Hey, There's A Dead Guy in the Living Room

Questions

Jeff Cohen

What was so great about sliced bread? I mean, was it THAT HARD to get a knife and cut it yourself?

How happy ARE clams?

Shouldn't Superman have been looking for a girl who was bright enough to recognize him even WITH glasses?

Why isn't the rest of Earth more like Disney World? I mean, after I get done having any experience whatsoever, I expect to end up in a gift shop, don't you?

If it's true that "if you can remember the Sixties, you weren't there," then why doesn't Rock N' Roll ever forget?

For that matter, how do we know that elephants never forget? Did someone ask the elephants? What if they forgot, and were just covering?

They say "nothing's older than yesterday's news." How about the news from the day BEFORE yesterday?

Why is it called Rhode Island? It's not an island.

How come people say they're going to get "the skinny" about a hot news item? What does that even MEAN?

If Joe Lieberman gets a proprietary project in his home state, can we still call it "pork?"

Why do TV networks assume I think I can dance? I KNOW I can't dance!

Isn't it time to rename the New Testament? 

If a stand up comedian uses a chair, what do we call him?

When was the last time a Best Picture Oscar winner was fun to watch? (And if you talk to me about Slumdog Millionaire, I'm going to mention the abject poverty, the children being tortured and the overall sense of despair until the end--I'm not saying I didn't like the movie; I'm talking about it being FUN to WATCH.)

What do Abraham Lincoln and George Washington have to do with carpet sales?

What are Catches 1-21? 

What if there was a playwright even BETTER than Shakespeare, but we never got to read his stuff because nobody bothered to publish it after it closed at the Globe?

What are late night comedians during the day?

How come non-fiction isn't called REALITY BOOKS?

Why aren't playwrights called playwrites? 

And as the holiday season begins, one last question: How come the big Christmas songs are written by Jews?

What’s so funny about that?

Which is the problem with a lot of recommendations I get for humorous mysteries. If I’m lucky, it takes as many as three chapters into the latest "you'll laugh until it hurts" before I realize that one weak smile is going to be about it. I used to think it was me, because I'd see books I thought were decidedly unfunny praised all over various forums. But then a couple years back when I reviewed the first book in his Double Feature series, Some Like it Hot-Buttered, our own Jeff Cohen helped me figure it out. (No, that’s not the blatant brown-nosing it looks like, honest. He really did.)

Jeff’s hero, Elliott Freed, loves comedy so much he’s put all his money into creating a movie theater dedicated to it. But he hates the jokes friends continually email him, because comedy and jokes aren’t the same thing and he’s just not all that into jokes. To paraphrase my own review of Jeff’s book, comedy is about wit and humor, while jokes are contrived stories to set up a punch line.

Comedy and jokes aren't the same thing... epiphany time. The next time a new, much praised humorous mystery left me grumbling rather than laughing—and wondering why—I realized that same division was the problem here. Yes I know it should be obvious, but you think of jokes as, well, jokes. Short set up / punchline pairs that stand on their own. You might read a character telling a joke, but you don't naturally think of jokes as part of the structure of a novel. But that was indeed what too many of the newer comic mysteries seemed to be built from. Instead of real comedy and humor based in absurd situations or wit that is an organic part of the story, they rely on jokes and jokey set ups for the laughs. In the worse cases, the story becomes little more than a strong to hold together a bunch of build ups to various punch lines. And in the absolute worst cases, those were all too predictable punch lines—there was a series of travel based mysteries written a few years ago which everyone swore I would love, because it had mystery and comedy and travel, all of which I do love. But the humor was based on stereotypes that were trite even then, with punchlines you could see coming three pages before they arrived.

What got me thinking about this again was the pleasure in a few recent reads—two by modern authors, one a Golden Age classic—that get it right. Genuine comedy and humor rather than jokes.

I mentioned Donna Andrews and Swan for the Money last week. While I don’t love all her books equally (there are two I absolutely adore—Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon and We’ll Always Have Parrots—with The Penguin Who Knew Too Much only slightly below, and the rest ranging across a couple of tiers below that), I love how she does them. The humor is situational, built from the sort of people who might be your family and neighbors doing absolutely outrageous and absurd things as if they were totally commonplace, or having such things happen to them. The humor is in the situation, with nary a punchline in sight. Take the Tennessee Belted Fainting Goats I also mentioned last time… now consider what it would be like to chase an intruder through a field filled with goats who stiffen and keel over without warning when even slightly alarmed or excited. Go ahead and laugh, I saw that grin.

The humor is heightened by a beautiful foil in smart and sensible heroine Meg, a calm, tolerant but appreciative audience who treats most of the madness around her as normal. Which of course in her world it all is; it's our kind of normalcy that would be really weird.

The other recent book isn’t a mystery, although there are puzzles aplenty inside. Gail Carriger has a new alternate history comedy of manners out, titled Soulless (first in The Parasol Protectorate). Her heroine is even more phlegmatic, and while there are some silly situations, the humor here is more in the language and the style of it all. Not jokes, but witty banter and language that stylishly provides some wonderfully absurd juxtapositions while taking things to their logical absurdities. Think witty Regency style romance (although the setting is Victorian) meets new style urban fantasy. Werewolves and vampires and teacakes, oh my!! For example, when classic prim and proper spinster Alexia is attacked by a vampire, rather than wailing and falling into a helpless swoon, she sharply chides him on his manners (they haven’t even been introduced!) while feeling more upset about the treacle tart she'd been looking forward to—now ruined—than the attack itself. Her scientifically inquisitive approach to personal discovery about relations between the sexes is an absolute riot. The entire book is simply a hoot, full of wicked fun that stands a couple of genres on their ears through the author's wonderful ear for using language to maximum comic effect.

The classic combines wit and situational humor—Edmund Crispin’s The Moving Toyshop—which I recently re-read. I love Crispin and wish he’d written more, although I've never had good luck recommending him to others. There’s wit in the banter between characters, such as a silly characters in literature bar game, while the story also has some wonderful situational humor, such as the "University steeplechase” pursuit of a suspect and its water filled ending. Genuine laugh until it hurts stuff if you've any appreciation for the absurd.

Here's hoping we see more of the situational comedy and wit that once used to dominate humor in mysteries. And until we do, my heartfelt thanks to a handful of newer authors like Donna Andrews and Gail Carriger and Jeff himself, who help keep my funny bone nicely polished.

Auntie Mame

Robin Agnew

I know most people have books they re-read now and then for comfort.  I have a rotating list, but one of my favorites is Patrick Dennis' 1955 classic Auntie Mame.  For those of you who have only seen the pretty terrible movies (one with Rosalind Russell, an even worse one with Lucille Ball) the book is a breezy, refreshing delight that is funny every time I re-read it.  I recommend it.

My own reading copy was a pathetic mess.  It was an old paperback from the late 50's, the pages were all falling out, and I could see the glue on the spine if I took a quick peek.  Recently my husband found me a beautiful new reprint copy, with an intoroduction and an afterword by Patrick Dennis' son.  This was manna to me.

I was interested to discover that Patirck Dennis (a pen name fore Edward Everett Tanner III) wrote many novels (I have only read two) and when his literary career fizzlied he took up a career as a butler, working for Ray Kroc.  This sounded like something Patrick Dennis, the character in the novel, might do.

For those of you unfamiliar with this masterpiece, it's a slight conceit - a young boy (Patrick Dennis) loses his remaining parent and he goes with his Irish nurse to live in New York city with his Aunt Mame, a fate his father told him he "wouldn't wish on a dog, but...beggars can't be choosers."  So Patrick, at 10, is unprepared for the sight of his glamorous, nightclub hopping, literati elbow rubbing Aunt, a dyed in the wool liberal and authentic intellectual.

The story is never a polemic but for the mid 50's Auntie Mame's views are pretty radical, and she clashes regularly with Patrick's staid trustee, Mr. Babcock, who seems like a more typical 50's denizen.  What sets this episodic novel apart from mere froth (each chapter covers a stage in Patrick's life - school, first love, college, going to war, etc.) is the detailed look at upper class life and it's dissection of class and status.  It has the zing of real verisimilitude.

What Patrick ends up wanting is a staid life in the suburbs; apparently the same thing the real life Patrick Dennis wished for and never achieved.  The fictional Patrick Dennis finds steady happiness, though you're left wondering at the end of the book if he made the right choice.   In any case the book always hooks me in the first chapter when little Patrick's Dad tells him "Pipe down kid, the old man's hung."  I settle in happily for the duration, looking forward to another reading of what is really an American classic.

My top ten

Sharon Wheeler – keeping PJ Nunn's seat warm!

OK, so this might be jumping the gun a tad, but my excuse is that I'm just leaping off the substitutes' bench today to replace PJ Nunn, and I'm not sure when I'll be picked for the first team again! And I can't possibly pass up the opportunity to select my top ten books of 2009. Yes, I know there's another month to go before the end of the year, and yes, I might well find another gem during that time (although if you'd seen what's in my review pile, you'd understand why I'm feeling a tad pessimistic). And anyway, if 'best of' lists are good enough for some of the UK national papers before the end of November, they're good enough for Dead Guy!

So, here goes … The books are in no particular order, complete with brief cryptic comments. I've linked to my full reviews on RTE in case anyone's interested.

The Girl Who Played With Fire

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest – Stieg Larsson

It's pretty unusual to have two books released by the same author in the same year (unless you're the wonderfully prolific Ken Bruen), but this is no ordinary series. Just in case you happen to have been living in a cave for the past couple of years, Larsson's trilogy featuring a Swedish journalist and an anti-social computer hacker was published posthumously and has quite rightly gone supernova.

Flipping Out – Marshall Karp

Karp's good-humoured series features a couple of wise-cracking Los Angeles cops, whose cases seem to have a movie or literary theme. The doctor should prescribe them when readers are feeling down.

If It Bleeds – Duncan Campbell

The title's from the old newspaper adage – if it bleeds, it leads. And Campbell, a veteran UK journalist, takes us on a highly enjoyable romp through the life of a permanently bemused crime hack who's finding all this new technology just a bit too much.

Winterland – Alan Glynn (review to come next week!)

This is a second novel for Irish writer Glynn, and it's tremendous. It takes us on an intense journey through modern Ireland, where politics, business and crime all collide.

The Dark Vineyard – Martin Walker

Walker's debut novel, Bruno, Chief of Police, was on my 'best of' list last year. The second in the series, set in deceptively idyllic rural France, shows a dark side beneath that relaxed village life.

Sanctuary – Ken Bruen

I'd read Ken Bruen's shopping list – and, come to think of it, he'd tell a better and sharper story on it that a lot of writers do in 300 pages. Sanctuary is the next instalment of the Jack Taylor series. Noir at its total best.

A Tribute to Zed Beddington – Nick Wray

A gem of a crime debut novel, published by a small indie UK publisher. I can do no better than point you the – for once – uncannily accurate blurb: "… a tale of sex and drugs and Transit vans, motorways, amplifiers, ripped-off lyrics, creative accountancy, Mozart, life after death, home improvements and finding love where you least expect it."

Midnight Fugue – Reginald Hill

Hill's 24 books into his Dalziel and Pascoe series, and his footwork is still as deft and fancy as ever. He should teach masterclasses in how to retain your enthusiasm.

The Redeemer – Jo Nesbo

Another example of class storytelling from the creator of maverick Oslo cop Harry Hole. After reading it, you'll want to steer clear of vacuum cleaners …

There were near-misses for John Connolly's The Lovers and Graham Hurley's No Lovelier Death. And I promise to keep my bottom ten books of the year to myself!

It's Thanksgiving Time ...

So I'm on my way to my mom's house to eat Swedish meatballs and watch the Macy's Day Parade. (Yes, I know, but that's what my family calls it.) Once Santa arrives in front of Macy's, we'll start gearing up for the stuffing and the turkey and the mashed potatoes (which my sisters had to peel yesterday, since they were already home), and the cranberry sauce (which my mom makes herself), and all that jazz.

In the meantime, though, I wanted to briefly let you know something for which I'm thankful. (Besides not ending sentences with prepositions.)

Readers, I'm thankful that you read.

 Keep it up, and keep talking about the books you love. Keep gifting books to your kids and nieces and nephews, and keep using your library card. Keep supporting your local indie bookstores, and thank you. Thank you for reading.

A two-way process

The role of an editor from me a couple of weeks ago, the part played by agents from Alison this week… It’s no use, I can’t stop myself, even though I know I risk making myself unpopular. I have to talk about authors.

 

Let me say this right at the start: guys (and female guys, which mine mainly seem to be, though not by design) – we couldn’t do it without you. Authors are the beginning of the process, the foundation upon which publishing is built. If there was no urge to put words on paper, there would be nothing to turn into books.

 

Let me say this too: most authors I’ve worked with, and an awful lot more I’ve encountered along the way, are down to earth, sensible and businesslike about their work. They realise that turning their dreams and vision into piles of books doesn’t come free of charge; someone, usually the publisher, has to invest hard cash to make it happen; so the books have to appeal to enough readers to earn back that cash.

 

This applies especially to a small indie publishing house like Crème de la Crime. All our authors – make that all authors, not just ours – dream of making the breakthrough, becoming the summer’s most talked-about name, topping the bestsellers. Indie publishers have the same dream; we believe wholeheartedly in every book we publish, and really, really want them all to hit the big time. But without a huge pot of money to spend on marketing, we know that realistically it’s only going to happen by accident; the day to day reality for us is keeping our heads above water until that happy accident occurs. Our larger and more prestigious competitors can afford to wait till an author fulfils his/her early potential; one Dan Brown pays the bills until quite a few promising newcomers come good. We can’t. Every book we publish has to pay its own way.

 

So we sometimes have to make tough decisions when the sales figures come in. And we also have to look hard at the authors themselves, not just at their work. Big publishing houses have publicity departments. (Is that wry laughter I hear from some of their authors whose sales figures don’t quite match Dan Brown’s, and who don’t hear from an in-house publicist from one year’s end to the next?) Our authors are our publicity department. We do everything our shoestring budget allows – press releases, review copies, bookshop promotions, events – but we have to rely on the authors themselves to get out there and raise the book’s profile.

 

Most are wonderful. They visit bookshops, host library events, give talks, run workshops, appear at festivals. Others are less so. Some have day jobs, of course, which make it hard to find the time. But just occasionally the subtext of ‘I wouldn’t know how to start promoting my book’ turns out to be ‘Why are you asking me to do this? I do the writing; it’s your job to make sure it sells.’ It doesn’t happen often; usually that attitude is easily identified at a much earlier stage – like the cover letter I received with a manuscript a few days ago, in which the author announced baldly that he had no contacts in the media and no marketing expertise – but he was sure the book spoke for itself. Actually it did, almost as loudly as the letter.

 

I’ve just realised I haven’t even touched on the subject I meant to write about: the sense of connection which makes author and editor a team. Or not, as the case may be. Again, mostly the authors I work with are brilliant; they’re self-aware enough to know that a fresh pair of eyes on a manuscript can spot tiny errors and inconsistencies, pick up little details that don’t hold together, and generally polish off any rough edges so that the final version can glow with pride.

It doesn’t happen often that an author fights back – just once, in fact, in thirty titles, and when the book came out even he conceded it was better after editing.

 

Someone commented last time I visited this terrain that a good editor is an author’s best friend, a bad one his/her worst enemy. Agreed, one hundred percent. I’ve suffered under bad editing. There was the time a local paper sub-editor on auto-pilot made a nonsense of a review of a Gilbert & Sullivan opera by changing 1897 to 1987. And the worse time when a new broom editor straight from college inserted about a hundred commas into a short story I’d contributed to an anthology, thus wrecking the pace and in some places the meaning – and when I took most of them out at the proofreading stage, promptly put them all back! If I set out along that road, I hope my authors will feel free to jump on me, hard! 

 

After all, all the best relationships are a two-way process.

Got Trot?

by Barbara Poelle

Thanksgiving is so awesome, and not just because I get to eat until I am sweating and crying. Thanksgiving is awesome because several years ago, Husband proclaimed it’s a private holiday for just the two of us! Huzzah! Sometimes we go on a trip, sometimes we have a Staycation. But every time, on Thanksgiving morning, Husband and I run in a 5K.

It makes perfect sense if you use that new math that everyone is always talking about:  see, if you burn 400 calories by noon, you can eat 2700 calories before 6pm and it equals out. (If you aren’t getting that answer you are forgetting that in 1987, 2700 calories was more like $1.97.)

Sometimes we sign up to run in a sanctioned race with lots of other people and timers and free Gatorade and collectible t-shirts, but other years we plot it out just the two of us (btw, I am addicted to mapmyrun.com).  Either way, we get suited up and out the door by 9 am on Thursday. (This is where you can made your rude noises and gestures. Everyone does.)

A few years ago, in an effort to quell the lingering homesickness at not being in MN for the turkey carving, I started asking my family to run/walk a 5K any time on Thanksgiving and send me photos of the finish line. What I imagined was a delightful collage of family members adorned in Adidas and GoreTex, hands raised victorious, sweat still glistening on their brow in the morning sunlight as gentle fall leaves clustered among their feet.

But this is my family, people.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. They did it. But let’s just say some of them wore cashmere. Some of them wore flannel. But all of them carried more than Gatorade in their water bottles.  

And thus, we are finally here, The Fourth Annual Poelle Polish Turkey Trot and Gobble Wobble ™ is upon us! (I know, I was such a nice Polish girl before I got a French last name from a Swedish Husband. New math strikes again.)One of these years I am going to make collectable t-shirts. I think they would feature a Turkey wearing flannel Diane VonFurstenberg  and clutching a Cosmorita. That would pretty much sum everybody up in one look.

The rules are fairly straightforward. All you have to do is start walking/jogging at one place and then 3.2 miles later, you take a photo and send it in. If 3.2 miles later you are on your third rum toddy, who cares? As long as you wobble over the finish line you are still a competitor.

Because ain’t that just the truth? I was in California for a mystery writers conference this last weekend and in one of my panels I was blathering away about researching the right agent for you or whatever and then I just stopped and said, “Wait, before you do any of that, you MUST do something first. When you type the last sentence of your novel, even if it is a burnt-around-the-edges-raw-in-the-middle draft, you need to celebrate that victory! You wrote a book! You crossed the finish line! Everybody gets a medal at the finish line!”

In fact, take it one step further, I think you should go out and buy yourself a gift and WRAP it up and put it in your writing room. It will be a great carrot on the stick and then when you type that last page you can bust into it like me hitting the green beans and cream of mushroom on Thursday. (And wow, that is just total carnage.)

Okay, everyone, have a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

I’ll see you at the finish line.

This Is Not A Political Blog

Jeff Cohen

I honestly don't understand why anyone wants to read Sarah Palin's book.

Now, this is not a political blog, and I'm not making a political statement, although my sensibility is surely somewhat to the left of Ms. Palin, and that's all I'll volunteer right now. What I'm saying here is, why does anybody want to read that book? 

If Joe Biden wrote a book (which he did), I wouldn't want to read it. President Obama has written TWO books, both of which were bestsellers BEFORE he became president, and I haven't read either one. Someone gave me a copy of Bill Clinton's foot-thick memoir (which covered everything up to 10 years ago), and I think I cracked the cover once. Read about three pages. I don't remember any of it.

I just don't get the fascination. What is the politician going to tell you that you couldn't have figured out if you read the newspaper while they were doing the stuff they're writing about. The inside story? Seriously? You think you're going to get that from anyone who thinks they might have any kind of a future in Washington?

Frankly, I don't care that much for autobiographies. Most of the ones I've read have suffered from the fact that the writer might have been just a tad biased toward the subject's point of view, and certain thorny details might have been, let's say, smoothed over a bit. 

The only autobiography I recall really enjoying is Harpo Speaks, and that's mostly because 1. the subject really didn't write his own book and 2. no one ever believed a story the Marx Brothers told, as they were given to... embellishment. Highly entertaining.

The idea that Sarah Palin's memoir shot to the top of the bestseller lists baffles me. Yeah, I have my issues with her aside from the book, but I honestly can't fathom exactly what kind of reading experience the public thinks it's going to get. A sterling, stirring, poetic work of letters? I don't know who the ghostwriter was, but it hardly seems likely. A candid, insightful viewpoint of last year's campaign? From someone who hasn't stopped giving interviews for a 20-minute stretch since the campaign ended? What's left to find out? 

The problem with political memoirs is that all the stories are the same: the subject starts out in the most abject of circumstances (absent/dead parent, crippling poverty, living in Idaho), finds some inspiration from a beloved political figure of the past (John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Louis XVI), turns his/her life around for a lifestyle of service (military, community, fast food) and then gets the Big Break that catapults him/her to political stardom (like the party elders decided to appeal to a new demographic).

What does this all tell us, really? Anything we haven't already heard, didn't already know?

Besides, they're politicians! If there's one thing we should have learned by now it's not to believe a single word one of these weasels tells us!

Frankly, if I want to be lied to, I'd rather read a work of fiction. At least each chapter will end on a cliffhanger.

Whatcha readin'?

So there I was on the subway, enjoying Donna Andrews’ ideas in Swan for the Money about some of the comic possibilities inherent in Belted Tennessee Fainting Goats, when I got a tap on the shoulder.

“Whatcha readin?”

I’ve never wholly understood why reading a book makes you fair game for interruption and other things don’t. Most people wouldn’t dream of walking up to a stranger in a restaurant and tapping the arm lowering the fork to ask what they’re eating. And no, it's not just because of the steak knife in the other hand. People don’t tug on headphones to ask perfect strangers what they’re listening to, although in fairness you rarely have to ask to know the answer. But even when you can’t tell, they still hold back, and not just from the ones who look as if heavy metal is both a musical choice and a preferred method of social interaction.  People on cellphones may voluntarily announce to strangers 3 blocks away who they’re talking to, along with intimate details of their sex lives, but no one latches onto the rare quiet user to demand that information. Nope, there’s something specific to reading that triggers this reaction, at least reading the old fashioned way, from a printed book. One of the rarely mentioned benefits of audiobooks is that they’re completely immune to the whatcha readin' interruption syndrome.

And syndrome it seems to be, a sort of biological imperative, like the one that forces people to stare as they pass an accident scene: see person in public place engrossed in book, MUST interrupt to ask what they’re reading—resistance is futile  It’s not just a matter of curiosity, because the really weird thing is that most of the time the person asking doesn’t want to know the details. They just see someone reading and need to ask until they get a response… preferably a very short response, which makes a gentle whoosh as it goes out the other ear.  Offer more than a title and maybe an author in reply, and you get either that “what have I done now” panicky look in response or eyes glazing over faster than a hot doughnut dipped in sugar syrup. It’s a reverse psychology technique I’ve often wished would work half so well on others of life’s chronic interruptions, like telemarketers or the man with all the religious tracts prowling the subway station, but sadly it just seems to encourage them.

Don’t get me wrong. I love talking with people about books and if I’m reading something good, can’t share it with enough people. Even if it’s not so good, or good but just not to my taste, I’m still curious to hear what others think. I wouldn’t review books or be here talking about them otherwise. And I certainly wouldn’t know about the panicky / glazed response if I hadn’t tried to play the game. But that’s the problem. This doesn’t seem to be about books, except books as a sort of fair game marker, and the ones who would be interested in talking about the book never seem to be the ones asking. So I don’t mind answering, but I just don’t get it.

Still, I may have found the perfect response, completely by accident. As an unabashed geek, I’m fond of the User Friendly comic strip set in tech support at an ISP. And was enjoying one of their collections on the subway another day (yes, there's a pattern here—I find books that pique my sense of humor a good idea when dealing with public transportation) when the inevitable happened.

"Pssst. Whatcha readin'?"

I didn’t look up or say a word, continuing to cackle at the contents as I lifted the book so the cover could be read: Evil Geniuses in a Nutshell: A User Friendly Guide to World Domination.  No one bothered me the rest of the trip home, and in fact I found myself with some extra room to stretch out.  I’m thinking of making copies to use as bookcovers on all future public reading.

Top Ten reads 2009

Robin Agnew

As Thanksgiving draws closer,everyone starts thinking about their "top 10" list, I think, and it's nice to have a holiday shopping or reading guide in any case.  This year I had eleven picks, and my honorable mention list was a long one - lots of good reading this year.  I've already read an ARC of a book due in March that will almost definitely be on this list NEXT year.  That's the way to start a year of reading!  In alphabetical order, this year's picks:

Bury Me Deep, Megan Abbott.  As far as I'm concerned, a Megan Abbott book is an event - the originality of her writing and the way she puts a spell on you as you read are impossible things to miss.  This year's entry focuses on the real life "Trunk Murderess", Winnie Ruth Judd, with Abbott positing her own solution to the crime.  She's the definition of modern noir.

Awakening, S. J. Bolton.  My book club LOVED her first novel, Sacrifice, and this one is even better - it's tighter and more smoothly written.  This is an amazingly original book about a tiny british village overrun by snakes.  Using folklore and superstition to help form her story, Bolton also puts one of my favorite characters of the year at the center of things, disfigured vet Clara, a recluse, and as it happens, reptile expert, who has to come out of hiding more or less to help figure out what's going on.  Belive me when I tell you that Clara might figure things out but you'll have no idea what's going to happen, and what's better than that?

The Last Child, John Hart.  This is one of those early in the year reads that I remembered and loved at the end of the year.  Hart's novel about 13 year old Johnny Merrimon, who is looking all over town for his missing sister on his beat up bike, is haunting.  Johnny is a wonderful character, and Hart's prose and use of metaphor give the book real resonance.  A wonderful read.

Heaven's Keep, William Kent Krueger.  Krueger's elegy for Cork's missing and presumed dead wife, Jo, is of a piece with all the rest of the series, and seems to complete an emotional arc for Cork, who tries in vain to find Jo with his now thirteen year old son Stephen.  As always Krueger's lovely writing and emotionally complex characters are spectacular.  While it's not essential to have read the rest of the series to enjoy this one, you'll get more form it if you have.

The Brutal Telling, Louise Penny.  It's almost unfair - Penny produced not one, but two, terrific books this year.  This one takes Gamache back to the tiny village of Three Pines to try and discover who left a body in the Bistro, and more importantly, who that body belongs to.  The great thing about Louise Penny's books is that while she uses to great effect all the tricks of the traditional mystery, she's added depth of character and resonance of place to  make her books totally memorable.  I can't tell you how many customers have told me they wish they could live in Three Pines.  Me too.

The Shanghai Moon, S.J. Rozan.  This is a fabulous book - the story set in the present and in the past has Lydia looking for some long missing jewels in the present.  Meanwhile she's reading the long ago letters of Rosalie Gilder, a Jewish refugee who fled to Shanghai with her brother during WWII, one of two places on the planet where Jews were free to go.  Rosalie was one of my favorite characters of the year - she's a heartbreaker - and Rozan is able to tell a complicated story and make it look easy.  What a master.

Last Known Address, Theresa Schwegel.  As far as I'm concerned, Theresa Schwegel just keeps getting better, and this first person, present tense story of a Chicago cop looking for a serial rapist is absolutely chilling.  Schwegel is far from a sentimental writer but if this story doesn't get you in some emotional place while you're reading, there's something wrong.  This is the definition of a good police book, and Schwegel seems to have a gift for telling stories about the way people can hurt each other, emotionally and otherwise.  Not to be missed.

Murder of a Royal Pain, Denise Swanson.  I've always enjoyed Denise Swanson's books and have read every one of them - she's also a frequent visitor to the store.  What was great about this book was that she's eleven books into her series, and to me it was her best book yet.  School psycholgist Skye Dennison comes up against two adversaries: the school's prom committee, and a new assistant who seems too good to be true.  Swanson makes this light balance of humor, character and a great story all look easy. 

A Duty to the Dead, Charles Todd.  While this may seem a little familiar - Bess Crawford is a WWI nurse - the Todds, masters of both the "hook" and of character development - are so good that this story could be set in almost any time period and be just as compelling, because at the end it's all about character.  The dysfunctional family in this one is hard to forget, and when you finish you'll definitely want to read more about Bess.

Liars Anonymous, Louise Ure.  As I read this novel in ARC form, I dog eared so many pages because of the beautiful and memorable language that I went back when I was finished to read certain sentances a second time.  Here's a favorite:  "I missed my friend Catherine like she was a country I could no longer visit."  The story is good too - recently released from prison, Jessie Dancing works for an OnStar type company, and she overhears a far away crime, which she then reluctantly solves.  This is a talented and original writer, not to be missed.

The last book falls into the "discovery" category, because while I liked it, what I liked even more was that it was set in Michigan.

Starvation Lake, Bryan Gruley.  This look at small town politics, journalism, hockey and buried secrets is a potent and memorable mix.  The hockey scenes are believably brutal, the prose is lovely, and the story is complicated and memorably creepy.  A terrific debut novel.

And our "honorable mention" list:  All the Colors of Darkness, Peter Robinson; The Way Home, George Pelacanos; The Forgery of Venus, Michael Gruber (not released this year but i LOVED it); Tears of Pearl, Tasha Alexander; and Scary Stuff, Sharon Fiffer.

Get reading - and Happy Thanksgiving!

Writing Rights

Gordon Aalborg

Authors are very strange folk indeed. I can say that because I am one.

But some are stranger -- by far -- than most, and therein lies a tale.

An author [who shall remain nameless] of my acquaintance had a book published with a publisher [who shall remain nameless] of my acquaintance in JULY. [Note the date, please; it is relevant] Not the author's first book, by any means, but the first with this particular publisher.

And the ink was barely dry when this author, for reasons I cannot begin to comprehend, not only stuck up an $8.99 version of the book on Kindle, but then went on to put -- and promote the hell out of -- a FREE version of the book on the author's website. The author did this--it had nothing to do with the publisher.

Which leaves us, gentle reader, with an author giving away a free version of his/her own book to compete with an $8.99 Kindle version, to compete with the $20+ hardcover version that the author's *new* publisher is trying to sell!

Let it be clear: the author hadn't sold the ebook rights, much less the *give it away for free* rights, so the author broke no laws except perhaps the law of simple common sense. But still ...

It sounds to me like a lesson plan for "HOW TO SHOOT YOURSELF IN THE FOOT - FOR DUMMIES," or "HOW TO ALIENATE YOUR NEW PUBLISHER IN ONE EASY LESSON."

But another element of the woeful tale is that it illustrates how pervasive/persuasive modern technology hath become, and how much more complicated the *business* of writing has become. 

All sorts of authors are busy putting up their backlists on Kindle, for example ... or trying to ... and running into all manner of complications with regards to the various rights which may or may not have been tied up in their original contracts, and it gets even more tricky for books existing in print under contracts that never involved ebook rights at all.

And then there is the COVER issue, because it seems many, many authors who scream blue murder about *their* rights seem only too happy to ignore the fact that COVER ARTISTS have rights too! Not only that, but many cover artists KNOW their rights, and have farmed them out in myriads of complicated contracts that ultimately affect the authors who think [often erroneously] that the author owns the rights to the author's book cover. Often -- VERY OFTEN -- the author does not!

Which gets tricky indeed if an author plans to put up a book on Kindle or some other ebook medium using a cover paid for by the publisher, under contract with the cover artist, and for which specific rights for the cover illustration might be involved. Sometimes, indeed, authors are rightly expected to pay for covers they think they already own!

Another reason you should have an agent

Sometimes when I'm working on a manuscript, there will be something little bothering me, but I can't quite put my finger on it. I'll highlight sections of text, or add a comment in the margin to the effect of "Huh." or "Really?" or just a simple "?"

On subsequent reads, I'll see those notes and think, "Now what the hell is it that isn't sitting right with me here? What do I want this to be that it isn't?"

And I'll think more about it while I make myself a plate of nachos for lunch, or take a break to pet the cats, or shut down my computer for the evening to watch a movie. (I just got the new Star Trek [warning, that link has sound], and I can confidently say that my week has been vastly enhanced by its viewing.)

Usually, after much deliberation, I'm able to distill whatever that not-pleased feeling is into an actionable editorial suggestion. Like, "You know, this restaurant scene was really bothering me, and I couldn't figure out why until I realized that your main character is smoking while he eats his pie, and there's no way this guy, who is so anal retentive and particular about his life that he makes his wife shower before they're intimate, there's no way he'd smoke while eating. He'd make a big thing of finishing the pie and THEN lighting up." Or, "Look, I understand that you want to show that your tough-as-nails female assassin has a heart somewhere in her ample-bosomed chest, and I think that her buying her goddaughter a Christmas gift is a neat, cute little way to hint at her inner softie, but there's no way that Jasmine Bond would buy her goddaughter a Malibu Barbie, because Jasmine's whole MO is about subverting the hegemony, learning to survive and adapt, and encouraging non-gendered thought, so how about a Swiss army knife and a blank journal, instead?"

But sometimes ... sometimes I can't quite put my finger on what it is that isn't working. And in those times, it is a wonderful thing to be able to call up the author's agent and say, "Ok, Chapter 7, what do you make of it?"

I know, I know, you're probably thinking, "Too many cooks! My manuscript is not a large kitchen!" but hear me out: Your agent and your editor are not trying to change your intent, or monkey with your book to make it more theirs than yours. We're trying to help you distill your meaning and your essence, we're trying to make sure everything is consistent in your characters' world, we're here to help. And sometimes, a conversation about a vague feeling that something isn't working is exactly what the doctor ordered.

I can't always tell what it is that's bugging me -- but in collaboration with someone else who is familiar with the world of the book, but is not that world's creator, I'm able to suss out my feelings, crystalize my gripes, and determine whether or not they're worth including in my editorial notes.

A good agent not only provides authorial support, but also editorial support when needed. I'm fortunate to work with lots of good agents, and I'm glad every time that my authors have such smart, funny, and insightful people advocating for them and their work.

A good innings

A good innings

 

Have you noticed how life seems to go in phases?

 

In our twenties we get invited to engagement parties and weddings; in our thirties it’s christenings and naming ceremonies. Then there’s a lull until the kids graduate; or maybe it’s a different kind of phase which entails ferrying them to their friends’ revels, right up to eighteenth birthdays, after which with luck they can transport themselves.

 

And then it’s funerals.

 

His name was Emanuel, and in June this year I attended his hundredth birthday party. Reaching that grand and venerable age was the latest – though not the last – in a series of small ambitions. I knew him for nearly eleven of those years, ever since he approached the appraisal service I ran – still run, in a small way – in one of my lives before Crème de la Crime.

 

He had written a collection of short stories, and he wanted advice on where to send them with a view to publication – the first of those ambitions in which I played a part. I looked them over, marvelled at the quality of the writing, and pondered for several hours how to tell him, tactfully and diplomatically, that for the kind of whimsical, lighthearted story he was clearly good at, the market had dried up about thirty years earlier.

 

He took it in good part, but still yearned to see his words in print, even if he had to pay for the privilege. I’m no great fan of self-publishing, but at least doing it himself meant he wouldn’t be ripped off by a vanity press, so I agreed to help, and a hundred copies of a slim volume duly landed on his doorstep.

 

It seemed to open up something in him. Over the next few years he produced poetry by the ream, three plays and a dozen or so more stories, all in a similar quirky vein. None of it was in tune with late 20^th/early 21^st century taste, but he found an outlet for the poems with the International Library of Poetry – and five years ago, at the age of 95, he travelled outside the UK for the first time to attend their annual convention in Washington DC, at which he was feted and applauded.

 

We met from time to time, sometimes when I was in London for another purpose and had a couple of hours to fill, other times for his birthday parties; he felt each year after his 90^th was worth marking, and his neighbours and relations (a dwindling group – he outlived most of them) pulled out a few stops to make the occasions special. I also invited him to several events I was involved in, and he was as pleased as Punch to take part in what he called ‘literary occasions’.

 

When I set up Crème de la Crime in 2003, his enthusiasm was positively boyish. He wanted to buy shares (not practical, alas), and took an active interest in the enterprise right from the start.

 

His final big venture, three years ago, was his autobiography. His writing was always grammatically precise, well-constructed and fluent – but by then he stood in need of an editor to deal with repetitions and things in the wrong order; we had become good friends, and I was glad to perform that task for him, along with finding a printer to produce a hundred copies. It was another slim volume, and the life it portrayed was nothing out of the ordinary, but it was packed with anecdotes and details which charted a lot of changes in the way the world worked over almost a century.

 

I was last in touch with him about a month before he died; he had asked me to arrange for his short story collection to be reprinted in large, black type as an aid for his failing eyesight. Some of his almost as elderly neighbours had expressed an interest in his writing, and he was planning to invite them to form a reading group. But he was growing increasingly frail; the large-print copies happened, but the years caught up with him before the reading group got under way.

 

I didn’t get to his funeral: a tedious saga of car breakdown, and a source of great regret, but I have the books we worked on together, which are the best possible legacy. I’ll miss him – but to say he had a good innings is this week’s prize understatement.

Going Brogue

by Barbara Poelle

Just got back from New England Crime Bake and have a three day turnaround before I am off to Cali for a Mystery Writer Intensive. A lot of corpses for a little girl, I know.

With the body count on the rise every day, I realized recently that I have taken a step back from selling romance as I have focused on the mysteries and thrillers. I mean, of course, nothin’ says lovin' like Somali pirates, right?  But I think I am going to leap back into the Fabio fray in the coming months. Bring on the bekilted!

I loves me a glass of wine and a bubbly bathtub and a delicious mass market romance.  The first romance I ever read was Julie Garwood’s Guardian Angel and it is still one of my top favorites of all time. In the last four months or so that there hasn’t been a romance tucked into my purse next to my ereader. It’s kind of an odd feeling.   

BUT! Don’t get me wrong, I still loves me some explosions and things devouring humans, but maybe there can be some faces kissing as well as screaming. I am not the best advocate of the Reese’s genre fiction, you know, “Hey! Your romance ran into my thriller!” “Hey! Your thriller ran into my romance!”  I personally approach my manuscripts the way my sister approached every meal from the ages of 2 to 22: I don’t like anything touching.  I like my thrillers to read as thrillers, my mysteries like mysteries, and my romances as romances. Maybe I should start allowing a few peas to start rolling in the mashed potatoes. Get a little suspense in my parlors. Try a little intrigue in my moors. Throw an explosion into my castles. Yeah, I think I will.

I only do historical romances as let’s face it, I am a Bruckheimer and Bud Light kinda chick, so I don’t really “get” the contemporary stuff. But the world building in historicals are just phenomenal. Furthermore, as we are all well aware, I may not be the IDEAL candidate to nominate for romantic wife of the year. I taunt when he’s broken, I order in when we have a working kitchen (I’ve been told), I contemplate leaving raw sewage on the floor for him to deal with. But for whatever reason, Husband is still allowing me to hang around. But hey, who can define love?

Wait, maybe Husband can. I asked him after one recent spectacular debacle why he’s still all in, and he said “It’s like living with a cartoon”.  Well, okay! Bring on the armpit noises and anvils! Hey, one man’s hospital visit is another man’s romance.

Alright, I am off to pack yet another overnight bag…EVER ONWARD!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stephen King Is 4.38 Times Better Than Me

Jeff Cohen

Stephen King released his latest novel (it's his 793rd, I think), Under the Dome, last week. In fact, he did so on my daughter's 17th birthday, although I'm relatively sure the timing was coincidental. But it's not so much the book--which reportedly is about a town encased in a glass dome much like Springfield was in The Simpsons Movie--that I found astounding. 

What caught my attention was the ability, finally, to quantify the difference between myself and Stephen King. While we work in entirely different genres (he tries to scare the pants off you while I try to get you to wet your pants with laughter), we share--at least on the top line of our 1040 forms--the same job. We're writers.

So there's always a certain unspoken (and from Mr. King's position, completely unnoticed) competition between us. Don't get me wrong; I don't EVER expect to get within 0.01% of Stephen King's sales. He's a household name, and I barely manage that in my own house. So this is not sour grapes on my part. Instead, it gives me the opportunity to figure out exactly how the industry sees me vs. its most valuable asset this side of the factory that calls itself James Patterson.

Let's make this clear--Under the Dome, in hardcover, has a list price of $35. 

My two most recent books, including A Night at the Operation, published in April, came out in paperback, with a list price of $7.99.

That means in industry terms, Stephen King is 4.38 times better than I am.

Initially, I found this information comforting. I would have thought Stephen King was at least 4.38-MILLION times better than me in the publishing business' eyes. So either I'm doing a far sight better than I thought, or Stephen King has a lot to worry about.

On the other hand, the idea that his book would therefore have to be published with a list price of $35-million each brought me back down to earth. These are tough times, and not that many people have that kind of scratch lying around to throw away on a few hours (okay, a LOT of hours) reading. Hell, for $35-million, you could probably buy yourself a LIBRARY. Stephen King is popular, but not THAT popular.

So what can I glean from this fascinating information? Well, at least we can compare statistics. Mr. King's latest comes in at a hair under 1,100 pages. Operation has 290 pages. So, with the help of a calculator, we can decide that those who buy Under the Dome are paying about 3.2 cents per page, while those who pick up my book are paying about 2.7 cents per page. So I'm a bargain even straight up.

I haven't a clue what that means, but I've got more: Operation comes in at about 1/900,000 of a cent per word. Now, I have no idea how many words are included in Under the Dome, but if we extrapolate based on the number of pages (and why not--what else have we got to do today?), we can assume King's book will set you back about 1/10,000 of a cent per word.

Clearly, I have the edge there, too.

Not to mention: You can bet the farm Mr. King's book will eventually show up in some other form, most likely as a feature film or a TV miniseries (or, for a 1088-page book, a maxi-series). It's already out there as an audiobook. We're both available for Kindle and other e-book formats, so that's a wash.

But think about it--you'll get to see Stephen King's new work somehow, even if you don't buy the book! Mine? Holding your breath would be ill-advised.

I think it's obvious, now, that while Stephen King is (at least) 4.38-times better than I am, my books are quite certainly the better bargains. Besides, surely he can already afford to send his kids to college (given especially that one of them is now selling bestselling books of his own). Me? So far, we're squeaking by, but you can rest assured that the purchase of one of my novels can be seen as a contribution to higher education in America.

So there's no contest, really. My book at $7.99 is a better bargain and a better moral act than buying Stephen King's latest. Go for it.

And I was all set to hit "save" on that. Then I went ahead and checked the Amazon page for Stephen King's Under the Dome.

They're discounting it to $17.50.

Damn.

So, uh, now you can afford his book AND two of mine!

Cozy vs Traditional

Kim Malo

You know how sometimes the same topic pops up out of the blue in a bunch of different places, as if there’s a subject flu on the loose, infecting conversations all over. Genre has been the theme of late, with cozy vs traditional mystery the popular variant that's right up my alley.

The "what is a cozy vs traditional mystery" question first came up from someone complaining that they couldn’t find any consensus about the answer. The reason for this would be that there really isn’t any.

Some use the terms interchangeably, and some of those you  can virtually hear spit out the cozy label as a sort of pejorative indicating insubstantial, painfully sugary fluff—the cotton candy of the mystery world. It clearly makes their teeth ache and gives them mental indigestion just to think about it. What consensus there might once have been has been hurt by a broadbased shift in where the dividing line belongs, with cozy edging closer to the stereotype behind the pejorative, only without the spitting.  Agatha Christie was once considered the epitome of cozy, and some still think that, but for many others she's now the classic traditional mystery author.

Me, I’m a certifiable mystery wimp, someone who has as little interest in getting into the cracked head and black heart of a psycho killer as I do in dodging bullets and spurting blood through the shadows of darkly dangerous mean streets. In other words, I’m the cozy / traditional target audience, one of those who cares about the difference. While as a reviewer I think one of my jobs is to flag the things that help a reader fit the book I'm talking about into their personal genre universe. Which means having some grasp of what those things are likely to be.

I usually save the cozy label for books closest to the pejorative stereotype, or those in a subcategory that has all but taken over the modern cozy. The former are the books too light and fluffy even for me, like Nancy Atherton’s Aunt Dimity series. The latter includes things like Laura Childs' Tea Shop and Scrapbooking books—series “packaged” around a cozy hobby / craft, cozy profession such as pet sitter, or cozy specialty shop. The writing and storytelling are't always notably fluffy or cutesy,  but having the cozy hook at their core keeps them compartmentalized there. I'll admit to not being crazy about the way these sorts of series dominate the genre. It creates an impression that having such a marketing package is at least as important to the publisher as the things I care about—good writing telling an interesting story.

Traditional mysteries, like cozies, sit at the limited gore and violence end of the spectrum, with people and relationships still central to the story, but the feel is more real world. There’s an idealized, almost fantasy world element to the real cozies, based in a secure feeling that even though the stories involve a murder or two, it really is a good world where bad things are pretty much limited to bad people and things will always come out right in the end for the good ones. That real world vs "cozy world" feel is probably the key difference between the two genres for me. Traditional mysteries don’t dwell on grim and gore much more than cozies do, but it’s still generally recognized as part of the world they live in. They can still be funny and even light in some ways, but they're never actively cutesy or fluffy.

Traditional mysteries have one gray area that cozies generally don't, involving the sort of sleuth. I used to think that both meant an amateur, since professional detectives had their own genres. But authors like Louise Penny, whose protagonist is a police officer, tell stories built around events and relationships outside the precinct that just have more in common with traditional mysteries than classic police procedurals. So traditional she is.

Fortunately I have her latest, The Brutal Telling, here to read in case I want to think some more about that. It's a tough job, but as they say, someone has to do it.

A Pleasant Sunday Afternoon

Robin Agnew

Usually, I don't schedule signings on Sundays (except Mother's Day - go figure.  My kids think what Mothers do on Mother's Day is set up & run an event and then go out with a bunch of authors for a beer.)  But really, Sunday signings have a whole different ambience.  There's something more languid and relaxed about them, for some reason.

This past Sunday, we hosted two of my favorite Chicagoans, Libby Hellman and Sharon Fiffer, both (coincidentally) on book 6.  We had to finagle the date as both women are busy, but finally settled on Sunday, November 8.  There was some confusion over the time as I was a little too relaxed, and posted different times in the newsletter and on the postcards I mail out.  However - it was a Sunday.  Relax.

I got to the store around 12:15 or so, to find our loyal employee busily vacuuming (my husband has recently cleared a few fresh inches of floor space, which is always exciting and won't last, so we have to gather our rosebuds etc.  Hence the vacuum).  I hastily re-lettered our outdoor easel sign with Libby & Sharon's names and the time (was it the right one? who can say) and set it out on the sidewalk.  Then Marty (loyal employee) and I got to work moving our handy bookshelves on wheels.  I love the wheels, but anything full of books is heavy...

Anyway we cleared some more floor space for the event in this manner (more vacuuming required) and I set out the books, or product, as I call the things when I'm cranky.  (Like when Loren Estleman signs and I'm trying to squeeze many of the 60+ titles he has written on one friggin' table).

I hustled (well, I didn't hustle - it was Sunday!) across the street to buy a couple of bottles of water for the ladies and ran into Libby parking her car, so we were able to chit chat and have tea at the same time, while she told me about her next book, which sounds terrific.  Libby and I - I have to say it - lingered, but we finally ambled back across the street, to find a slightly annoyed reporter from the Ann Arbor Journal who figured that the event had started at 1:30.  But as it worked out - Sunday mojo - she was able to sit and interview the authors before their talk.  And said reporter, the lovely Lisa Allmendinger, wrote up a great story and even took photos.

And did I mention the nice thing about Sharon Fiffer, aside from her general niceness and intelligence?  She has a HUGE family in the area, many of whom attended.  So they hung on her every word and bought books.  I love people with big families (Marcus Sakey is another such wonder).  All told we had a lovely afternoon - Libby and Sharon were more than entertaining, we sold a respectable number of books, and everyone seemed pleased.

After Marty & I moved back the shelves filled with heavy "product" I was free to leave.  As I was walking out the door, a customer asked, "Where are you going?"  Why, to enjoy my Sunday, of course...there were some leaves in the backyard with my name on them.

This milk is SPOILED!

So: spoilers. What do you think of them?

No, not the car kind. The tv, movie, and book kind. The kind where you're standing around waiting for a bus, and the couple next to you is talking about last night's episode of Battlestar Galactica, and you slam your hands over your ears and start screaming "LA LA LA LA" at the top of your lungs because you haven't seen it yet and you can't possibly be anywhere near a place where you might accidentally overhear something which will subsequently ruin one of the moments of big surprise in the show where the music gets all percussive and then it cuts to commercial.

I'm asking because I've recently read three different viewpoints on spoilers, specifically with regard to television (specifically with regard to Mad Men, in fact). This one says that the airing of an episode means that spoilers no longer exist -- that spoilers only count as spoilers pre-broadcast. This one argues that it's best to label discussion and articles with "spoiler alert" so that readers can choose to avoid the article if they're behind. This one says labeling every spoiler is impossible, because the die hard definition of spoilers would mean articles would contain no real content discussion, just paragraphs upon paragraphs of vague warnings.

This discussion is focused pretty solely on television, but like with all things, it made me think about books.

Obviously, books don't have an "air date." There really isn't a given time (Thursdays at 8EST!) when everyone is sitting at home reading the latest Laura Lippman. (With the notable exception of the 8-12 hours immediately following the release of a Harry Potter book.) Book clubs *kindof* do that, in that they are a group of people reading a book simultaneously, weekly or monthly. But still, throughout the course of a month, every member of a single book club will likely be on a different page of the book at any given moment. Reading is a singular activity (unless you're reading out loud to someone), and tv and movies are communal activities (um, usually).

Wow, there were a lot of conditionals in that paragraph.

So anyway, how does the book world treat spoilers? It seems unfair to choose an arbitrary expiration date, after which readers can assume that everyone has read a certain book, and therefore loud discussions of the book's ending are acceptable in public settings. On the other hand, there has to be an allowance for discourse -- I mean, do we need to watch what we say about Of Mice And Men? Because Loony Tunes cartoons pretty heavily imply the course of that book, if you ask me.

Is it assumed we can talk about it, because it's assigned in so many high school lit classes?

I once made a joke en route to see a show called Topdog/Underdog by Suzan Lori-Parks, and my best friend, who was attending the show with me but hadn't read the script beforehand (I had to, for class), took umbrage. Here's what I said:

"Ok, we're going to see a play called Topdog/Underdog. There are two characters. They're named Lincoln and Booth. GUESS WHAT HAPPENS!"

Obviously, I am hilarious. And my bff appreciated that -- and she's smart enough that she would have come to the same conclusion herself, once she was seated and saw the program -- but she was excited to be on her way to the theater to see something she knew nothing about. And I spoiled it!

(There are some more tales of this-should-not-have-been-a-spoiler hilarity in the comments section on Jezebel, which is where this issue first came to my attention. Romeo and Juliet? Really?)

I don't envy crime fiction reviewers, who are tasked with giving their opinion of a novel. It can be hard to talk about why you loved or hated a book without giving away a particularly juicy twist or flat bit of character development. Even as a flap copy/web copy/catalog copy/etc writer, I face that challenge. How do I get you to want to read the book without giving too much away?

Another interesting viewpoint is that some folks find spoilers comforting. Like in this kindof way: I will be TOO ANXIOUS reading these TENSE SCENES unless I know that the heroine survives! I can understand that, though I mostly prefer to be surprised. An offshoot of this viewpoint is the trigger warning, where if I see a friend who I know has recently lost a dog reading Old Yeller for the first time, I will probably try to tactfully ask her if she knows what she's in for.

As a general rule, I try to avoid spoiling things for people. It can be difficult. (For instance, I just found out that my bf has not seen The Sixth Sense. I found this out while attempting to explain why I was laughing so hard at a joke on 30 Rock, which is only funny if you've seen the movie. Rest assured, TSS is now on my Netflix queue for him.)

I also prefer that things not be spoiled for me. I'm willing to take on a lot of the burden, there, and avoid reading anything about a show until I'm caught up. I tend to trust my friends and family implicitly, and so when given a book or movie recommendation, I don't need them to tell me much about it to inspire me to see for myself, so I rarely encounter friends and family spoilers. (See: my recent viewing of The Incident at Loch Ness, about which my bff said, "Don't read ANYTHING about it, just trust me, put it on your Netflix, watch it, and then watch it again right after with the comments turned on, and then call me. You'll love it." [She was right.]) However, I do expect some courtesy and consideration from news sources and strangers when it comes to big-twist, popular stuff. I don't want *all* the burden to be on me to sequester myself until I'm caught up on whatever it is that everyone is talking about. I don't want implied spoilers in headlines, or in articles about different shows/movies/books.

But where do you stand? Do you find our culture has moved to be too spoiler-heavy? When do you think that we can start talking about a book as if we assume everyone is familiar with it? Once it's been out for a year? Once the author has been on Craig Ferguson? Once it's taught in at least 7 freshman-level college courses?

What's a plot twist's expiration date?

Trusting the nanny

I’ve probably said this before; in fact, I know I said it last Tuesday evening and the previous Thursday, because it was written into the notes I made when I went to give a couple of talks. But it’s a neat little soundbite, not to mention as true a description as I can offer, so I’ll say it again.

 

An editor’s job is to ensure that the book that gets published is the one the author thought s/he had written.

 

(Hey, guess how I’ve spent the past few days! If anyone had time or inclination, they could draw a map of my working life from these blog posts…)

 

Yes, folks, I’ve been nose-to-keyboard at work on our first 2010 title, and I’ve just come up for air. And I’m not grumbling one little bit about all the hours I’ve put in, or misplaced apostrophes, or any of the other little niggles that mar my perfect days. Some books are up there with good coffee ice cream and Green & Black’s chocolate in my great scheme of things: among life’s pleasures.

 

Shameless plug coming right up: It’s called The Broken Token; the author is Chris Nickson, a Yorkshireman who came back to the UK a few years ago after 30+ years in Seattle, so he has connections both sides of the pond. It’s another foray into the darker side of the 18^th century, which seems to be becoming a historical speciality of ours, though not by conscious design – and I love it to bits. When I first read it I was put in mind of C J Sansom’s gloriously rich evocation of Tudor England in his Shardlake series – and that guy has won awards and made the top ten best sellers, and is regarded as one of the UK’s top historical crime writers; my fingers are firmly crossed, and if there’s any justice... You’ll have wait till next year, but feel free to wait with bated breath. It’s worth it.

 

The best thing was that it was a dream to edit. The guy even used double inverted commas for his dialogue – our choice for house style, but not exactly common these days – and put the apostrophes the right way round when they indicated an abbreviated word.

 

Don’t laugh. Don’t even sigh. These things matter, and they don’t happen by magic or technology. And it’s the editor’s job to make sure everything conforms to house style, however fiddly and time-consuming the manuscript amendments are.

 

But best of all, we found we were on the same wavelength when it came to the little tweaks and adjustments which turn a good manuscript into a superb novel. There was, as there always is, a certain amount of this doesn’t quite link up, and what was he actually feeling at this point? (sorry to appear sexist, but I find male crime writers have a tendency to be economical with emotion!), and a handful of words which came up too often, and the odd viewpoint glitch, a particular bugbear of mine.

 

The problem is that the author gets too close, too involved; it’s kind of an extension of the old chestnut that you never see your own typos – and like clichés, old chestnuts only live to be old because they’re true.

 

The secret of good author/editor relations lies mainly with the author. I’ve encountered one or two who are so protective of their babies that the most tactful suggestion is interpreted as a suggestion that the little brat is as ugly as sin, and if they hand it over to the nanny to be freshened up, she'll teach it all kinds of bad habit.

 

But if you can’t trust your nanny, it’s maybe better not to have kids in the first place.

 

The other reaction, the one the nanny – OK, enough with the metaphors: editor – hopes for, is the slapped forehead and why on earth didn’t I see that?  Fortunately that’s what I got this time. Chris not only accepted my suggestions; he picked them up and used them to mend the small flaws so that good as new became better than ever.

 

The result was a novel Crème de la Crime will be proud to invest money and effort in. And that has to be the best reason in the world for becoming a publisher.

Where is the On Switch on a Vacuum?

by Barbara Poelle

So Husband is coming home after doing whatever it is that he does for the last five weeks. Maybe it’s venture capital investing. Maybe it’s another family. Who knows? The fact remains is that unfortunately, whenever he leaves on these extended jaunts, he takes the carpenter, the contractor, the maid, the cook, the laundress, the pastry chef and the plumber with him, so the apartment looks like it has been home to several weeks of bacchanalian revelry.

Umm, which it has.

Top that off with the fact the toilet overflowed late Friday night (and I really and truly had a moment where I considered just shutting the door and having Husband deal with it this week. I mean seriously, it was heinous. Like, what, did the entire building meet up for chimichangas that night?)  and throw in about 5 weeks of takeout containers, and I got myself one heckuva barn burner on my hands.

And perhaps the last few times we’ve spoken I have been less than straightforward about the standard of living around the old abode. There is a slight possibility that Husband is under the impression that the bed has been made once while he’s been gone or that I used the kitchen for more than just blender drinks and shoe storage. But in my defense, our communication has been a bit opaque in our last few exchanges, as one of the last few times we spoke I was also screaming into the phone, “The toilet is overflowing….DO SOMETHING!”

So now I have to spend most of the evening preparing for the return of His Nibs, and by preparing I mean drinking this chardonnay while gazing languidly around the room and then when he calls from the taxi on his way from JFK, I panic and shove a whole bunch of stuff in the oven and under the mattress on my side of the bed.

Listen, he married it.

Anyway, so it is entirely possible that this entry may be a bit shorter than previous ones. But! Many good things happen in shorter versions. For example, I have this client we’ll call Matthew Q. Martin, because that’s his name. MQM pitched to me at Crime Bake last year (awww! It’s our anniversary this weekend!) and although I didn’t sign him out right, for whatever odd reason, we hit it off and became friends. And to add some fangs to the kitten, HE is friends with an editor whom we’ll call Hottie McModelface because, please. Look at her. Anyway, the three of us somehow formed this bizarre triumvirate where we would meet up every few months for booze and bickering. Nobody had signed or sold to anyone, but we still managed to maintain this bastardized version of a functional author team.

 Anyway, MQM has this fabulous 6 word story page on his site (check it out: http://www.matthewquinnmartin.com/SixWordStoriesTestPage.html) and Hottie McModelface and MQM and I spent our last outing spouting our six word stories at each other. Now, Hottie kept counting syllables, like a Haiku, (look at her, she’s so adorable you don’t even CARE) and I was well into martini number 2, but good ol’ MQM came up with my favorite six word story of all time. (It’s kinda cheat-y when you use the title this way, but hey! It’s the title.)

Ahem:
An Editor, An Agent and An Author walk into a Bar

The Bartender says, “This a joke?”

Wheeeeeeee! Isn’t it fun? Can you please oh please write me a 6 word story today?  For inspiration, go take a peek at MQM’s site.

*The final note is I have thrown a curve at our precarious trio by signing Matt, but please. You would have almost hurt yourself getting to the phone after reading the latest. We seem to be doing fine, and my next goal is to sell something to Hottie McModelface just to even out the playing field. And by even out, I mean I win everything.

Have fun! Can’t wait to read!

It Should Happen to You. But Can It?

Jeff Cohen

In 1954, Garson Kanin (Born Yesterday, Adam's Rib) felt that his wife, the actress Ruth Gordon, needed some cheering up (hang on; the relevance will become apparent shortly). And spying an empty billboard in Manhattan, he conceived the notion of having "Ruth Gordon" painted on it, and actually investigated the plan, finally deciding that despite it being relatively affordable, it wasn't a great idea. When told of the plan, Ms. Gordon was emphatic in confirming that her husband had made the correct decision.

But Kanin couldn't let the idea die, so he wrote and directed a film called It Should Happen to You, in which an out-of-work model played by Judy Holliday gets her name painted on billboards around Manhattan, attracting both Jack Lemmon (in his first film) and Peter Lawford (in not). And merry mix-ups ensue from there.

I couldn't help but think of that premise on my weekly drive into Philadelphia last week (sorry, Phillies fans, but the Yankees were just the better team, and by the way, what is a "Phillie"?), as I passed an eye-catching billboard advertising a book by Philadelphia-based author Sara Segal and her mystery novel 

Murder at the Mikvah (if you have to ask, you might not be the target audience for this book, and then again, you might), which was published by iUniverse in February.

Intrigued (because I'd never seen a book billboard before, except maybe one for a "brand name" author like Stephen King or James Patterson, and hardly ever even them. A mystery by an unknown author? A giant outdoor advertising campaign? How did it work? How much did it cost? How effective was it?

(In other words, could I do it?)

I got in touch with Ms. Segal, and asked those questions in a somewhat less self-absorbed fashion. She said that she had a certain advantage, since she has family in the billboard business, but "I have to tell you, the billboard campaign has been instrumental in getting my book publicized. I don't know how I could have generated the interest that I did any other way. Magazine/Newspaper subscriptions are down, the options for advertising online are numerous and hard to sift through; but billboards... hey, most people still get in their cars and drive, right?

"I've been doing book talks for several months now, and without fail, the billboard campaign is always mentioned.  One of the questions I am asked is why more writers (or publishers) don't use the outdoor advertising medium, and the only answer I can give is that their brains are simply used to thinking a certain way, doing business a certain way, and promoting their titles via specific strategies which do not include the use of billboards."

Now, what's affordable to one author with connections in outdoor advertising might not be so affordable to the rest of us. Sara reports that a billboard like hers, on a highway into a major city that she estimates will see 100,000 sightings per day, would be about $2000 a month based on a four-month contract. Not all of us can devote $8,000 to a plan, no matter how successful it might be. 

But the idea of seeing your book advertised in that public a forum (and, let's face it, on that scale) can be irresistible to an aspiring midlist author. "And keep in mind," Sara adds, "unlike a newspaper ad which a reader is not guaranteed to actually see, billboards cannot be missed. Even if you happen to be fiddling with your phone one day on your drive in to work and do miss the ad, no problem-- that 20 x 60 foot message will be waiting for you the next day and the next and the next. To me, it's a no brainer."

It is certainly something to think about. Anybody got an extra eight grand they're not doing anything with?

But enough about me

Kim Malo

Hello, my name is Kim and I (ducks head shyly and scuffs toe in the sand—note to self: MUST vacuum more often) am a mystery fan.

 

It started small, when I was young. Entry books? Oh the usual things for the time. Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Alfred Hitchcock’s Three Investigators… even, yes, Cherry Ames. I liked it, maybe a little too much, but I was sure I could handle it; I could stop anytime.

 

But then someone introduced me to the hard stuff: Ellery Queen, Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham, Delano Ames, Elliot Paul, and more, much more. I was young, we weren’t in Kansas anymore and this was heady stuff, not meant just for kids. In fact, there was a little contretemps with my mother over Ellery Queen, whose paperback covers at the time featured scantily clad women draped around things in mildly suggestive poses. My mother didn’t read mysteries, so there was no convincing her exactly how misleading they were, and I wasn’t going to admit to not being quite sure what the suggestions were supposed to be about (I really was pretty young). But I digress…

 

Anyway, I was in deep, and that was before I started to touch real hardcore stuff… Mickey Spillane, Shell Scott, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett (The Glass Key remains one of the best books I've ever read), John D. and Ross McDonald. This wasn’t just a different world from the one around me, it was a different universe, and I was lost forever exploring it.

 

The really fun part came as I got older and discovered that there were more and more of these mystery universes out there, with more and more people populating them all the time. Historicals are my favorite. I was born with a gypsy’s wanderlust and love the combination they offer of mystery puzzle paired with vicarious travel in place and time. The best give you a real "you are there" feel as they use both the mindset and tools of a different time to tell an intense story.

 

Then I discovered a new kind of fun telling people about the mysteries—what makes this one under-rated, why do you remember this writer days later or only wish you could forget that one within 20 minutes of closing the covers. Why do I recommend this one, while saying it's really not to my taste, or say I like that one but still refer to it as mind candy… not to be despised, but not really very satisfying when you want more.

 

And so I became (scuffs toe again—where DID all this sand come from anyway?—while gulping bravely) a mystery fan AND a reviewer. OK, the dark secret’s out and I look forward to sharing more about it with you. Sharon set quite a standard for me to live up to (Nope, sorry Sharon, not a rugby fan, but LOVE basketball which has its own oddly shaped balls), and I hope you have fun reading while I try.

Dinner Out

Robin Agnew

 

The publishing industry is trying all kinds of new ways to market authors.  One of them, apparently, is to take an as yet unpublished author (book comes out in March) around to meet store owners in different parts of the country.  I was happy to be included in a group that included other strong local and regional independents at a dinner Minotaur threw for newcomer Paul Doiron.

 

The guest list was chosen by the publicist in New York I guess – interesting that neither large chain with a presence here in town was invited.  I was surprised to be included as we are a much smaller operation than either Nicola’s (local independent) or Schuler’s (regional independent).  However, we are the only mystery specific store in the state and the book is a mystery. The author was a very nice guy, very excited and somewhat overwhelmed by the whole thing.

 

It was interesting to talk a bit to the other booksellers.  They have different people that handle each part of their operations – instead of us, where I handle events, publicity, accounts, the book club, the newsletter and web, while my husband does the all buying and most of the day to day operations.  Without his used book expertise we’d be toast.

 

A lot of what they were talking about was much more large scale.  We deal with a couple of publisher’s reps but order much of our stock from Baker & Taylor.  And like a couple other mystery booksellers I can think of, I’ve had a recent epiphany.  And that is: used books and events.

 

The Nicola’s buyer said Agatha Christie doesn’t sell well for them – I said she does for us, used.  I also said we didn’t carry new James Patterson books, again, we only sell them used.  The mark up on used books is much better than the mark up on new books, and they really carry the day. Think about it:  you buy a used book for $.25 or $.50, sell it for $3.50 or $5.50.  Good markup.  A new, $6.99 paperback costs us roughly $4.20.  And we have to sell it twice, really, to make a profit. 

 

And the other part of the equation, which we all shared, are events.  Events can really boost the bottom line but they have to be planned and chosen carefully. Everyone has a story of an odd author pairing or the use of a keg or a pot of coffee or bottle of wine to stimulate sales.  However, you just can’t escape events – nor would I want to.  They’re a part of the business I truly enjoy.

 

Because we are so small, we are bottom feeders (used books) and guerilla marketers.  If my mother happens to meet a famous author at a dog show and convinces him to come to

Ann Arbor

, I’ll take it.  Meeting authors and reaching out to them is both the most and the least I can do.  Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.  But it keeps us in the book biz, and that’s the big thing.  Not only that, but it gets us a free night out.  Thanks, Minotaur!

Goodbye to all this . . .

Sharon Wheeler

It's an appropriate day to be going out with a bang, as it's Fireworks Night in the UK. Knowing me, it'll be more like a damp squib …

You know, I was never going to blog. I'd got too many better things to do, and anyway, why would anyone care about my train being late, or the row I'd had with an annoying colleague, or the fact I'd pitched the latest willy-waving thriller against a wall? But then along came the silver-tongued Jeff Cohen, and I found myself one of the Dead Guy gang.

Over the course of almost three years (erk!), I've tried to stand up for the poor beleaguered reviewer. We're not all mean, nasty creatures who kick defenceless moggies or nick choccie from small children. Most of us care deeply about the genre and review for the love of it.

And I've had a ball ranting about the art of reviewing, self-publishing, BSP, religion, the state of GLBT writing, religion, self-publishing, trains, BSP, genre clichés, religion, sloppy grammar, religion, men with funny-shaped balls …

I did talk about crime fiction some of the time, honest! And I detect a thread in my blogs when it comes to my affection for European crime fic, small indie presses and my guilty pleasure in the form of a pristine Dick Francis novel just waiting for me to wallow.

It's time now, though, for me to take a break and concentrate on my new adventures – a PhD in modern British drama, a playwriting course and a new journalism book for Routledge. And I'll still be reviewing and acting as editor-in-chief for RTE. So I won't be giving up writing any time soon …

It's time now for me to hand over to the lovely Kim Malo, who a lot of you will know through her reviews and the excellent Crime Thru Time site. I know I'm leaving you in good hands, even if I don't think she's a rugby fan! Thanks to all my fabulous Dead Guy blog mates, past and present, and to everyone who's read my ramblings and taken the trouble to comment. I've promised Jeff that I'll still be available for weddings, bar mitzvahs and when someone sneaks off on their hols ('blogger emeritus' sounds sooooo sophisticated!), so it won't be goodbye for good …

Ten reasons publishers don't offer feedback on submissions

That should read MOST publishers, since at the moment we offer a pretty substantial report, if the author asks for it and pays us a very modest fee. To my knowledge, we’re the only publisher in the UK who offers a paid-for feedback service.

 

And probably MOST submissions too, since one which is currently lying on my desk came with copies of half-page rejection letters from three editors. Creative writing tutors are keen to point out the different ‘levels’ of rejection: printed rejection slip, printed rejection slip with brief note from editor, individual letter from editor, individual letter from editor inviting further submissions, individual letter from editor with feedback (always brief) explaining why manuscript almost made it but still is being rejected. I don’t count exchange of letters with editor culminating in ‘sorry, I lost the vote in the commissioning meeting’ – that one’s too heartbreaking.

 

But mostly publishers don’t give feedback. Here’s why Crème de la Crime is giving some serious thought to dropping its unique paid-for service.

 

1.  The guy who disagreed with the feedback and phoned three times to bend my ear about it.

 

2.  The (other) guy who disagreed with the feedback and sent four (badly spelled) e-mails demanding his money back ‘or else!’.

 

3.  The various people who rewrite the extract and resubmit it, having completely ignored (or missed) the main point the feedback was making.

 

4.  The several people a year who resubmit an extract two or three times, asking for new feedback every time. See 10 below if it’s not obvious why this is unacceptable.

 

5.  The people who phone ahead, and tell me the tragic story of their life as a way of convincing me that their novel deserves feedback for no fee. I’m deeply sympathetic, but hey, we’re running a business here.

 

6.  The suspicious people who demand to know the credentials of the editor who will provide the feedback. Isn’t it enough that she’s an editor working for a publishing company?

 

 7.  The other suspicious people who demand, a week after the date on the submission, to know why their cheque has been banked and they haven’t received their feedback yet.

 

8.  The people whose manuscripts are single-spaced in faded ink and 10-point typeface. This is not a good way to persuade an editor to read your manuscript, even if you’ve paid for feedback.

 

9. The people who ask for feedback on manuscripts which don’t fit our criteria at all – showing that either they haven’t read the guidelines, or they are cynically using us as a cheap appraisal service.

 

But mainly  10 -  because it rarely takes less than an hour and a half to read, think about and write a 500-word report on a 10,000-word extract, and we only charge £25. Some professional appraisal services charge £200 or more for feedback on the first 10,000 words of a novel, and provide no more than a couple of hundred words; in one case I came across, a three-line paragraph.

To give it another perspective: the mechanic who serviced my car a few weeks ago charges an hourly rate of £48, and the accountant who prepares our annual profit and loss account costs us close to double that.

To a small publisher who has to be marketing and production departments as well as editorial, an hour and a half is thirty pages of copy-editing or proofreading, three press releases, planning a book launch, or an awful lot of e-mail answering and general admin.

 

So even though most authors accept the constructive criticism with good grace, or at least dignified silence, I have to ask myself if it’s time well spent.

Hurry! It's Already Tomorrow Somewhere!

by Barbara Poelle

Okay, I so totally meant to carve a pumpkin on Friday but here’s the thing. On my way to Frank’s Market I passed by a restaurant where my friends Jen and Rachel beckoned me in to try something called a Cosmorita. It was all tequila and vodka and salty rim and…then it was morning. And a homeless man was poking me with some rebar asking me to get out of his living room.

Then on Saturday, I totally meant to do laundry but then there was this thing that happened where I didn’t do laundry. Instead I just went out and bought new pants. Two, actually.

Then on Sunday I really, really meant to call all of the people who had invited me out for Halloween festivities and explain how busy I was NOT doing laundry that I missed their party. But instead I had to watch the CSI marathon, because, hey, CSI.

So then I had to write this blog, but this thing happened where all of the bones in my fingers liquefied so I had to just slap at the keyboard like a walrus (I was also making that barking noise, but I do that when I type anyway).  And then I realized, hey, no one WANTS me to bitch slap my QWERTY (Which I think would be the lyrics to my break out rap song should I finally sign with Def Jam records. They so want me.) So I’ll just take it easy and phone in it today…

But then I was gchatting with a colleague we’ll call Colly Doot and it went something like this:

Me: …so then I was like, “Uhh, I am allergic to hard candy and don’t think that’s legal anyway. Then”

CollyDoot: Hate to interrupt you on this fascinating tale, but it’s NaNoWriMo and I

Me: OMG You are stroking OUT! Do you smell toast? Raise your arms in the air, stick out your tongue and say the name of your first grade teacher...oh no wait, that’s for a plane crash...okay, spell the word “alphabet” backwards, clap three times and

CollyDoot: Put down the flask. It ‘s National Novel Writing Month.

Holy crap, it’s NOVEMBER already!!! And that indeed means NaNoWiMo is upon us!!! (http://www.nanowrimo.org/) So no more procrastinating people! Put down the cosmorita! Pay that homeless dude to do your laundry! Tell Grissom and gang you’ll see ‘em in December and get TO IT!!!

I would be tickled chartreuse if you indeed hammered out a first draft in this month. In fact, I may even take a peek at some initial pages if you PROMISE ME that you indeed wrote EVERY SINGLE DAY. I mean it. If you lie, I’ll know it. I am everywhere. I am nowhere. I am the ubiquitous ogler. (That’s the name of my rap album with Def Jam btw).

So here’s the thing. It all starts with the log line, the pitch, the hook. Let me hear it today, and then get cracking! (And all of you kids who are already represented, or elbows deep in your current manuscript,  feel free to give me a hook solely for my entertainment. And if you’re Tom Schreck, try not to hurt yourself.)  

What are you waiting for? Seize the Carp!

Nobody Expects...

Jeff Cohen

Things I Considered Blogging About Today

1. Politics

2. Religion

(I'm totally serious about those two, but then I remembered that I hate when someone tries to impose their stupid opinions on me, so I decided against--for now)

3. My daughter's upcoming driving test

4. Baseball

5. The ridiculous overprotective nature of people at Halloween (blending into Swine Flu)

6. The impending holiday season, and why I wish I could move to Saturn until it's over

7. Taking offense at all the ads aimed directly at me for prostate medication

8. A billboard I saw

9. The book proposal I'm "working on" (writing about it is WAY easier than writing it)

10. E.J. Copperman, and who he/she might be

I gave each of these serious consideration, since one or two of them are actually decent topic ideas, and a couple are even relevant to this blog. It took a good deal of time and thought, and so naturally, I chose to write about:

Monty Python.

There was broadcast very recently (and you can probably still catch reruns) a very good six-part documentary about the British comedy troupe on IFC (and you can catch a Q&A session that WASN'T broadcast here) in which the five surviving members--Graham Chapman died of throat cancer in 1989--discuss their work, its origins, its influence and stuff like that. And there are some relatively interesting interviews with childhood friends of the comedians, and current comedians, as well as, for reasons that defy explanation, Russell Brand.

If you were a teenager in the mid-1970s, there is no need to explain and no way to overstate the influence of the Pythons, as they choose to be known. If you weren't, you might not appreciate the impact they had. They were, for a time, something very much approaching the Beatles of Comedy, aided and abetted by at least one moptop (George Harrison's company produced the team's film The Life of Brian, which got them into a great deal of trouble with people who didn't bother to understand it). 

There is some curiosity in seeing how "the boys" are doing now (Cleese resembles a school headmaster more every year; Jones seems obsessed with history, Gilliam laughs at everything; Idle is a little grumpy, and Palin is trying very hard to make sure everyone has a good time), and there is always value in seeing their groundbreaking work ("oh my god, the parrot sketch AGAIN!!!"). But what's really interesting is the clarity with which they seem to see their careers. 

The stories don't contradict each other, even when Pythons are being interviewed separately. Perspectives might be a little skewed, but the events always seem to be remembered in the same way. Contrast that to The Beatles Anthology, in which there were always four points of view, which didn't always seem to have been present at the same events, and it's really something to see how unsentimental and clear-eyed a group of self-aware icons can be.

Is it overstating things to suggest that the Python troupe was as influential as the Beatles? Maybe, since we're not yet seeing Monty Python Rock Star, and there isn't anyone in the group yet whose first name is "Sir," but to comedy maniacs (and there are more of us than you might suspect), this is a team as important and game-changing as any. 

The idea that hilarious comedy could be made by asking Karl Marx about soccer scores or that a sketch consisting almost entirely of names of cheeses might be riotous don't seem all that impossible now. Before the Pythons (mostly in the TV shows, but sporadically in the movies as well), sketch comedy was the thing that came from vaudeville and music halls, and was practiced (from my generation's perspective) by people like Bob Hope, smug rich guys who carried golf clubs onstage and pretended to speak truth to power between dinners at the White House.

After the Pythons, it was acceptable to schedule Saturday Night Live, even if it had to begin after the kids were supposedly in bed. It was possible for people like Steve Martin to include references to philosophers and artists in his stand-up act. Mel Brooks could give Blazing Saddles an ending that was not only surreal, it had nothing to do with the plot that had been established for the previous 75 minutes. 

Did that all come about because of Monty Python? Probably not. But I have to make my argument out of SOMETHING. Go ahead--prove I'm wrong. Yell at me. Attack my logic. Humiliate me.

After all, this time, I AM expecting the Spanish Inquisition.

A note about DEAD GUY:

This week, we'll be saying a reluctant "ta-ta" to our beloved Sharon Wheeler, who is just too damn busy to keep posting every Thursday. Shaz will fill in here and there when necessary and possible, and she promises she'll poke her head in and keep us honest. We love you, Shaz--don't you dare be a stranger!

Taking Shaz's Thursday spot is our former Sunday blogger Alison Janssen. And taking Alison's former posting day is Kim Malo, a wonderful book reviewer and crime fiction fan who runs the site Crime Thru Time about historical mysteries. Kim is an intelligent, thoughtful reviewer and is going to bring an entertaining and informative perspective to DEAD GUY. Welcome, Kim!

... and I'm talking OUT LOUD to any ... librarian ...

When was the last time you visited the library?

I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I don't visit mine often -- barely at all, in fact. But this past Wednesday, I was reminded of how awesome libraries are when Ben and I were invited to speak at the Monona Public Library.

Librarians Toni and Erick asked us in to discuss publishing and how the process works, from our perspective, from idea to bookshelf. Though it was (apparently) also a World Series game night, we had a great crowd turn up to listen to us talk, and we even brought along veteran Bleak House author John Galligan to add his insights to the discussion.

It was AWESOME. And not just because Toni (who is also an author) made fresh-baked cookies for the event. Though that did add to the awesomeness. (They were lemon-oat cookies, you guys. This is a cookie I did not know existed before Wednesday. I, um, took home all the leftovers because omg, yum.)

Ben and I rambled a bit in our introduction, and then the crowd (and some authors, proxied via email by Toni) asked us some really great, really interesting questions. Questions like, "Why do I need an agent?" and, "Do I need to copyright my own book?" I love doing sessions like this -- I don't pretend to know every in and out of this crazypants business, but I do have a handle on the basics and some subtleties and I love to feel useful, so when I can answer something for an aspiring author, I relish the opportunity. (Thank you, Toni and Erick!)

My favorite question of the night may have been (and I'm paraphrasing, so please forgive the non-exact quotes), "I prefer to write without any profanities or sex scenes -- will an editor tell me I don't have enough of that, and will I be asked to add it?" I loved this question because it was the opposite of what Ben and I normally hear ("Will you make me cut all these curses?"). The answer to both is to write with the language that serves your story -- it's about matching your tone and your intent, not about trying to fit into a pre-defined box an editor has laid before you. If I object to a swear word in a manuscript, I'm not objecting the author using that word; I'm objecting to that character in that place at that time using that word in conversation with that other character.

We were asked some wonderful questions about writing, as well, and I'm so glad we had John along to help us field those. Besides writing the outstanding Fly Fishing Mystery series, John teaches writing here in Madison at MATC, and always has insightful advice. Such as: "Start the scene partway through the action, and end it before it's over." "Only give backstory in really small doses -- and don't give it up front. Wait until the reader is dying to know the backstory surrounding a given event, and then only give them part of it." (Readers of John's will recognize this bit of advice in perfect practice with regards to the Dog and Eamon. And readers who haven't yet read John's books ... well, what are you waiting for?!)

Judicious use of backstory can be an excellent way to change readers' established opinions of your characters in a hurry. I like to point at the TV show Lost as a good example of this: Many characters are set up so viewers will dislike them (ahem, BEN), and then three episodes later are given a backstory which inspires sympathy, thus causing viewers enough cognitive dissonance to maybe challenge their former response. (Sorry, I'm SUPER into Lost these days, as I've been marathon-ing episodes nonstop on Netflix. We're now mid-way through Season 5 (please, no spoilers!), so pretty much everything I look at reminds me of something on Lost. "Hey, that guy is playing a guitar outside the coop!" "Oh, that reminds me of this one time on Lost when Charlie [though I insist on pronouncing it Chy-aaaaaaaaaaaah-lee, like Claire does] was playing HIS guitar outside, and it started to rain, and then DESMOND showed up and was all, 'Do I know you, brother?'". This is what it's like to hang around me these days, honestly.)

But back to libraries: Take some time this week and visit yours. Check out what programs they have to offer. Or, if you can't physically get to the library, check out their website. Monona's has a "Librarians' Picks" page (and I fully endorse their fifth pick, naturally). They also have really handy e-newsletters, which you can sort and tailor to your specific tastes. And they're on Twitter!

I'm vowing right here and now to start exersising my library card again. Join me, won't you?

Oh, and tomorrow, in case you didn't get enough of my ramblings just now, I'll be interviewed over at Do Some Damage. The interview may or may not include me asking someone -- anyone! -- to autotune an audiobook for my amusement.

And, because it's been awhile since I've mentioned it, you can follow me on Twitter here, or follow Tyrus Books here.