Tag: Scorched Grace

Two Dollars in the Jukebox

This marvelous interview with the amazing Margot Douaihy dropped while I was in the midst of Bouchercon or preparing for it, so I always intended to share it around on social media (what a thrill to be name-checked by such an amazing new star in the world of crime fiction). Her debut crime novel Scorched Grace was so phenomenal that I still think about it from time to time; her New Orleans was so exquisitely and artistically rendered that it gave me pause–and also made me wonder if I’ve been coasting and not working as hard as I should. (I always think that when I read a work that blows me away–I should try harder.)

Yesterday was spent in my chair watching college football and making notes in my journal on projects that are upcoming or are currently in progress. Despite all the sleep (I slept for eleven hours Friday night, and again last night) I still feel a bit out of it and drained and tired; but I am going to take a shower in a little bit and I am sure that will perk me right up. I did read some more of Shawn Cosby’s newest book but those opening few chapters hit me right in the soul and it’s going to take me a minute to process it. I also posted like three or four entries yesterday, too–I finished turning John Copenhaver’s questions for the Outwrite DC panel into a Greg interview (I plan on doing the same with the questions from the Bouchercon panels because I can, mwa-ha-ha!), also finished my entry announcing Death Drop, and another one about how The Children’s Bible was one of my first sources for images of hot muscular men (thanks again, Golden Press, for those sexy illustrations! I didn’t even mention Samson), so I am making progress on getting these drafted blogs finished and posted.

I feel a little pain in my mouth this morning, so I rinsed with salt water and took my pain pills. Pain is draining and exhausting, even if you take something for it, so that’s why I think I was so behind the eight ball with everything yesterday–it’s certainly why I am sleeping so much and so deeply, for which I am eternally grateful. There’s no more bleeding, which is great, and I am trying out hot coffee this morning (caffeine deficiency may have played a huge part in the tired thing yesterday). All I ate yesterday was protein shakes and ice cream (Haagen-Dasz strawberry; today is vanilla bean) which was weird and not very filling; I am going to have to go buy yogurt and more ice cream tomorrow, methinks, and explore some other soft food options, like oatmeal. I am going to have oatmeal for breakfast this morning–I actually like oatmeal and am not sure why I stopped having it in the mornings–and then see if I can figure out some other things. I bought some soups, so maybe I can soften crackers in the soup too. I remember moving back onto solid foods was an issue the first time around, so I have to keep that in mind as I slowly start reintroducing solids back. I know I will miss this unashamed and unabashed deep dive back into ice cream. My face also never swelled up, which is another indication of how good my dental surgeon was. Well done and bravo, sir!

The highlight of the day yesterday for me was watching Coco Gauff win the US Open. How absolutely delightful, and how delightful to have a young American star again to root for. I love tennis, but there really hasn’t been anyone on the women’s side with a larger than life personality like Serena Williams, or just flat out charismatic and likable (like Kim Clijsters) to watch and root for in a very long time. I think the guard is also gradually changing on the men’s side, with the Federer/Nadal/Djokovic triume slowly retiring as they get older, and it’s fun to see rising young stars like Carlos Alcazar play, too.

As for football, well…the Alabama-Texas game was exciting to watch, if strange; I’ve not seen Alabama play that sloppy or poorly very often in the seventeen years or so since Nick Saban came to Tuscaloosa. I also can’t remember the last time Alabama lost so early in the year–which means a second loss ends any play-off hopes they may have unless they go on to win the SEC. To see Alabama lose in Tuscaloosa by ten points to a non-SEC team early in the season? Unthinkable. The conference is not off to a great start this year; Miami roasted Jimbo and A&M yesterday; LSU’s horrific loss last weekend to Florida State; Mississippi got super-lucky to beat Tulane yesterday; and the rest of the conference isn’t exactly off to a great start either–even Georgia hasn’t looked invincible in their two wins, despite the margin of victory. The SEC is due for an off-year anyway; we’ve literally won four national championships in a row (2019 LSU, 2020 Alabama, 2021-22 Georgia) with three different teams, which is something no other conference can say this century, and also doesn’t include Florida, who won two in the aughts (as did LSU: LSU was the first team to win two titles since championship games were implemented). The only teams not from the south to win national titles this century are Oklahoma and Ohio State, and Oklahoma might as well be a Southern state as it’s not really in the Midwest either. In fact, the only two Big Twelve team to win national titles this century–Oklahoma and Texas–are joining the SEC next year. I’m still not sure how I feel about the realignments and conferences being killed off, but…the sport has changed dramatically since I was a child and ABC held the exclusive right to air games. LSU blew out Grambling State last night 72-10, and looked much better than they had the week before in that embarrassing loss to Florida State; but there’s also a big difference between FSU and GSU. I guess we’ll get a better idea of what LSU is like once we play at Mississippi State next week, and we’ll see how well Alabama bounces back from this disappointment for them. Auburn did manage to hold off California last night (I went to bed), but I also think Florida lost their opener to Utah? Yes, they did, or maybe it was Oregon? Regardless, they lost. Pity. (I despise Florida, and will only root for them when they play someone I hate even more, like Tennessee.)

So, today I am going to take it easy one more time without feeling guilty for not doing anything productive. I am going to do some chores–emptying the dishwasher, maybe some filing to clean up the mess that is currently my desk situation, and the refrigerator needs cleaning up too–and repair to the chair to read Shawn’s book for a bit. I also am going to make another cup of coffee and perhaps some oatmeal, washed down by a protein shake. I don’t know if my heart and blood pressure can take watching a Saints game, but Paul will want to watch and there’s also the men’s final for the US Open today. And maybe I will finish some other blog posts. One never knows, really.

Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader–and if I’m not back later, be sure I’ll be back in the morning.

Broken Down in Tiny Pieces

I will spare you, Constant Reader, the trials and tribulations of my medical travails; I have to see another specialist, and we’ll leave it at that for now.

I also had to research whether either of these specialists he referred me to actually take my insurance (they do) and then get to hope they can see me at some point before this gets even worse and more difficult to take care of. I spent the rest of the day cleaning and trying to put this bullshit out of my head, because all it did was make me angry all over again and, unless I am putting that anger to productive use, it’s just wasted energy. But I’m glad I’m making progress on this at any rate, and I suspect that a doctor will be the murder victim in a book I will write at some point in the next few years. I also made an appointment on Sunday to get the hearing aids process moving along–it would be so great if I could get them before the trip, wouldn’t it?–and so at least soon I’ll be able to hear again, and in about a month I’ll be able to chew again. Yay!

Always look at the positive. Life doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle; it’s how you handle it that matters.

I took a shower to wash the blech of the day off me–it’s amazing to me how that always seems to work and put me into a better mood. The symbolism of washing the negativity off of me is actually effective and works to somehow reset my brain. I also had a great mail day–picking up the mail on the way home and made groceries, too–in which I got the ARC of the new Margot Douaihy Sister Holiday crime novel (her debut, Scorched Grace, is fantastic) and Duane Swierczynski’s short story collection Lush and Other Tales of Boozy Mayhem, which I am looking forward to digging into. Paul got home rather late last night, but we did have time to watch an episode of Turn of the Tide–but I think I actually have lost the thread of the plot. But it’s entertaining enough, still. I do want to start watching Ahsoka on Disney–I’ll try anything Star Wars; so far Boba Fett is the only Star Wars series we didn’t finish.

I’m still behind on talking about the Alfred Hitchcock Presents stories I’ve read lately; but yesterday at the specialist’s office I started reading Brett Halliday’s story “Pieces of Silver” from Stories to Be Read Late at Night, and it was an interesting tale, if dated, and more than a little bit guilty of racism. I’d not read Halliday before, but I’ve heard of him; I remember seeing his Mike Shayne novels on the wire racks at Zayre’s when I was a kid, and i have one of his books Hard Case Crime reprinted, but haven’t read yet. It’s a very typical tale of its time, though–complete with the colonialist mentality toward the indigenous people of Latin America. The story is set in Mexico, and is about an ugly American-type who has come to the region looking for oil. I will say the ugly American is the villain of the story and every step of the way Halliday is very quick to point out the classism, racism, and toxic masculinity of Thurston, the American–the way he treats the locals he hires to take him up river into the jungle; the way he ogles and wants the teenaged daughter of an American expatriate who married a local girl–but while there is absolutely no question that Thurston wound up getting exactly what he deserved…it’s very hard to be sympathetic to the author’s view of Mexico as a still wild, exotic and extremely primitive place; he certainly doesn’t view the Mexican working class with the same respect as Katherine Anne Porter. (On the other hand, I’ve always been bored by Porter’s Mexico stories–because even in them there’s still an element of the privileged white woman viewing the plight of the poor Mexican working class from her lofty perch at a safe distance.)

Reading this story only served to further emphasize to me how tricky this short story from the past that I am currently trying to revise and finish will be. Originally set in the Yucatan (I wrote it after I visited the Mayan ruins there), it was one of those Alfred Hitchcock Presents/ Tales from the Crypt kind of stories, but in reviewing the story as I wrote it, I fell into the trap Halliday did with his story–making the native people exotic and othered; mysterious and primitive. I am sure there are still poor people living in remote places in Mexico, but this isn’t the way to write about them. I’d been thinking of moving the setting of my story from Latin America (in this revision, I created a fictional country) to the Aegean–like there aren’t plenty of Greek myths to build the story around, make it seem real, and of course I can create a mysterious remote Greek island no one ever visits and no one would blink twice. I just haven’t been there myself, but I need to snap out of the mentality that I can only write about places I’ve been. It does help, of course, but…when you’re creating a fictional place, you’ve never been there. No one has.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

Get Together

Saturday morning of a three day weekend and how lovely is that? Thank you, whoever made the effort to give us Memorial Day as a national holiday; this lowly worker is eternally grateful for any extra paid time off. I intend to work this entire weekend; nose firmly affixed to grindstone and butt glued to shabby and disheveled desk chair whilst fingers move rapidly over the keyboard. Yesterday after work I was too tired–more on that later–to do much of anything other than mindless chores, and while doing those mindless chores another integral part of how to improve the book came to me; shortly thereafter, while putting away clean dishes another tumbril fell into place; so my entire weekend’s worth of writing just popped into my head. How incredibly lucky am I? Terribly, shockingly so.

Paul and I watched the Being Mary Tyler Moore documentary on MAX (which always makes me think of Carol Burnett doing Nora Desmond on her old variety show) last night and it was quite interesting. We forget how recently it was that The Mary Tyler Moore Show was breaking new ground; it was during my lifetime. Saturday night television on CBS when I was a kid was the ultimate must-see television; a three hour block of comedy of such high quality it may never have been equaled since. I loved her show; I loved the cast, and it still holds up today, despite how much things have changed, culturally and socially, in the decades since it went off the air after seven glorious seasons. There was a time when Paul was between jobs here in New Orleans when he became addicted to reruns of both it and Rhoda (when I was a kid I didn’t much care for Rhoda, despite having loved her character on the original show. As an adult, I found it much funnier than I ever had as a kid; not sure why that made a difference other than that it did), and I was amazed at how well the show held up.

It’s also interesting thinking about that period of my life (the 1970s) again–because it’s been on my mind. There’s an idea formulating in the back of my head; a crime novel told from a twelve year old’s perspective set in the suburbs in 1975. I’ve thought about it a lot lately. I had the original idea sometime back early in the pandemic, when I was going through my true crime documentary phase of condom-packing back in the day. It comes back to me now and again, and lately it’s been coming to me with more and more regularity, which means it will probably be the next book after the ones already in progress are completed and out of my hair. I have no idea when that might actually be, but I have a great title for it, and images keep dancing in and out of my head. I know the crime and how my POV character becomes involved in it, but I am not sure of much else of the rest–the flashes are bits and pieces of story and scene that I start filling in, in a journal or in a notebook. I already have the file for it made, too.

I have so many files. I am swimming in files. Buried in files, to the point where between the computer files and the physical files I may never ever be able to organize or get rid of any of them. It seems like I am constantly having to find room for more files in places. Heavy heaving sigh.

But I slept deeply and well and even later than yesterday morning, so that’s a very good thing. I have to run a couple of errands today and I have all kinds of writing to get done today, which should go easier this morning because of all the thinking I did last night. We’ll see, I suppose, is the best way to look at it. But as I mentioned, I have to get the mail and stop at the grocery store for a few things (so irritating, really), and so I am hoping after that to be able to dive headfirst into the book so I can reach my daily goal for the weekend. Paul will probably be out most of the afternoon, as usual on Saturdays (he meets his trainer at noon, and then either goes to the office or rides the bike for another few hours) so I have no excuse for not being productive today. Once I finish this I am going to go sit in my chair for a little while and read (I want to finish Lori Roy’s marvelous Let Me Die in His Footsteps at long last this weekend; I cannot believe how long it’s taken me to finish something that I really am enjoying and have been itching to get back to. Lori is one of my favorite writers of the last ten years; not one of her novels have ever disappointed me…but more on that when I finish the book and talk about it on here), and then will head out to the errands around noonish. I want to read for about an hour or so before writing, and then running the errands in order to come back home and write for a while. I may even pick up grocery store sushi (don’t judge me) so I don’t have to be concerned about lunch, either. I may make shrimp creole for dinner, too; I need to do something with that leftover celery. I also cleaned out the refrigerator a bit yesterday as well–should finish that over the weekend, too.

The reason I was so fatigued and drained yesterday was because I got to do that ZOOM interview with Margot Douaihy yesterday, and so I spent a good hour researching her on-line, digging through the book for references, and of course trying to come up with good questions for her. I don’t know that I actually managed to come up with good questions, but when you’re working with someone as smart and talented and layered as Margot, it’s very easy for forty-five minutes to shoot by. I didn’t even get to all the questions I had for her; I looked at the time on my computer and realized we’d been going for three quarters of an hour, and had i continued asking questions we could have been there for the rest of the afternoon. That has always been my issue with interviews, really; whether ZOOM recordings or written ones, you can never get everything in that you want and there’s never enough space to be as thorough. I would love to do in-depth pieces on people like in Vanity Fair or Rolling Stone; I remember Ann Patchett telling Paul and I about having to fly to London on GQ’s dime to interview Liam Neeson or someone like that, and thinking man I would love to have that kind of opportunity. But it exhausted me mentally and physically, so I was very glad I had gotten all my work-at-home chores completed before it started because I was unable to do much of anything when it was finished. I did some chores–the dishes, finished laundering the bed linens, but other than that I was just in my chair letting my mind wander as I watched documentaries about history on Youtube.

And on that note, I think I’m going to make another cup of coffee and repair to the living room to read while my mind continues waking up. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll talk to you again tomorrow or maybe even later today; one can never be certain.

Sorry

And we have cycled around once again to work-at-home Friday. Huzzah? Huzzah.

I will be taking a short break from my work-at-home duties today to interview Margot Douaihy today for S&S’ Pride Month extravaganza. Ah, the terror of not sounding stupid when interviewing someone really smart and talented. Heavy heaving sigh. I will of course post a link to it when it goes live, so you can hear how smart she is and how much I fumble in interviews. Her Scorched Grace is probably the best debut novel you’re going to read this year, and I highly recommend it. It’s not too late to get a copy, either. (You can order it https://bookshop.org/p/books/scorched-grace-a-sister-holiday-mystery-margot-douaihy/18283014?ean=9781638930242–I don’t understand why this stupid site won’t let me do short hyperlinks like it used to, but it’s fucking annoying. Anyway, buy the book. It’s terrific.)

And it’s a three day weekend! Huzzah! I am looking forward to getting some rest, getting a lot of editing and revising done, and hopefully some cleaning and reading.

I was terribly tired yesterday, the way I inevitably am on Thursdays, and really didn’t want to run errands when I got off work, but I put on my big boy pants and did it anyway. I decided my brain was too mushy to work on the book–I went ahead and read the next few chapters I’ll be editing after work today, so I did do something, at any rate–while relaxing with a purring cat in my lap after I did some chores. I had to unload the dishwasher and reload it, plus fold the clothes in the dryer before moving the load in the washer (I started this on Wednesday night but completely forgot once I was in the clutches of Vanderpump Rules), and tried to do some things to straighten up the kitchen before the energy flagged and I was forced back to the easy chair by mental and physical fatigue. There are, after all, worse things. But I can get a lot of revising done this weekend, which is terrific. It would be great if I can get the whole thing finished by next weekend, wouldn’t that be marvelous? I slept deeply and well last night, too–and managed to sleep in all the way until seven thirty, which is when I usually get to the office. I was exhausted last night when I crawled up the stairs to bed, but as Paul noted, “it’s not that you’re old, you just get up really early every morning now” which is true. Funny how I managed to go almost my entire life without having a 9 to 5 job for very long, and now my body clock is adjusting to it at this late stage of my life. My body is now used to it; I just have to retrain my brain to stop thinking in terms of losing time by going to bed earlier since I get up earlier and thus have more time during the day.

We started watching Platonic these last few nights, a new Apple Plus show starring Rose Byrne and Seth Rogan. I do like Seth Rogan and think he’s funny, and of course love Rose Byrne since her days on Damages, which I feel doesn’t get nearly enough credit for how fucking good of a show it was, and its amazing cast, led by GLENN CLOSE, who was phenomenal as Patty Hewes, super attorney and all around horrible person. Platonic is quite funny, and the chemistry between the two as platonic former best friends who come together again after Rogan’s character gets divorced (the Byrne character didn’t like the woman he married) like no time has passed. Luke McFarlane is beautiful as always as her gorgeous husband, essentially the Ricky to her Lucy. I do recommend it, it’s clever and funny and well written, and, like all Apple shows, very high production values.

I also managed to proof my short story “Solace in a Dying Hour,” forthcoming in an Australian anthology titled This Fresh Hell yesterday, as well as reviewed a book contract for signing–and emailed the corrections necessary to the contract in order for me to sign it. I also spent some time doing research for this afternoon’s interview; I’ll spend some time reviewing the research and coming up with great questions for her, or at least ones that won’t embarrass me by being too stupid and the kind of thing she’s been asked a million times. We also started watching the Hillsong documentary, which is interesting because I really don’t know much of anything about that church; but it’s a megachurch which probably means the heresy of the prosperity gospel, and yes, it’s a heresy. Jesus was not about “believe in Me and you’ll get earthly treasures”; the promise was supposed to be about a wonderful afterlife. (It always has amused and saddened me that so many people miss that Christianity isn’t about life but death and the afterlife; the point is to be the best possible person in your human life to earn a good afterlife, so yes, the prosperity gospel is heresy–“it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven”–does that ring any bells? At some point I am going to have to talk about religion and how it’s been perverted from a guide to life to so many things that it isn’t supposed to be…)

I also rewatched the first part of the Vanderpump Rules reunion in its longer, no commercials version on Peacock, and that version is by far the best of the two. It flows better, is edited better, and the extra seventeen minutes of public shaming for the Toms (Sandoval and Schwartz) was worth every second. I really need to spend some time on that blog entry about reality television I started after the wrap of the last season of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills; because those two shows are entwined; Rules was initially a spin-off of Beverly Hills, with Lisa Vanderpump going back and forth between the two shows (until she quit Housewives). So much has already been written about the Scandoval that what new or interesting thing can I find to say about it, or the layers to levels of cheating and adultery being laid out on the show by its cast? I am sure none of the players involved in this had the slightest idea how explosively this would go viral, turning the three players (Sandoval, his mistress, his enabling best friend) into pariahs. Not even Camille Grammer in her legendarily villainous first season on Beverly Hills got this kind of publicity or exposure–she did get the cover of People magazine–and of course, the legal troubles of Erica Girardi/Beverly Hills cast drama got some coverage in major papers because of the massive frauds perpetrated by her husband (and get the fuck out of here with the “she didn’t know” bullshit), but still–nothing in reality television prepared anyone, let alone Bravo, with how this affair within the cast would explode and become a worldwide fascination…while Andy Cohen and the network count their cash as the money keeps rolling in. The reunion episode got over two million viewers, which is huge for a reality show. The question is, do I finish my entry about reality shows and their appeal before the reunion episodes finish airing, or can I go ahead and do it now?

Always the question, really.

And on that note, I am going to make another cup of coffee and head into the spice mines. Have a lovely morning, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back with you again tomorrow.

Like a Prayer

For me, one of the great joys and pleasures of being an author and being part of the business is getting to meet and discover new-to-me talents. I am very quirky when it comes to reading; I do things like always leave one book by an author unread so I know I still have one more book of theirs to read–there are a couple of authors I am caught up on completely and waiting for another title is agony (looking at you, Laura Lippman and Megan Abbott and John Copenhaver).

I had heard of Scorched Grace before this past Saints and Sinners; Paul had asked me if I knew the author and explained everything about her and her debut novel several months before the event. I was of course completely fascinated; how can you not be fascinated by “her main character is a chain-smoking tattooed lesbian former punk rocker who is now a nun”? I immediately ordered a copy–isn’t that cover amazing?–and then at Saints and Sinners, I heard Margot read from it, and then attended a panel she was on and was terribly impressed. I decided it absolutely had to be my next read. It took me a lot longer to read than it should have–particularly since I was enjoying it so much–which has more to do with other obligations and pure exhaustion so shouldn’t be used as a gauge of the book’s quality.

Because this book deserves your full attention.

The devil isn’t in the details. Evil thrives in blind spots. In absence, negative space, like the haze of a sleight-of-hand trick. The details are God’s work. My job is keeping those details in order.

It took me four and a half hours to do the laundry and clean the stained glass, and my whole body felt wrecked. Every tendon strained. Even swallowing hurt. So, when my Sisters glided into the staff lounge for the meeting, folders and papers pressed against their black tunics, I slipped into the alley for some divine reflection–a smoke break. It was Sunday, dusk.

Vice on the sabbath, I know. Not my finest moment. But carpe diem.

An hour to myself was all I needed. An aura of menace taunted me all day. The air was thick and gritty, like it wanted to bare-knuckle fight. Sticky heat, typical in New Orleans, but worse that day. The sun, the swollen red of a mosquito bite. Slow simmer belying the violence of the boil. I couldn’t sit through another reprimand.

Sister Holiday is easily one of the most compelling, and interesting, main characters to come along in crime fiction in quite some time. And while there is a good and involving mystery at the core of this novel–who is setting the fires at the convent school? Who killed the maintenance worker? Was the fire set to cover up the murder or are they part and parcel of the same thing?–the absolute strength and power of this book comes from the narrative voice of this peculiar, not your average not-taken-her-vows-yet nun. She’s fascinating, and the voice is so strong and powerful: cynical yet innocent, bitter yet hopeful, Christian yet not. Her back story, which we learn through her progression of following clues and interviewing suspects and trying to put all the shifty pieces together, is enough in and of itself to keep the reader involved and turning the page.

And the language! My word, the power of Douahy’s language choices, sentence and paragraph structure! Here are some examples I marked:

Revenge is a stupid way to feel in control. Like all drugs, it doesn’t last, but it sure is fun in the moment. (p. 75)

Most boys couldn’t be trusted. Testosterone poisoning, Moose was fond of saying about guys and their bluster. I imagined the cartoon poison flowing through boy veins whenever my brother said that. (p. 79)

There is a sublime wholeness in holding one another, fitting into other bodies. We eat the body of Christ. We drink the blood. So many years later, Nina’s taste still laced my mouth–champagne, sweat, graphite licked off a thumb. (p.106)

New Orleans was ornate in every way, especially in its punishment. Like wispy fiberglass, the city doesn’t feel like it is of this world. (p. 107)

Everything in New Orleans is overdue, overgrown, dripping. The oak trees decked with boas of Spanish moss. Frogs creaked and peeped until the moon set. Morning glory vines strangled pink roofs and wisteria tentacles swayed in the cross breeze. A row of traditional, one-level shotgun homes: bright orange window frames, mint-green wooden shutters, and bright white columns A cat meowed on a nearby porch. (p. 123)

We are all like stained glass, beautiful and complicated and fragile as fuck. We all need care. And some of us don’t get what we deserve. (p. 233)

What a glorious read this was. I look forward to the next in the (planned) trilogy; and will probably revisit this one, too. Get a copy now.

Cherish

Give me faith, give me joy, my boy, I will always cherish you!

In case you didn’t notice, I am working my way through Madonna’s lengthy discography for my entry titles, and it’s actually kind of fun revisiting old Madonna music. She’s been a force in pop culture for nearly forty years now, which is a pretty amazing run when you think about it–not quite the Cher/Bette Midler mark yet, but still, pretty amazing. My first Madonna song (that I remember hearing, or taking notice of) was “Borderline,” and I bought that first album. And while I liked it a lot, I figured Madonna wasn’t going to be around for very long; artists who focused on dance music, especially white women, tended to not stick around the business for very long. But then came the Like a Virgin album (which is my least favorite of hers, in all honesty), and she turned into a phenomenon that wasn’t going away any time soon. “Cherish” I remember primarily because it was a light pop confection, nothing too deep but fun to listen to and bop along with, but the video, shot by Herb Ritts with all the hot mermen? (for the record, my two favorite Madonna albums as Like a Prayer and Ray of Light, neither of which should come as a big surprise)

Michael Denneny passed away over the weekend. I never had the occasion to meet him, but he was a hugely important figure in the development of queer art and literature back in the day, not the least for founding Christopher Street magazine. He was also important in the 1990’s, with his Stonewall Inn imprint at St. Martin’s, which eventually shuttered around the turn of the century. It’s possible I may have met him back in the days when I worked for Lambda; it’s very likely, in fact, but my memories have grown faded to sepia with time and there’s a lot I don’t remember from back then (it’s always mortifying when someone reminds me of us meeting back then and I don’t recall anything about it; there’s usually an amusing story that goes with it that makes it even more mortifying that I don’t remember). But hat’s off to you, Michael; you discovered and published a lot of authors who brought me hours of reading joy. Thank you for your life’s work.

I didn’t sleep well last night, which was something I was worried about happening. I woke up every hour or so, never really felt like I went in a deep sleep at all, and feel fried and tired today. Yay. But its okay, I can deal, and hopefully I’ll get a good night’s sleep tonight and feel great tomorrow. Heavy heaving sigh.

We finished season one of P-Valley and started season two–but weren’t too crazy about the second season. They are dealing with the pandemic, and I have to confess it never occurred to me what strippers would do during a pandemic; I did wonder, while watching, why none of them had an Onlyfans? Especially since one of them is attracting a large following on Instagram? Paul and I agreed to give the second season a second chance, but unless there’s a dramatic pick-up on the story, we’ll probably stop watching and may come back to it at another time. Which then begs the question what will we watch in the meantime? I have some things on my list, so maybe we can check out some of them tonight. And of course, if we don’t like something we can always stop watching it.

I did finish reading Margot Douaihy’s Scorched Grace yesterday, and it was quite a ride. The voice, the tone, the word choices and sentence structures…all of it unique and if not, then a fresh new way of doing something shopworn. Sister Holiday is a fascinating character with an equally fascinating back story; we glimpsed some of it in this first book (of three), and I like the idea of a hardboiled cozy with a lesbian chain-smoking nun as the main character. The book certainly subverts your expectations, and there’s a hypnotic quality to the writing, that pulls you in and makes you keep turning the page. I started marking pages that had sentences I really liked for when I do a post focusing on said book; I want to let the book sit in my head for a while before I devote an entire entry to it. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year so far–and this year I’ve read some truly phenomenal books already and it’s only mid-April, with even more exciting books dropping throughout the course of the rest of this year.

And I really need to get more progress done on the book. The problem is not sleeping well during the week (see last night) and being too tired when I get home from work to do any more work on it. But tonight, after I get home from running errands on the way from work, I am hoping that I can start pulling some of the strings of the story without unraveling the entire thing. One can hope, at any rate, right?

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. I thought about calling out for the day but would rather go in and gut it out. You have a great Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning.

Express Yourself

Sunday morning and I am feeling good, I think. I stretched yesterday a little bit and used the back roller thingee, which made me feel a lot less tense and tight and may have helped me sleep better. I feel good this morning, after a very deep and relaxing night’s sleep. If that was a result of a brief time stretching and using the back roller, well, I am more than willing to spend five or so minutes every morning doing just that. I don’t feel tense this morning, and I feel like a lot of stress stored up in tight muscles that have been ignored for far too long. Regardless, I will be doing some stretching again this morning once I’ve finished this.

LSU’s Gymnastics team didn’t do so great at the Nationals–fourth out of four– but hey, just the fact they made it to Nationals was a victory; they lost one of their major stars to injury, a secondary star to another injury, and several other solid performers were out for the season as well from a team that didn’t make it out of Semi-Finals last year. LSU is killing it in sports right now, and with football season just a few months away, this is a very exciting time to be an LSU fan, to be honest. GEAUX TIGERS! And next year’s team will be even better and stronger than this year’s. A very good time to be a Tiger fan.

I ran errands yesterday, mostly to the post office and to make a little groceries. I came home and spent some time rereading MRM until it was time for the Gymnastics. I also spend some more time yesterday morning with Scorched Grace, which I am taking my time with to savor every word and sentence; it’s that kind of amazing book with such extraordinary language choices and structuring and style. It’s hard to believe this amazing work is a debut, and more than a little humbling for someone who’s working on book forty-something. I really look forward to finishing it and sharing my thoughts and impressions with you, Constant Reader. After the Gymnastics and dinner, we started watching something new, since we’d finished our last show already, and Paul chose P-Valley, from Starz; which I remember hearing about when it debuted, but not much since. A strip club in the Mississippi Delta area–known for its poverty–wasn’t something I’d usually be interested in. But I’d also heard good things about it–what little I’d heard, that is–and so we started watching. At first it reminded me a bit of Showgirls, in its rawness, its insane dialogue and story-lines, but the second episode really pulled us into it and now we’re all about Mercedes, Uncle Clifford (the gender non-conforming club owner), and Autumn.

The plan for today is to put away some things in the kitchen (I got a little lazy about put away the sundries when I got home from the store yesterday) and then most likely spend some time with Scorched Grace this morning before getting cleaned up and diving headfirst into the book. I am, of course, as always terribly behind, which isn’t a good thing at all. But focus and a strong push should get me through this revision. Fingers crossed I stay not only motivated but rested, what do you think? It rained a lot yesterday–it even rained over night–so there’s this damp chill in the air this morning which makes me, frankly, want to get back into bed under the covers. But I am going to resist my natural inclination to laziness and get back to reading and writing and getting things done and taken care of and tearing through the rest of my to-do list. (And if I feel this good after some minor stretching yesterday, imagine how good I’ll feel once I start lifting weights again…)

So yes, I am behind on everything as always, but this morning I feel like life is full of infinite possibilities, and I am feeling very optimistic about everything and my capacity and capability of getting everything done that I need to get done. It’s amazing what a difference a really good night’s sleep can make, isn’t it?

And on that note, I am heading to my chair with Margot, my coffee, and Scorched Grace. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.

The Look of Love

Saturday morning. I was incorrect about the department meeting; it’s later this month (when I’ll be in Bethesda, actually) so I went to the health fair, was told I should increase my exercise (duh, since I do none now) and other than that, I appear to be perfectly healthy–or at least per my vitals and blood work, at any rate.

How fortunate they weren’t testing for mental stability, eh?

But it was a lovely day to work-at-home. It was still cold overnight, but the high yesterday hovered in the high seventies, topping out at a solid, spring-like eighty degrees at one point in the afternoon, which was also nice. I filed and cleaned when taking breaks from work; laundered the bed linens, finished off the dishes, and straightened the rugs as well as sweeping and vacuuming. We got caught up on Yellowjackets and The Mandalorian, and while I was waiting for Paul to come home from the gym, I rewatched this week’s Ted Lasso with the captions on so I could catch things I missed on first viewing (something I do with every episode, as I did with Schitt’s Creek), and I have to say I enjoyed it a lot more on the second viewing than I did on the first. I am very curious to see where the show is going and how it’s going to end–but unlike everyone else, I’ve decided to not theorize about it or jump to conclusions predicated on my interpretation of what I’ve seen; instead I just want to enjoy the ride and trust the writers to do their jobs, which they’ve done superbly on every step of the journey thus far.

I slept really well last night and feel very rested this morning. I have to get the mail today and I should make a small grocery run while I am out, but ugh, how I hate the grocery store lately. It saps my strength and will and makes me want to curl up with Scooter and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist anymore out there. There’s not much we really need, to be completely honest; but I need to know what I want to make for dinner this weekend and what I am going to be taking for lunch next week. Decisions, decisions–but it feels good to be rested and clear-headed this morning. I don’t know that I feel particularly inspired this morning, but that’s okay. Once I finish this, I am taking my coffee and repairing to my easy chair to read Scorched Grace, which I hope to finish this weekend.

Anne Perry, a very successful author, died this week. She had an unfortunate past, having committed the crime that Peter Jackson’s film Beautiful Creatures was based on (also known as the film that gave us Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey) as a teenager, and served her time. I didn’t know Ms. Perry, nor have I ever read any of her work. This wasn’t out of any sense of oh I can’t possible be supportive of her! She killed someone! but more because they weren’t the kind of stories I particularly enjoy. I did ride in an elevator with her once at a Bouchercon, and she was polite, reservedly friendly (understandable), and seemed kind. I’ve been thinking lately that I’d like to read more historical crime fiction, particularly around the first World War (looking at you, Charles Todd!), but that TBR stack is already way too deep and tall and wide. However, Ms. Perry’s death has, of course, brought all that about her teenaged crime back into the news and onto social media to be rehashed and discussed and, well, frankly beaten into the ground. Ms. Perry’s situation also is key to a broader discussion about criminal justice, and our criminal justice system and how it operates. (Ms. Perry’s crime was committed in Australia, I believe.) I see a lot of people talking about how they don’t believe in redemption, and how they could never bring themselves to support someone who’d done something so terrible, etc. etc. etc. And it’s very true; we as a society tend to look askance at people who’ve served time in prison–and tend to judge them harshly.

How can you believe in a criminal justice system if you don’t believe in the potential of human redemption? I’m not an expert on any of this stuff, let me make that very clear at this point. I am merely examining this from a layman’s perspective and coming from a logical place to try to dissect all of this with nuance and rationality; what can I say, I took Geometry in high school and was on the debate team. I don’t think you can believe in our criminal justice system if you don’t believe in redemption, which seems kind of Old Testament to me; once a criminal always a criminal is what that boils down to, and if there is never even the slightest possibility that someone can be redeemed, what is the point of jailing them? Punishment? That seems kind of draconian and not very humanist, frankly. The odds are stacked against convicts as it is when they are released; as most of us will always keep an eye at them in askance, just waiting for them to commit another crime to prove that they belong in jail and should never be released. I understand the sex-offender registry–women and children are vulnerable and should be aware someone who may be a predator is living in their area now–but at the same time, it feels….punitive. Sex crimes are horrible, to be sure, but if they are so horrible and the offender is statistically going to commit the same kind of crime again–why let them out in the first place? Getting one of those flyers back when we lived on Camp Street is what inspired me to write my short story “Neighborhood Alert,” which is one of my favorite stories that I’ve done, and tried to use the story to illustrate the potential consequences that can come from such alerts.

I also think it’s interesting that people are so unforgiving in real life while they will read–and root for–characters like Tom Ripley or Hannibal Lector or Dexter. But that’s fiction, they say in response, to which I say so you would be repulsed by them if they were real, but you root for them in fiction? Make it make sense to me.

Ultimately, she did her time for her crime, and then spent the rest of her life writing crime novels successfully. Enough people either didn’t know about her past, or didn’t care enough to make them give up the pleasure of reading her work. As I said, I’ve not read her work but it’s not out of any sense of moral outrage or superiority, but because they aren’t the kind of books I ordinarily read–although now I kind of want to read one, to see how good she was. If you don’t want to read her, or didn’t, because of her past that’s your choice and your decision. But please don’t think for one moment you have the right to tell me what I can or cannot read, or what I can or cannot enjoy–because then you are no better than right-wingers trying to ban books and close libraries, and that is something I will not, do not, and cannot, support on any level.

I also kind of believe that redemption is possible, but not unless there is atonement and a desire to change. If I didn’t believe that, well, I don’t know how I could live with myself. This is a question I explored in my nasty little story “This Thing of Darkness”–can you atone for something terrible you did as a teenager? Especially if you are never punished for the crime itself? How do you live with yourself with such a thing on your conscience? (This is also the theme for one of my favorite books of all times, Thomas Thompson’s Celebrity)

And on that note, I am making another cup of coffee and heading to the chair with Margot Douaily. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back here again tomorrow, as always.

La Isla Bonita

Sliding into Tuesday like it’s nobody’s business and here we go!

I managed to start gathering everything to send to my accountant last night, which was nice. It wasn’t as difficult to calculate my expenses this past year as it has been in previous years; I don’t know what exactly that says about my writing career but there you have it. I felt pretty groggy for most of the day, like I never really woke up to begin with, but it wasn’t a bad day by any means; I just kind of felt like I was sleepwalking through most of it, to be honest. I ran errands when I got off from work, and then I came home and worked on the tax stuff. I”ll finish it this morning before I leave for work, will double check it all over lunch, and hopefully get it all sent in. Huzzah. Then I came home where we finished off The Last of Us, which we both really enjoyed. It was a bit colder yesterday than I was expecting–I was cold all day at the office, which means a long-sleeved sweater is in the offing today, because today is going to be colder than yesterday (well aware that cold is relative; the high today is forecast for 69 degrees, which is cold here for April, sue me). Because I was gathering the taxes, and went straight from that to The Last of Us, I didn’t get to spend any time with Scorched Grace last night, which was a pity. Perhaps tonight.

I feel like I slept well last night, even though I kept waking up. I don’t feel groggy this morning, or that weird thing like yesterday where my body is groggy but my mind is alert. My coffee is good this chilly morning in my windows, but it’s fine. I need to get ink for my printer on my way home from the office tonight (hurray); I don’t understand how the colored ink has now run out twice before the black, when 90% of what I print is from Word documents…in black and white. But there you have it, you know. Tomorrow is pay-the-bills day, too; which means a morning spent trying to get all the bills paid. My financial fortunes are turning around–I still owe far too much money, though–but I am gradually, slowly and surely getting there. I’m hoping that by the end of the year I will be making significant progress in paying down my debt. That’s one of the goals for the year, and I am definitely hoping that it continues the way it’s going.

Tonight I am going to start tearing into the revision of Mississippi River Mischief. It definitely needs work, make no mistake about that, but I am not as overawed by it as I was originally–because of course I hate everything I write and am always convinced it’s a steaming pile of crap. It is–there’s a lot to be cleaned up, plot holes to fill, bad writing to clean up and try to make sing–a mess, to be sure, but it’s fixable; everything is always fixable. We also will probably get caught up on some of the other shows we watch–I like that we get Ted Lasso a day early–after I finish my work and do some more of the chores around the house that need doing (my kitchen is an utter disaster area, and I want to make chicken salad), and of course, there are always odds and ends around the kitchen that need filing or put away. I am going to have an insane writing schedule, because I want to get this finished before I leave for Malice Domestic on April 17th, which only gives me a couple of weeks to get this under control. But big pushes on the weekends should do the trick. I have a staff meeting this Friday morning, which means getting up earlier than I would prefer and being out among the rest of the living long before I probably should be, but such is life. I can also run errands after the meeting on my way home as well, which is pretty cool–getting them out of the way, at any rate–and here’s hoping for a super-productive weekend where I will make amazing and significant progress on the manuscript, will finish Scorched Grace and start reading whatever is next in the TBR pile, where there are an awful lot of good things waiting for me.

Which is lovely, of course. It’s always nice when you have a pile of lovely books to choose one from for your reading pleasure. And of course, I am volumes behind on some series I enjoy as well as some authors of whom I am a huge fan. (Looking at you, Mary Russell!) I am kind of looking forward to getting this book finished and being able to breathe without a deadline for a while; of course I’ll be working on something else, but there’s no need for killing myself to make a deadline, either. I was actually reflecting last night about my rereads of Never Kiss a Stranger and Festival of the Redeemer–both of which are closer to being finished than I actually had believed before diving into the reread. I could even use Festival of the Redeemer to close out my short story collection–it’s always nice to throw a 20k+ word count novella in at the end of a collection–but I think I would also rather wait and do the three-novellas-in-one thing my publisher had recommended. I do have four or five novellas on hand, so using one and then replacing it in the novella collection wouldn’t be an issue. I also have to edit Jackson Square Jazz at some point to get the ebook up and out.

Sigh. So much to do and so little time in which to do it all.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Y’all have a great Payday Eve (even if it isn’t your payday eve) and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

Open Your Heart

Monday after Easter Sunday, and I hope everyone had the kind of Sunday/holiday they needed to prepare them to head into this week full bore ahead.

The good news is that I reread Mississippi River Mischief yesterday and it most definitely is not the shitty mess I originally thought it was. It needs work, to be sure, but not nearly as much as I had feared, thank you Jesus, pass the ammunition, amen. The work isn’t going to be easy, either, but the framework can remain primarily intact with some reorganization and changing. (It didn’t help that I was rereading my manuscript after spending some time with Margot Douaihy’s brilliant debut, Scorched Grace, which is so good I am making notes of some of the sentences because they are so fucking smart; but I also wasn’t thinking rank amateur God how bad you suck at writing when there are people like Margot turning out such amazing work, which is saying something for me.) I also reread Festival of the Redeemer and Never Kiss a Stranger yesterday, and they aren’t bad, either. Maybe I don’t completely suck at this writing thing, who knows?

We spent most of yesterday bingeing The Last of Us, which is a really good show. I was reluctant for a long time–I’ve kind of had my fill of dystopian tales, although my fellow Americans don’t seem to feel the same way. But one can never go wrong with Pedro Pascal, and there was an episode where I said out loud, “this show is basically the same as The Mandalorian” and felt really smart. It’s very well done, though, and we’re obviously sucked heavily into it. The gay couple episode almost broke us both–so beautifully written and acted; so heart-wrenching and beautiful at the same time, maybe one of the most well done gay romance/love stories I’ve seen on either film or television–and I was sad last night when we had to turn it off because I had to go to bed. There are, of course, similarities to other dystopian stories like The Walking Dead and The Stand, but that’s only to be expected. I also was reminded of my own ideas for a dystopia, and reminded somewhat of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (I have not read McCarthy, and felt a disclaimer was needed; but everyone knows the story of The Road).

I’ve always found it interesting that dystopic fiction is so popular, and have always wondered what precisely that says about our culture and society. I think my first dystopic fiction was the Planet of the Apes film series (I also read Pierre Boulle’s book, which the first film was very loosely based on), and the next was Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend and the movie loosely based on it, The Omega Man (interesting that the former and the latter both starred Charlton Heston). (I am a big fan of Matheson’s, who isn’t as known as he should be in my opinion; I feel the same way about Robert Bloch as well.) I myself have had ideas for dystopic fiction, as I mentioned before; I have several ideas about that I would love to try to write some time, but I am not so good at fantasy and science fiction (or at least it’s outside of my comfort zone because I don’t know anything much about science and especially not physics); which is why they were futuristic ones set in North America after the fall of the United States (which is the kind of alternative future story I love).

So. Many. Ideas.

But, basically I came away from the weekend feeling like I can get everything under control again; whether that is true or not remains to be seen. But I do know that I need to get back to work on the book, and work hard for a while. I need to get my taxes done and I need to get my emails answered. I’m looking forward to finishing Scorched Grace, which is absolutely amazing, and there’s still some cleaning that needs to be done around here. I managed to get most of the filing done so my desk area doesn’t look like a tornado zone, which is always a plus; just a few more things to file and put away and it’ll be almost completely under control. And the way things are going, I should even have a couple more completed manuscripts by the end of the summer! Woo-hoo!

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. You have a great day, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.