returns to his hometown after a stint with the FBI. He ran for sheriff not expecting to win, but to try to break the stranglehold of power always held by money and white supremacy there. (I have another essay or entry to write about small Southern counties/parishes, and how they all too frequently are run like corrupt authoritarian dictatorships with the power being passed down within a few families, sometimes only one. Exhibit A: the Murtaughs in the South Carolina low country.) As the first Black sheriff of Charon County, he has to uphold the law–which he intends to do to the best of his abilities.
The book opens with a shooting at the local high school; this was hard for me to read and part of the reason it took me so long to get into it; I thought this was going to be a school shooting novel and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read that. But I was wrong; yes, there was a shooting at the school and yes, that shooting was pivotal to the plot, but it wasn’t a mass shooting: a young Black man goes to the school and murders one of the teachers, and on his way out he is shot and killed by the cops when he won’t drop his weapon. Why would Latrell Macdonald shoot Mr. Spearman, a very popular teacher? As Titus starts looking into the strange shooting, he discovers another level of horror going on in Charon County, and once the story gets moving, it’s hard to put the book down.
Over the course of this all-too-short novel, Cosby tackles a lot of issues without either being preachy or over-the-top. Confederate monuments, the Daughters of the Confederacy, racism, white supremacy, the cruelty of poverty, police brutality, and the hard, cruel kind of Christianity practiced in poor, remote rural regions of the South. But the most powerful aspect of the book is how it handles grief; the three Crown men dealing with the loss of wife and mother, a wound that never heals–and the guilt that comes with moving on from such a loss. Cosby had a lot to say in just over three hundred pages; the fact that he said it all, and powerfully, by using character, place and story to get his messages across is testament to his great skil.
And this book is bound to piss off white supremacists. It will make a great Christmas gift for any in your family.
Queer and Loathing in America 