Well, here we are on an extremely cold Tuesday morning and it is very chilly here in the work station here in the kitchen; I don’t even want to think about how cold the floor would be against bare feet (which is why I have a very comfortable pair of house shoes). It is bitterly cold outside this morning; about thirty-one degrees, per the local weather. It ends tonight, by the way, and we’ll recede back into fall from winter tomorrow (highs in the high 60s, low 70s) with a chance at winter coming back relatively soon. I just laughed at myself for talking about the weather; I kind of do that every day, don’t I?
Then again, I am sixty-four, and the right age to sit outside a country store in a rocking chair wearing a railroad cap and overalls and chewing tobacco. There, but for choices…but I don’t think old men hang around outside the country store/gas station in rural areas anymore; that’s part and parcel of my childhood and that world doesn’t really exist anymore, much as I’d like to think that it does. It often crops up when I am writing about Alabama–because that’s how I remember it, and that Alabama is so far gone in the rear view mirror it cannot even be seen.
Despite Chuckie and the Quislings, yesterday was also a lovely day because that horrible witch Kim Davis’ appeal of the six figure settlement awarded to a couple that sued her skank cosplay christian ass for refusing to issue a marriage license for them? Yeah, for once the Supreme Court did the right thing and refused to hear her case. Womp fucking womp, bitch. Have fun in bankruptcy hell. Maybe your buddies in the Huckabee family will help you pay off that oh-so-deserved debt liability, you miserable bitch. Now you can slink back to the bog you slithered out of, and you will forever be known as a hateful bitch deserted by the people who used her to try to overturn Obergefell1, which SCOTUS is just itching to do (her case wasn’t good enough for even those partisan hacks to overturn their previous decision; they’re waiting for the right one, you know. They have lifetime appointments and aren’t going anywhere soon). Just like the murdering thugs George Zimmerman and that pasty Mama’s soft boy whose name I can’t even remember at the moment, they abandoned her as soon as she ceased to be of use to them. What a shame.
I was tired last night when I got home from the errands in the cold. Well, tired isn’t the right word; more like I felt drained and listless. The apartment wasn’t cold, but I didn’t really feel 100% most of the day, either. I feel better this morning–not much of a reach there–so maybe I’ll be able to get some things done tonight when I get home from work, whether it’s writing or reading my Donna Andrews mystery. (I have to say, when I was moving stuff around on the end table–reordering the TBR Next Pile; Wanda Morris is up next–and I opened the book to just take a look at the opening…and she talks about themass suicide at Igbo Landing, which I’ve been reading about!!! I cannot wait to read this book now! I should also see how far behind I am on Wanda’s work….and it’s only this one I’ve not gotten to yet. Huzzah! Note to self: email her.) I also have dishes to put away and dishes to put in the dishwasher. Sigh. There are worse things, after all.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again on Midweek Wednesday morning.
She also needs to keep Jesus out of her skank mouth. Jesus never once preached arrogance in the faith or cruelty. You, madam, are arrogant in your faith AND cruel. Enjoy doing the breaststroke in the lake of eternal fire, blasphemer. ↩︎
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. ↩︎
Work-at-home Friday! Woo-hoo! I have a three day weekend to follow as well; my trip was canceled but I kept the day off. I am hoping for a productive time, but we shall see how it goes. Last night I ran by the post office as I had a delivery sent there by mistake (it was supposed to be sent to the house) and I also had to stop by Office Depot to pick up the supplies I’d ordered. I came home and spent the evening productively! I did a load of laundry, the dishes, and got organized for the book I am writing, and I also started going through old files and chucking many of them that I really don’t need. I also found things that really shouldn’t have been filed away, but a good 70% of two boxes are going into the trash. Some of the ones I am keeping for now will also probably go; in many cases it’s simply.a story idea with a title, and I can just transcribe those into a journal. The goal of decluttering moves onward, and I am quite pleased I got on with this last night–I’ve been meaning to do this since the pandemic hit, and I’ve also become more
I also got my copy of the new Wanda M. Morris novel, What You Leave Behind, which is also an exciting and delightful development. It’s always a cause for rejoicing in the Lost Apartment when the new Morris arrives! Woo-hoo!
Ugh, wordpress is not cooperating this morning so I may not be able to post this as soon as it’s finished, heavy heaving sigh. Why does technology always shoot me in the foot? This is the kind of thing, of course, that used to derail my entire day back before the change in meds, so yay for new meds? It’s also kind of aggravating because the functions aren’t working properly, and while irritating, I refuse to allow this to derail the day. This doesn’t have to be posted this morning, and in a worst case scenario, it’ll be later today. How horrible, right?
I do have some work at home duties to do, and I do need to run some errands later–prescription, groceries–and I also need to do some rehab on the arm today at the gym, but I can put that off until later. I do want to get rid of some more files today. It would be lovely to get that taken care of and those multiple file boxes removed from the living room. I also need to go through my filing cabinet, as I am certain there are even more ancient files in there that no longer need keeping, either, and I can hopefully get almost all of the files combined and compressed into one place. I also want to clean the hell out of the kitchen this weekend, too–including moving furniture as well as cleaning out and organizing the kitchen cabinets and drawers. I’d love to take down boxes from the attic, too, and start getting that cleaned out as well to make room for other storage that can be moved from the apartment up there to help bring the clutter down. I also want to really do something with the beneath the counter cabinets, too.
God, I am so exciting, how can you stand it?
On that note, I am going to get some more coffee and something else to eat. WordPress is still being a bitch, so this will have to go up later. I am also sure some Pride posts will pop out later on today as well. Have a lovely Friday!
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 and Pay the Bills Day has rolled around yet again. Woo-hoo!
Yesterday I was working on cleaning out my inbox–an ongoing struggle, but it’s suddenly gotten easier lately–and around noonish an email from Left Coast Crime dropped in letting me know that A Streetcar Named Murder had been selected as a finalist for the Lefty Awards! I certainly wasn’t expecting anything like that to ever happen, so thanks to everyone who listed me on their ballot. It’s a tough category–the other nominees are Ellen Byron for Bayou Book Thief, Catriona McPherson for Scot in a Trap, Jennifer Chow for Death by Bubble Tea, and A. J. Devlin for Five Moves of Doom. Such a thrill, really, and to be nominated against authors for whom I have so much respect and admiration for their talents and achievements already? And so many other amazing nominees in the other categories as well–including lots of friends! Kellye Garrett, Alex Segura, James L’Etoile, Karen Odden, Laurie R. King, Gigi Pandian, Rob Osler, Eli Cranor, Wanda Morris, and Catriona again (nominated TWICE!!!!). I’m really sorry I won’t be going to Left Coast this year. I had a marvelous time last year, but it’s also the week before TWFest and Saints & Sinners, and there’s no way I could take that much time off so close together–let alone leave the week before the festivals. I’d come home to find the locks changed, seriously. So many amazing reads this past year on this list, and there I am, right there with some of my favorite people.
It’s always lovely to get recognized, of course. Award nominations are always a lovely pat on the back, and yes, while I often joke about always losing everything I am ever nominated for (I love pretending to be bitter and cynical about losing awards), it is indeed a great honor and a thrill and all those things they’re supposed to make you feel like. Being nominated for mainstream awards, like this and the Anthonys, was never in my thoughts or calculations (to be fair, I never think about awards when I’m writing something)–so yes, for the kid who used to give acceptances speeches to the mirror holding a shampoo bottle as a stand-in for an Oscar, it’s an honor and a thrill and a privilege. I mean, winning isn’t really in my control–anyone who’s ever nominated’s control–so I just look at it as a lovely nice job thumbs-up from the community and add it to my author bio.
I slept really well again last night and this morning I don’t feel tired or sore and my mind is completely alert–yesterday there was some residual fog from my trip still, and leftover exhaustion–but today feels absolutely great. I ran errands after I got off work yesterday–some books and other things came in the mail yesterday, including my Rainbow candles (a client gave me one for Christmas; I loved the smell, and then had to go searching on line to find more of them) and the leather-bound copies of Rebecca and Echoes from the Macabre by Daphne du Maurier as produced by the International Collectors’ Library (about time I got two really nice editions of two of my favorite books). I was terribly tired when I got home from work yesterday so I pretty much melted into my easy chair with Scooter asleep in my lap and just watched videos on Youtube (I went down a Rihanna wormhole for a good while–I’d forgotten how amazing her music was–while also looking up videos from Hadestown, whose score I’ve been listening to every since I got home; I cannot tell you how much I loved this show). I need to pay the bills today and get back to work on the book–I’m behind again and am really going to have to work my ass off to get it done by the end of the month now, no time for goofing off or anything other than a major push; I also have a short story to finish that I’ve promised to a friend for an anthology; that will be a nice creative and intellectual challenge to try to get finished around the book, too.
So, yes, Constant Reader, as you can probably tell I’m in a really good place this morning. My coffee is marvelous, I got a lovely pat on the back from the mystery community yesterday (“they like me! they really like me!”), and I am feeling great about my writing and my future. We’ll see how long this happy feeling and inspiration lasts, won’t we? I also think the cold or sinus thing that’s been going on with me since I flew to New York has finally been given the boot by my immune system, which is really nice. (I always feel terrible when I travel–part of it is the lack of sleep and the dehydration caused by the pressure changes required for flying; one of these days I’ll learn to drink water and replenish electrolytes when I travel instead of just drinking Cokes and coffee and alcohol; you’d think I’d know better by now but I clearly do not) But I feel like me again for the first time in what seems like a really long time, and it’s going to take some getting used to and adjusting again. (This weekend especially is going to feel weird as fuck, to be honest.)
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will chat with you again tomorrow.
And here we are, on the final day of the year 2022. Happy New Year, I guess? It doesn’t feel like the year is turning, but everything has felt so totally out of whack since the 2020 Shutdown that it’s not a surprise, really. As I sit here bleary-eyed with my coffee trying to wake up for another thrilling day of writing and cleaning, it seems very weird to look back to a year ago at this time. I was on deadline then, too–and was way behind on that book, too (A Streetcar Named Murder, for the record), but other than that I don’t remember what my mood was like or what I was thinking about going into the new year. We were still in the midst of the pandemic (that hasn’t changed–what’s changed is it isn’t news anymore and everyone seems to be pretending it’s all over), and I know I wasn’t exactly going into 2022 thinking oh this is the year I’ll get the coronavirus! That did happen, and my ten-day experience with COVID-19 was bearable for the most part. I just had intense and severe exhaustion as well as the brain fog, which hasn’t entirely lifted. I still have no short term memory, and am struggling to remember things every day–which has made writing this book more difficult because I can’t remember small details and things that are kind of important. I also think being so scattered isn’t much help in that regard; I’ve never been able to handle getting a grip on things and have felt like I’ve been behind the eight-ball for the last three years, floundering and struggling to keep my head above water, and never confident that I had a handle on everything. It’s been unpleasant, really; I prefer to be better organized and to have things under some sort of manageable control, and this constant feeling that I am behind and will never catch up on everything has been overwhelming, depressing, and damaging.
I read a lot of great books this year–I was going to try to make a “favorite reads of the year” list, but as I went back through the blog for the last year looking at all the books I talked about on here, there’s no real way for me to quantify what were my avorite reads of the year. I managed to read both of Wanda M. Morris’ marvelous novels, All Her Little Secrets and Anywhere You Run; Marco Carocari’s marvelous Blackout; John Copenhaver’s The Savage Kind; Carol Goodman’s The Night Villa, The Lake of Dead Languages, and The Disinvited Guest; Ruth Ware’s The Death of Mrs. Westaway and The Woman in Cabin Ten; Raquel V. Reyes’ Mango, Mambo and Murder; Ellen Byron’s Bayou Book Thief; Rob Osler’s debut Devil’s Chew Toy; Mia P. Manansala’s Arsenic and Adobo; Kellye Garrett’s Like a Sister; Alex Segura Jr’s Secret Identity; Laurie R. King’s Back to the Garden; Tara Laskowski’s marvelous The Mother Next Door; James Kestrel’s Five Decembers (which would be a contender for favorite read of the year, if I did such things); and of course several Donna Andrews novels as well. I am forgetting some great reads I truly enjoyed this past year, I am sure–I will kick myself later for not remembering I Play One on TV by Alan Orloff, for one example–but it was a year of great reads for me. I know 2023 will also be a great year for reading.
I also watched a lot of great television this past year as well, and again, I won’t be remembering everything and will kick myself later. If nothing else, it was a year of some amazing queer representation on television; this was, after all, the year Netflix not only gave us the wonderful, amazing, adorable Heartstopper but the equally charming and adorable Smiley (which you should watch, absolutely). It was also the year where Elité continued, but the shine is starting to go off the show a bit. I was very vested in their Patrick/Ivan romance, which they ended in this last season with Manu Rios, who plays Patrick, leaving the show at the end of the season along with his two sisters (spoiler, sorry), which was dissatisfying. I am looking forward to seeing what else Manu Rios gets up to in the future…we also enjoyed 1899, Andor, Ted Lasso, Sex Lives of College Girls, Peacemaker, The Sandman, House of the Dragon, Ozark, and so many other shows I can’t possibly begin to remember them all this morning. But I have no problem saying that without question my favorite show of the year was Heartstopper. Even just looking at clips on Youtube, or those “Ten Cutest Moments on Heartstopper” videos, always makes me feel warm and fuzzy when I view them. The soundtrack for the show was also terrific, with some songs so firmly engrained in my head with scenes from the show (one in particular, Shura’s “What’s It Gonna Be” always makes me think of that scene where Charlie comes running after Nick in the rain to give him another kiss, which is what was playing in the background). Wednesday was another highlight, a surprising delight when I was prepared to have my hopes dashed, and The Serpent Queen was also a lot of fun. We also enjoyed The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself, but it was cancelled after its first season, which was disappointing.
Professionally, it was a pretty good year in which I had three book releases: #shedeservedit in January and A Streetcar Named Murder in December, with the anthology Land of 10000 Thrills, thrown in for good measure in the fall. I sold some short stories that haven’t come out yet, as well as some that did this last year: “The Rosary of Broken Promises,” “A Whisper from the Graveyard,””The Snow Globe,” and “This Thing of Darkness” all came out in anthologies this year, with “Solace in a Dying Hour” sold and probably coming out sometime in the spring. I also sold another story to another anthology that will probably come out in the new year as well, and I still have one out on submission. In what was probably the biggest surprise of the year, last year’s Bury Me in Shadows was nominated for not one, but TWO Anthony Awards (Best Paperback Original and Best Children’s/Young Adult) which was one of the biggest shocks of maybe not just the year, but definitely one of the highlights of my career thus far. I lost both to friends and enormously talented writers Jess Lourey and Alan Orloff respectively, which was kind of lovely. I had been nominated for Anthonys before (winning Best Anthology for Blood on the Bayou and “Cold Beer No Flies” was nominated for Best Short Story), but being nominated for one of my queer novels was such a thrill–and to have it nominated in two different categories was fucking lit, as the kids would say. The response to A Streetcar Named Murder was an incredibly pleasant surprise; people seemed to genuinely love the book, which was very exciting and cool.
I traveled quite a bit this year as well–going to Murder in the Magic City/Murder on the Menu, Left Coast Crime, the Edgars, Sleuthfest, and Bouchercon. I went to Kentucky twice to see my family, which further fueled my love of audiobooks for long drives–on both trips I listened to Ruth Ware on the way up and Carol Goodman on the way back–and also did some wonderful podcasts and panels on-line, which was nice. We didn’t go to any games this season in Baton Rouge, but in all honesty I don’t know if I can hang with a game day anymore–the drive there and back, the walk to and from the stadium, the game itself–I would probably need a week’s vacation afterwards!
College football was interesting this season, too. This season saw the reemergence of Tennessee, USC, and UCLA to some kind of relevance again; the slides of the programs at Texas A&M, Florida, Oklahoma, Auburn, and Texas continued; and LSU turned out to be the biggest surprise (for me) of the year. Going into the season I had hopes, as one always does, but after two years of consistent mediocrity (with some surprise wins both years) they weren’t very high. The opening loss to Florida State was a surprise and disappointment, but at least the Tigers came back and almost made it all the way to a win. The blowout loss to Tennessee at home was unpleasant, certainly, as was the loss at Texas A&M. But LSU beat Alabama this season! We also beat Mississippi, so LSU was 2-2 against Top Ten teams this season–and I would have thought it would be 0-4. And 9-4 is not a bad record for a transitional year, with a new coach rebuilding the program. And LSU beat Alabama. The Alabama game will undoubtedly go down as one of the greatest Saturday night games in Tiger Stadium. It was incredibly exciting, and I still can’t quite wrap my mind around it or how it happened. It certainly shouldn’t have; LSU was simply not an elite-level team this past season, but what a job Brian Kelly did coaching in his first season in Baton Rouge. Did I mention that LSU beat Alabama this year? (And one really has to feel for Alabama, in a way; they lost two games by a total of four points on the last play of each game. Four. Points. That would probably be what I would call this season for Alabama: Four Points from Greatness. The LSU-Alabama game this year is definitely one of those that gets a nickname from the fan base, I am just not sure what it would be. The Double Earthquake Game? (The cheers when LSU scored in overtime and then made the two point conversion registered on the campus Richter scale) The Conversion Game? I don’t know what it will be named for all eternity, but it was an amazing game. I do think it also bodes well for the future for LSU. Will both LSU and Tennessee (which also beat Alabama for the first time in like fifteen years) be able to consistently compete with Alabama now? Has Georgia taken over as the SEC behemoth? Has the Alabama run ended? I don’t think so–they have an off year where they lose two or three games periodically (2010, 2019, 2022)–and they could bounce right back. next year and win it all again. You can never count them out, even in their off years.
As for the Saints, they swept Atlanta again this year, and that is enough for me.
I did write a lot this year, even though it didn’t seem like I actually did while the year was passing. I also worked on Chlorine and another project I am working on throughout the year, as well as the novellas, and of course, I was writing short stories and essays for much of the year. I also read a lot more New Orleans and Louisiana history, and I had tons of ideas for things to write all year long. I did make it to the gym on a fairly regular basis at the beginning of the year, but then it became more and more sporadic and after my COVID-19 experience, never again. I also injured my arm a few weeks ago–when I flex the bicep it feels like I have a Charley horse, so not good, but it doesn’t impact my day to day activities. I also had my colonoscopy at last this past year–the prep was horrific, and I am really dreading doing it again at sixty-five, should I make it that far.
Yesterday was a nice day. I was exhausted, and after my work-at-home duties were completed I did some chores–laundry, dishes–and I also spent some time both reading (A Walk on the Wild Side) and writing. I also watched the Clemson-Tennessee Orange Bowl last night before Paul got home from his dinner engagement and we watched a few more episodes of Sex Lives of College Girls. Today I am going to read a bit this morning with my coffee before getting cleaned up and diving headfirst back into the book. Paul has his trainer today and usually either goes to the gym to ride the bike or to his office to work for the rest of the afternoon, so I should be able to have some uninterrupted writing time, which will be lovely. And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a happy and safe New Year’s Eve, Constant Reader, and I will check back in with you later.
Monday morning and back to the office with me! It was a pretty good weekend, overall; I got some work done on the book, made groceries, did all kinds of chores, finished reading my Wanda Morris book and started reading another, and somehow managed to get some rest around all of that as well. I was very pleased with the work I did on the book, and who knows? Maybe I’ll even somehow manage to get it turned in by the extended deadline. #madness
And now it’s Monday morning, and I am up earlier than I need to be. I really need to focus, as a lot of things have been slipping lately as I focus on the book and getting it finished, and there’s been a kind of malaise–the feeling that usually comes along when I’ve actually finished a book, and has never before come while I was writing one. These last few years haven’t been easy for writing, to be honest, and yet–I’ve also produced some of my best work somehow during this time. I think Bury Me in Shadows is one of my best works, and while I don’t think it’s as good, #shedeservedit was also one I was terribly pleased with. And all I’ve seen anywhere for A Streetcar Named Murder has been highly positive. Land of 10000 Thrills was also one of the better anthologies I’ve done, and some of the short stories I’ve been doing during these last few years have also been really good. I also think that some of the stuff I have in progress–“Never Kiss a Stranger,” “Festival of the Redeemer,” Chlorine, Muscles, etc.–are also really good stuff. Some of the work I did this weekend is pretty damned good. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this confident in my writing before in my entire life, to be honest, but as long as I keep confidence from bleeding over into ego, I should be okay.
We watched all four episodes of Three Pines last night, and i think it’s very well done. Alfred Molina is perfect as Inspector Gamache, and while I must confess to only have read the first Louise Penny novel, Still Life, I was very impressed with it and liked it a lot (not sure why I’ve not gone back and read more of them; I do have the first three or four, but it probably has more to do with time and the massive TBR pile than anything else). I thought the show didn’t have the same feel as the books, in some ways, but it’s also a different medium and there are always changes. When I was reading the book (and again, only the first in the series so I am hardly an expert on Penny’s writing or her series) I like the town, and enjoyed my visit there. It was a nice, quirky, small town–but translating that to the screen is an entirely different ball of wax. I think the producers and writers decided that because the show is about murder, it needed to be a little darker, and Three Pines comes across as a small town full of eccentrics in the show, more like Twin Peaks, Picket Fences, and Northern Exposure than Penny’s creation….but I think it was a smart direction to go with the show. Penny’s strength is offsetting the charm of the town against the darkness of the crimes committed there, and I don’t know how well Penny’s vision could have translated to the screen any better. We both really liked it. We also watched a true crime documentary about Charlie Cullen, the killer nurse–which was creepy as fuck.
I’m hoping against hope that this good feeling will last all week. I’m going to have to stop and make groceries on the way home from the office–heavy sigh–but no need to swing around uptown for the mail until tomorrow. I have to remember to buy a shipping envelope to mail a copy of Streetcar to the winner of the drawing from Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen–I should add that to my to-do list…which I need to make a new copy of it. The problem is I don’t remember everything I am supposed to be doing, and I need to get back into the habit of making a new list every weekend so things don’t get lost.
I also spent some more time with Nelson Algren’s (I was spelling it wrong in the last blog) bleak A Walk on the Wild Side, which I am enjoying but isn’t precisely a quick read by any chance. It reminds vaguely of another novel set in the same time period, A Garden of Sand by Earl Thompson, which I’ve started any number of times but have never managed to get very far into because it is also not an easy read. I am going to try to devote an hour to reading every night–an hour a day is far better than what I’ve been doing, which hasn’t been helping to budge the TBR pile at all–and I think tonight we are going to finally start watching Wednesday. I’ve been reluctant to jump into it, despite the great reviews, because the Christina Ricci version from the 90’s films was, at least for me, definitive. But we keep hearing good things about the show as well as Jenna Ortega’s performance in the lead, so I think tonight will be the night we take the plunge.
It rained all day yesterday–it was even raining when I went to pick up the groceries–and it seems a bit gray outside this morning as well. I have a lot of emails to write and a lot of emails to answer and all kinds of stuff to do today–one of the reasons I got up an hour earlier than I needed to this morning–so I am trying to be proactive and not laze in bed the way I usually do on the mornings when I don’t have to get up at six. I am getting used to getting up early for the first time ever in my life, and quite frankly, I don’t like it. But I also don’t see the clinic hours being changed any time soon, either; I fear my afternoon/early evening shifts are a thing of the remote past now.
And on that note, I have quite a bit to do today, so it’s perhaps best that I make another cup of coffee, some toast, and dive right in. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader.
Ah, yes, time for hot men in Christmas clothing. I usually wait and just do the twelve days of Christmas thematically here, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to figure that out. And why not do an extra couple of days of holiday cheer? We could always use more cheer and happiness and joy in this sometimes grim and grotesque world and life. Today is going to be dedicated to three things: more work on my book, picking up the groceries I ordered, and making potato-leek soup. I’m also going to spend some time this morning reading. I finished Wanda Morris’ marvelous Anywhere You Run yesterday, and started Nelson Ahlgren’s A Walk on the Wild Side. Someone on Facebook had posted they were going to watch the film (starring Barbara Stanwyck and Jane Fonda) and I, who have never seen it, vaguely remembered it was connected to New Orleans. I did some research and yes, sure enough, it was indeed a novel first; and since it’s about the demimonde here in the 1930’s, I figured it was a necessary read for my understanding of the past of the city and perhaps even a needed read for the canon of New Orleans fiction. No one ever talks about this book in connection with the city, maybe because Ahlgren wasn’t a native? One can never be completely sure, can one? So, I will probably read some of that for about an hour–I like the idea of dedicating one hour every day to reading; maybe that will help me get through the ever-growing TBR pile. I know I wanted to do some Christmas reading–I am saving Donna Andrews’ Dashing Through the Snowbirds for Christmas day as a gift to myself–and I have some Christmas crime short story collections on hand as well, so I could do a story a day–maybe that will be what I do for the Twelve Days? Not a bad idea.
I slept well last night, which was a lovely experience–Scooter cuddled and purred with my for most of the night, which helped me enormously; making us doze off is truly his super-power–and woke up at a decent hour this morning. I think I am going to be able to get a lot more work done on the book than I did yesterday. It’s finally taking shape and I know where I am going with it along the way now, so I have to revise and redo the first half of the book to get it in line with how the final act will play out. I got started on it yesterday, and the story makes a lot more sense now than it did (and that is not me being hard on myself, either; what I had already done wasn’t badly written, it was just disjointed and had a lot of info dumps that have to be put into the story in a more organic way). I pulled up Spotify yesterday and listened to music while I worked on the book–Paul wasn’t home–which was cool. I listened to the Liza Minnelli that was produced by the Pet Shop Boys (it is truly outstanding; give it a listen sometime) and then cycled through some Pet Shop Boys albums as that was clearly the musical theme of the day. Paul will be home today, so I’ll probably just put in my ear buds and listen that way–I’d forgotten what a difference having music on makes to my writing and productivity.
We watched another true crime documentary last night, The Lost Boys of Bucks County, which–similar to the ones we were watching about the Murtaugh family–shows again the difference in how the law treats the wealthy and powerful as opposed to people that are considered unimportant and disposable. “They were just trash to be thrown away,” someone said towards the end of this sad story, in which four young men were pointlessly murdered over the course of three days. I’ve been thinking about–toying with, teasing it around inside my brain for quite some time–writing a suburban serial killer in the 1970’s book, based on the suburb where I lived for five years and the life people lived there, and then grafting a serial killer based on Houston’s Candyman onto the story. I’d been calling it Where the Boys Die for quite some time now, which I don’t think is the right title for this story; Where the Boys Die is a spring-break revenge spree killing story, and I think this one should be The Summer of Lost Boys or something along those lines. I know, I know, I talk about books I want to write all the time and never seem to get around to…but I think 2023 is going to be the year of finishing things that aren’t finished and getting them out of the way. Groan, that’s going to be a lot of work…but the kind of work I love doing, so there’s also that–and yes, I am well aware that I always have to force myself to do things I love. What can I say? I love being lazy and doing nothing the most out of everything.
When I was at home for Thanksgiving, my recently retired brother-in-law asked me what my plans for Retirement were. I know what he was really asking–my family is nothing if not predictable (are you going to move up here to be close to us once you no longer have a job? because it does not compute to any of them on any level that it’s not my job that anchors me in New Orleans. I live here because I choose to live in New Orleans, and I love it here. They can’t imagine making any such decision that would keep them out of the bosom of the family deliberately.)–but I chose to respond with “Well, I can’t wait for it to come. Counting the days” and he replied, “Oh, you’re in for a big surprise–you might want to hold your horses a bit on that.” He meant well, and I know what he meant; he’s been bored since he retired and the adjustment to not having to be somewhere for a set amount of time Monday through Friday hasn’t been easy. It wasn’t easy for my father, either–still isn’t. They, and other men of their generations, were conditioned to work and to identify their selves with their job and the work. That isn’t me. I love my job, don’t get me wrong–it’s the perfect fit for me on every level, and even now the only thing I don’t like about it is we no longer have non-traditional hours. I miss not having to be at the office until eleven most of the week and having my mornings free to get things done before going into the office, and not having to be in bed by ten most nights. The only thing I truly dislike about my job is the forty hours I have to spend working at it–because I would much rather be utilizing that time to write. Will I be bored when I retire? Probably not. I am never bored and can always find something to do. There’s the TBR pile, for example, and I am always writing something anyway. There’s a shit ton of classic films for me to work my way through, and other films and television shows I would love to rewatch and revisit.
And there’s always going to be books to read, errands to run, dishes to wash, clothes to launder, and so on. I’d also probably go to the gym with a higher degree of frequency as well.
So, no, I won’t be bored when I retire from my day job. I’ll probably wind up working even harder once I do retire.
And now I am going to read for an hour, and get back to work on the book. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.
One of the great joys of being a voracious reader is discovering a new-to-me talent: a terrific writer capable of creating relatable characters; telling great stories using wonderfully constructed, lyrical prose; and illuminating experiences and lives that are vastly different from my own, using fiction as a method to not only entertain but educate.
Earlier this year, I had the great pleasure of reading Wanda M. Morris’ impressible debut, All Her Little Secrets, which I raved about in a blog entry. Of course, that was her book from last year, so I was very excited to get my hands on a copy of this year’s Wanda M. Morris novel, Anywhere You Run, and it does not disappoint in any way other than coming to an end.
I also had the pleasure of meeting Wanda earlier this year at Left Coast Crime, and she is as lovely a person as she is as a writer.
All four men passed around a bottle of Jim Beam as they peeled up State Route 19, giddy with excitement about what they’d do once they hog-tied those coons and got them to a tree. The engine revved as they hit the crest of the road, doing 80 mph. Getting pulled over was the least of their concerns because Olen’s cousin, Sheriff Bickford, was riding shotgun. Bickford had gotten a tip and rounded up the other three to head from Jackson over to Meridian and then north to Neshoba County.
Olen, sitting there in the back seat, threw back a swig and passed the bottle on, assuring the others they were doing God’s work. “The last thing anybody needs is for them to start votin’. Bad enough the goddamn government wants us to let ’em eat in our restaurants and sit beside us on a bus. If the Lord has meant for whites to mix with coloreds, he woulda’ made the coloreds a hell of a lot smarter. Either we stay all white or we die amongst ’em.”
A couple of the other men nodded in silent agreement.
Anywhere You Run is, in some ways, a kind of prequel to All Her Little Secrets, in that it gives us the backstory on some of the characters in the first novel. Set in the turbulent 1960’s, during the Civil Rights struggle in the old Confederate states and the resistance to racial equality from the Southern bigots, this may be one of the first novels I’ve ever read to show that time from the perspective of a woman of color? (There was a woman of color point-of-view character in William Bradford Huie’s The Klansman, but I’d need to revisit that book to make a comparison, but I know the visceral sense of being othered, of knowing there is no justice for you in this world and society, wasn’t as strong in the Huie novel as it is in this one.) I’m not going to go out on a limb and claim that as fact, but it is likely–and being Southern, and seeing the South of the time through this lens (remember, I was alive then, too, but my perspective was greatly different), was sobering. Morris brings the time to life with a vivid, powerful brush that makes it very clear what it was like to be a second-class citizen in a system designed to keep you there.
The story focuses on two sisters from Jackson, Mississippi–Violet and Marigold. Their parents are dead, as is their older sister, Rose; the two sisters are very different and on different paths, but they love each other very deeply and have a strong sisterly bond. Marigold has been working at a Civil Rights office in Jackson while having an affair with a married lawyer, come south for the summer to work on voting rights, and finds herself pregnant. SHe’s been seeing a man she doesn’t love, Roger Bonny, and decides to marry him and move north with him to Cleveland, leaving the Jim Crow South far behind her. Violet also wants out of Jackson and the book opens with her running–but for different reasons and in an entirely different situation. Violet was raped by a white man, and knowing there was no justice possible for a woman of color under these circumstances, kills him. She’s also been dating a white man, Dewey Leonard, who claims to be in love with her–and wants to run away with her and marry her in Boston. Violet doesn’t love Dewey, but she sees him as her ticket out of town. As the two of them flee, they are stopped by a cop once they’ve crossed the Alabama state line, and the fact Dewey has to act like she’s in his employ to save them both only convinces her that her plan to run away from Dewey the first chance she gets is the right one. She avails herself of the first opportunity that presents itself–ironically, at the same Birmingham Greyhound station where the freedom riders were attacked by a mob and police dogs–and catches a bus to a nowhere little town in rural Georgia–Chillicothe, which is very important in All Her Little Secrets.
But Dewey isn’t ready to let go of Violet, and hires a white-trash no account to track her down for him. He loves her and wants her back–but probably would be willing to let her go except for the wallet, which contains something that puts both Violet and Marigold’s lives in grave danger.
This is an exceptionally good novel, tightly plotted and highly evocative of the period Morris is writing about. It couldn’t have been easy, researching this painful past that we as a nation should be incredibly ashamed of; no writer is powerful or talented enough to truly bring the totality of the horror that was life for people of color in this country, particularly in the South, to life. But Morris does it beautifully; by focusing on how individual lives were affected and impacted, the implications of how truly horrible this time was on a macro level can easily be extrapolated. There are also slurs, accurate to the time and the characters using them, which are jarring to come across in the present day in the printed word.
But I’ve also heard those words used…not in a very long time, but seeing them in print I can hear them again vividly in my head, dripping with venom and hatred and contempt.
This book is fantastic, absolutely fantastic, and I urge you, Constant Reader, to start reading Wanda M. Morris.
It really isn’t, you know. Each and every day I become more and more aware of how precious time is, how quickly it can pass, and how finite it actually is. That makes the time I am forced to spend recharging my batteries or simply resting–something I need to do more and more of the more that goes by–into something I resent automatically and always have to remind myself that I am no longer not only forty but not even fifty and sixty is in the rearview mirror now, and don’t have the energy or stamina that I used to take for granted.
I’ve taken a lot for granted my entire life, in truth.
Yesterday was one of those work-at-home with tasks that are relatively mindless while doing chores that are also relatively mindless. This was a very tiring, up and down week (I always marvel at how whenever I should be having a good time and enjoying something, I inevitably end up having to deal with something unexpected and irritating. It does keep me grounded, I suppose, and my ego in check–those great reviews won’t pay for a new tire or change this one or heal your arm, will they? As though I actually need anything else to keep my ego in check. I am trying to actually develop more of an ego, and more of a selfish nature. Perhaps ego isn’t the right word? I don’t like it–for me the word has negative connotations–and I think confidence is a better fit and more accurate. I am working to increase my self-confidence, and my belief in my own value and the value of the work that I do.
I was talking to a friend recently about my future–what’s left of it, at any rate–and what I should be doing and focusing on. I’ve not made plans in years, or thought very far ahead much with my career; I think the lack of cogent plan with my writing career is fairly apparent from a quick glance at its history. I think after Katrina I made up my mind that making plans was a waste of energy and/or time, as one has no control over one’s future. Life is always going to be throwing spitballs and curveballs at you, no matter how good your stance or your grip on the bat and the technique of your swing, you’re going to miss more often than you hit one out of the park. It is very easy for me to get distracted and side-tracked–thank you, brain chemistry–anyway, and oft times I will be thinking quite enthusiastically about one idea when I get another and the first one is forgotten, lost in the mists and cobwebs of the farthest reaches of my imagination, only to be stumbled across years later with an oh yeah lightbulb going on over my head. But I am going to carve some time out this weekend to try to plan ahead a bit, or at least try to plan my writing year for 2023. I have so many things in progress already that need to be finished that it’s not even funny–which I should also make a list of; not the short stories (far too many of those unfinished to make a list–it was somewhere over eighty the last time I counted them) but the books and novellas and other things that I’ve made a start on that need finishing at some point.
I allowed myself to sleep in this morning until eight, and then over my coffee I finished reading Wanda M. Morris’ superlative Anywhere You Run, which was simply marvelous and superb and fantastic–it’s hard to believe she is only two books into her career; it will be interesting to see how she continues to grow and develop as a writer as she gets further into her career–and yes, there will be more about this book later. I feel marvelously rested this morning, and the coffee is doing a lovely job of waking me. I am going to do some futzing this morning–dishes, filing, cleaning a bit–before getting cleaned up and diving into my manuscript for the rest of the day. I really need to stop being so goddamned lazy and get on with it, you know? It simply isn’t going to write itself, and I am very hopeful that I can make some terrific progress on the book today. There’s not any college football today–the season is over except for bowl games and play-offs–and so there are no distractions to be had; no “Oh I’ll just turn on the television to check some scores” only to transition to “oh, it won’t hurt to watch the rest of this half” to “oh, well, tomorrow I can work on my writing.”
And the hilarious part of it is that I will always, always, feel enormously satisfied, pleased, and happy when I stop writing for the day. Every single time.
Queer and Loathing in America 