Nancy Drew, I Love You

I stole the title of this post from a poem by Maria Mazziotti Gillan, an Italian-American  poet from Paterson who has an uncanny knack of telling my life story in her work. In the poem, the speaker describes Nancy Drew as the best friend she didn't have, the adventurous girl she wanted to be but was too timid. Like Gillan's eleven year old speaker, I, too, was a fraidy cat--fearful of getting hurt and getting in trouble, so my adventures had to be vicarious.

And like so many of us who end up writers, I found those adventures in books. For that I will be forever grateful to Carolyn Keene, who allowed me to explore hidden staircases and haunted bungalows without ever leaving my house. And for giving me a smart, plucky heroine who had her own blue convertible (and who found solving mysteries more stimulating than her boyfriend Ned.) Nancy Drew was the kind of girl I could be some day, if I were lucky. As Gillan so eloquently puts it:

Nancy Drew, I still love you for taking me away with you,

carrying me away from the tight confines of my life,

to a place where everything is possible

and bravery is common and miraculous as stars.

Excerpt from Italian Women in Black Dresses, by Maria Mazziotti Gillan

I Confess--

 That I stole my tagline, “Cozy mysteries with romantic interruptions,” from Dorothy L. Sayers. Sayers was the author of the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries; published primarily in the 30s, the Wimsey mysteries are prime examples of the “Golden Age” of British detective fiction.

Wimsey is an aristocratic sleuth who takes up detecting as a hobby after he returns to England after World War I. While I love all the books, in the early ones Wimsey is a bit of a flat character. It isn’t until the series introduces Harriet Vane, a mystery writer wrongfully accused of murder, that he becomes fully dimensional. Though Sayers swore she’d never have her sleuth involved in a romance, she spins out a wonderful one over several books that culminate in the marriage of Harriet and Peter. In fact, Sayers got so enthusiastic about the love story that she was accused of having a crush on her own character, a topic I addressed in my Rosemary D blog.

The last book in Sayers’ series, Busman’s Honeymoon, carries this subtitle: “A Love Story with Detective Interruptions.” So with a little tweaking, it became a way for me to define my stories. But let’s call it an homage, shall we?

I don’t know about you, but I really need some romance in my mysteries. (I need some mystery in my romance, too, but that’s a post for another day.) Giving your detective a love interest humanizes him or her, and it gives readers something else to wonder about—will they get together or not?—besides the murder. And it keeps us turning pages. As much as I respect Sayers’ formidable skills with a mystery, it was the love story that kept me coming back to the books.

My own “saucy sleuth,” Victoria Rienzi, has not one, but two love interests. There’s her old love, now working as a chef in her parents’ restaurant, and a new guy, a rough-around-the-edges woodworker from New Orleans who may not be what he seems. Each one is a likely suitor for my character; each guy has his own brand of appeal. But which will Victoria end up with?

Well now, that’s a mystery isn’t it? And you’ll have to stay tuned to find out. . .

Why I (Still) Love Nora Ephron

I wrote this post two years ago in honor of Nora Ephron, and today seems like an appropriate time to re-post it. I will miss her. Nora Ephron is my biggest girl crush. My biggest fantasy lunch date. And my biggest influence and inspiration as a writer—when I’m strugging, I often think: WWND? (What Would Nora Do?) This week’s New Yorker did a lovely piece on her, accompanied by a gorgeous photo that in no way suggested she needs to feel bad about any part of her anatomy. The story was about Julie and Julia, her new film, whose trailers I have been watching on line. I’ve been following Ephron’s career since I read Crazy Salad in college. Heartburn has a special place on my bookshelf, and to this day, I hate Carl Bernstein. And like so many women, I am a rabid fan of her films. And I don’t want to hear that they can be saccharine, that things too often turn on coincidence, that characters extricate themselves from situations and relationships with little effort, and that the cities she creates on screen are fantasy places that don’t really exist. I know. That’s exactly what I love about them. (There are few things that make me happier than watching a back-to-back reruns of Sleepless in Seattle in my pj’s while eating chocolate chips out of a bag.) Ephron is the kind of writer who makes you feel as though you know her. She’s smart and funny and unafraid to be both feminist and feminine. She can piss off Rush Limbaugh and still look good doing it. She can be insightful and incisive about any number of political issues, but still admit that Obama’s loose-fitting tie in one of the debates distracted her. She can play with the big boys, but she never underestimates the power of a good meal—or a good haircut, for that matter. And in so much of her work, she tells the often unpolitically correct truth about what women think and feel—open up to any page of I Feel Bad About My Neck; watch the scene in Sleepless when Rosie O’Donnell tells Meg Ryan: “You don’t want love. You want movie love.” (Damn right, Nora.) But we also want our place in the world, a theme Ephron explores in her new film, Julie and Julia, in which a young writer, Julie Powell, realizes her dream through the inspiration of the more famous and successful woman, Julia Child. Ephron doesn’t know it, but her film is a version of a movie I’ve already made in my head—a never-to-be-released little fantasy called Nora and Rosemary. . . (This post originally appeared on Red Room.)

♥ ♥ ♥

Dorothy's Lord Peter*

I've always been a Dorothy Sayers fan girl, but a recent reading of Barbara Reynolds' biography sent me scurrying back to Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. After a delightful re-read of Busman's Honeymoon, I now plan to back up and start with the first one, Whose Body?, already loaded onto my Kindle. Following the development of Lord Peter's character from effete aristocrat to multi-layered man feels a bit like looking over Sayers' shoulder as she worked. Once Harriet Vane is introduced in Strong Poison, we follow the Vane/Wimsey courtship, with all its trials (literal and otherwise) to its thoroughly satisfying conclusion in Busman's Honeymoon.

Many Sayers' critics and biographers maintain that the Harriet Vane character is a stand-in for Sayers herself. Vane, like Harriet, is among the first group of women who take degrees from Oxford; she is a writer of complex mysteries featuring a suave detective, Robert Templeton, who shares many characteristics with Wimsey. Even Vane's physical description, with her dark bobbed hair and striking eyes, is a match for the young Sayers. And while most critics are accepting of the idea that Sayers might use a doppelganger for herself in her novels, a few (males, natch), sneer at the idea, claiming that Sayers actually fell in love with her own creation.

To that I say: why the hell not? Even if Sayers had a weakness for her own hero, that certainly doesn't detract from the brilliance of her work. Personally, I find the "Harriet novels" the most compelling of the bunch, but that's probably because I like a good love story threaded into my mysteries, a practice Sayers actually disdained until, at the suggestion of her publisher, she did it herself with great success. And while she may have identified with Harriet Vane, I suspect that Sayers had more than a bit of Wimsey in her as well--pun intended, by the way. Here's what she had to say about the creation of her wealthy, aristocratic detective:

At that time, I was particularly hard up and it gave me pleasure to spend his fortune for him. When I was dissatisfied with my single unfurnished room, I took a luxurious flat for him in Piccadilly. When my cheap rug got a hole in it, I ordered him an Aubusson carpet. When I had no money to pay my bus fare I presented him with a Daimler double-six, upholstered in a style of sober significance, and when I felt dull, I let him drive it.

If Wimsey became so real to his creator that she lived through him vicariously, and then let her alter ego fall in love with him, so be it. It's just one of the many beauties of writing fiction.

♥ ♥ ♥

*A version of this post first appeared on Red Room.

What I Learned from Jo March*

Jo March made me want to be a writer. When Jo March escaped to her attic to eat apples and write stories, I did the same. And when she announced to her sisters and her friend Laurie that her greatest wish was to "write out of a magic inkstand," to become famous and independent, I recognized a true sister. In fact, for years I imagined myself walking into a dusty office with a manuscript tied up in brown paper and ribbon, where some cigar-chomping editor would offer for it on the spot. If only.                                                      It didn't take long to outgrow that fantasy or the book, for that matter, and Little Women was relegated to my pre-feminist Era of Ignorance, and languished there for years. But a couple of summers ago I caught the Katherine Hepburn version of the movie late one night on TCM, and I was thoroughly charmed. I dug out my old hardcover and stayed up three nights solid reading it. And when a colleague gave birth to a baby girl not long after, I impulsively bought her a copy of the book. As I thought about what to inscribe in it, however, I had a twinge of post-feminist guilt. Wasn't Little Women merely a sentimental novel that Alcott had cranked out to support her family since her father, Bronson Alcott, had driven them into poverty? Doesn't the story trumpet the virtues of female submission and the repression of anger?  And let's face it, aren't the Beth scenes just a little over the top? Well, yes. But that doesn't keep me from loving the book, and even now my eyes still get moist every time  Beth drops those mittens out the window. In the end though, it is of course Jo who is the heart of the book. And it is Jo, despite her mother's admonishments, her sentimental pronouncements and Victorian trappings, who taught me that obedience is difficult and anger is necessary. --That you don't have to say yes to the first guy who asks. --That hair is overrated, and sisterhood is more than powerful--it's a veritable life force. --That it's possible to love a man who doesn't look like your Ken doll, and that even if your dress is patched, you can still dance at the party. Most importantly, Jo March showed me that even back in the 19th century there were girls like me: bookworms who found the stuff of novels more real than the lives we lived every day, and who dreamed of creating such worlds ourselves. The little girl to whom I gave Little Women is still too young for it, but I wonder if she too will cry over Beth and root for Jo as she works on her stories. I like to imagine her in about fourteen or fifteen years, walking up a set of creaky attic stairs with apples in her pockets, ready to write some Gothic tales of her own.

♥ ♥ ♥

*An earlier version of this post first appeared on Red Room

Best. Gift. Ever. (2011)

It's no coincidence that this year's Best Gift Ever is a book. (As was last year's.) This Christmas, my dear friend and colleague Marie presented me with the following:

P.D. James, widely considered the greatest living mystery author, is second only to Dorothy Sayers in my personal pantheon of mystery greats. Best known for her series featuring Adam Dalgliesh, James' work is literate and complex, but she still tells a darn good story. The same can be said of Jane Austen, whom James calls "overwhelmingly my favorite writer" in an October interview. James, who has made allusions to Persuasion in two of the recent Dalgliesh novels, had long wanted to create a work that incorporates her two passions: Jane Austen and the classic detective novel.

As someone who reveres both writers, the combination of James and Austen is irresistible. What is even better is that I had somehow missed all the press around this book, so when I opened my friend's gift, I let out a giant shriek of surprise and joy. (Even in my geekiest fantasies, I couldn't have come up with P.D. James writing a mystery sequel to Pride and Prejudice.)

I have already sped through the book once, but plan a second read for savoring. Though James' Elizabeth lacks the original character's archness (and most of her wit, sad to say) her Darcy is thoughtful, brooding, and self-aware. James provides him with a rich inner life that accurately reflects Austen's version of her most enigmatic hero, and it makes the reader long for a Lizzie that is worthy of him.

But where James really shines is in her portrayal of the secondary characters, in particular Mr. Bennett, who shows up unannounced at Pemberley just to read in its magnificent library, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who says of herself, "If I went to all the people who would benefit from my advice I would never be at home." Lots of Austen favorites make cameo appearances, and there are sly references to both Persuasion and Emma.

It's a truth universally acknowledged that there can never be enough Jane Austen; what a pleasure to read a sequel from the hands of one who is worthy of her.

♥ ♥ ♥

Literate Girls

Recently my sweet and lovely niece Eva sent me a blog post from Thought Catalogue by Charles Warnke with the (hopefully) ironic title, "You Should Date an Illiterate Girl." It reads like a prose poem and it's been making the internet rounds among the young. Here is one of my favorite passages:

Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.

As a girl who reads, I recognize the woman Warnke describes. The year I turned 19, my then-and-now boyfriend (reader, I married him) bought me a box of poetry books for my birthday. It was a giant gift box filled with Nikki Giovanni, Alan Ginsburg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, e.e. cummings, Anne Sexton--a 70s hipster girl's dream roster--with some good old-fashioned Yeats for good measure. That gift made me the envy of every literate girl in my dorm. In the years since, I have gotten some other boxes of books, usually when I least expect them. One year, in my pre-Kindle days,  it was 38 Penguin pocket books, scaled down to fit in a purse or a back pocket. "So you'll always have something to read," was the inscription on the card. The last such gift was two shopping bags that I could barely lift, as they were filled with a hardcover set of Barnes and Noble classics, from Alcott and Austen right through Wharton and Wilde. It occurs to me that it is a brave man who's willing to date--or marry--a literate girl. Near the end of Warnke's post is this warning:

Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are the storytellers. . . .The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold.

So here's to all the literate girls, the storytellers, the crafters of narratives. The girls who read.  (And the men who love them.)

♥ ♥ ♥

"If She is to Write Fiction"*

It would not be an understatement to say that this little book changed my life. Here are its famous first words:

But, you may say, we asked you to speak about women and fiction--what has that got to do with a room of one's own?

And the answer is, of course--everything. As I have noted elsewhere in this blog, for a long time I talked the talk of writing without taking the first hard steps of the walk. Instead I found lots of reasons not to write. Some good: "I have three boys under the age of seven." Others pretty lame: "But Project Runway is on tonight." Woolf famously posited that women could produce the same kind of writing that men did, if only they had rooms of their own and five hundred a year. Well, we need more than five hundred nowadays, whether it's pounds or dollars, but one thing hasn't changed. Women who write need a quiet place to work, free of distractions, preferably with a door that closes. Not all of us have that luxury. I marvel at the stories of women who write their novels in the family car during soccer practice, scribble poetry at four in the morning before the baby wakes up to be fed (or while the baby is feeding!), or give up lunches at work in order to write. While I was raising my sons, I was too exhausted, too involved, and yes, too distracted to sit down and write. I didn't start work on my first novel until in was in my late forties. Strangely, it was when I was back working as a teacher, energized by my professional life--and despite all those papers I had to grade--that I carved out time to write. But it wasn't until this year, when my oldest moved out, that I finally got what I had been waiting for: my office. Okay, so there's a beer stein on the dresser and a wooden model airplane sitting on top of the TV that's collecting dust. A sticker for the band M.O.E. still adorns the wall, as does his diploma from Rutgers. And while my beloved son is welcome to sleep here any time he likes, I will slowly be moving his things up to the attic. Because this room is now mine. I sit here at my great-aunt's secretary desk and work by the light of a low lamp. There are two windows on either side, with lots of sun during the day. In the glass case above the desk are books by Austen, Eliot, Wharton, the Brontes, and of course, Virginia Woolf. It's easy to be inspired:

Give her a room of her own and five hundred a year, let her speak her mind and leave out half that she puts in, and she will write a better book one of these days.

♥ ♥ ♥

*"A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." Virginia Woolf

Romance Meets Mystery, or There's Nothing Like the Dame

  When I am deep in a project, I generally don’t read too much women’s fiction. I worry about the unconscious influences of voice or tone, and I dread coming across a plotline that may be similar to mine. So last summer while I worked on the first draft of my current novel, I tended to curl up in my big chair with mysteries, specifically Agatha Christie's works—there is nothing like the Dame on a rainy summer night.

 But as I worked on my story, it occurred to me that Christie’s formidable skills are a model for all writers, even those of us writing romantic fiction. Herewith are the lessons I have gleaned from Dame Agatha:  --Mystery. No, I’m not writing one, but I’m planting small ones in my story, including a few red herrings. There are no bodies littering my tale, but there are characters whose motivations are not clear, a couple who may or may not come together (perhaps not so mysterious after all, but I will keep ‘em guessing for a bit) and a hero with a secret.  --History. Just about every one of Christie’s murders has its roots in what happened before the action of the novel begins. It’s the characters’ histories that move them “towards zero,” or the defining moment that kicks the story into gear. My heroine has some baggage from her first marriage, and lots of residual anger. She’s got sibling issues with her younger sister that always threaten to bubble to the surface, and longstanding attachments to her grandpa and her beloved dog that get in the way of relationships with men (though her bad temper has something to do with that as well.) As I flesh out characters, I ask myself what has brought them to this particular place, so that I can move them “towards zero” in believable ways.  --Economy. Can Christie describe a London alleyway with the poetry of P. D. James? No. Does she have the literary brilliance of Dorothy Sayers? Probably not. But she is an unqualified master of pacing; few writers move a story the way she does, and the reader is helplessly carried along on the swift and twisty currents of her plot. Characters are sketched quickly but skillfully, and back story is woven seamlessly into the action without slowing it down. For writers of commercial fiction, particularly in this market, it’s all about page turning. And who knows? Maybe I'll even try my hand at a real mystery one of these days.

? ? ?

The Duchess of Dork

I established my dorkdom at a young age. The summer I was ten, I spent every day reading. Every day. While my sister and best friend whizzed by on their bikes to find adventure, I sat in a lawn chair out in front of my house with my nose buried in my latest book. Carolyn Keene provided enough adventure for me, thank you very much. One day a neighbor walked over and in hushed tones asked my mother if I was sick. "No," my mom said, "that's just Rosemary."

I found out the hard way that not everyone embraced dorkitude with quite the same fervor as I, guys in particular. I distinctly remember sitting around one day in high school with a group of girls and guys, one of whom was my crush at the time. We were sharing our future dreams, and I started rhapsodizing about living on a windswept coast in New England, in a big white house just like the one in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. I described a quaint little town with a big library full of dusty old books. When I stopped for breath, I noticed my crush looking at me with a blank face. "That's your idea of fun?" he said. Clearly, there was no future for us. As a brand new teacher, one of the first things I did when I got my paycheck was to become a member of my local PBS station, and proudly sported my Channel Thirteen totebag each morning as I walked in the door. One day a male co-worker pointed to it, saying, "You know what that bag says? That bag says I don't want to get laid any time soon. " Ouch.

Further evidence of Dork-O-Rama:

 On a trip to London back in the 80s, I made my husband rent a car so he could drive me to Chawton so I could tour Jane Austen's house. Before it was cool, I might add. Did I mention it was our honeymoon? One of a multitde of reasons I know I married the Right Guy.

I have a collection of Great Women in Literature magnets. The Masterpiece Theatre music gives me goosebumps. I read Middlemarch every year. I have a Will Shakespeare action figure. (Complete with First Folio!) A Room of One's Own makes me cry. And there can never be enough costume dramas for me. If it's got corsets and great coats, I'm there.

 Those of you who rule dorkdoms of your own know what exactly what I'm talking about. Sadly, there are those who never will. But I don't have time to think about them right now--there's a lawn chair outside with my name on it.

♥ ♥ ♥