Scéalta Póilíneachta

by Sheila Connolly

Betcha that title's got you scratching your head!  It's Irish, and it translates to "Police Stories".

As I may have mentioned before (several times, no doubt), I take Irish language classes.  I've been doing this for over five years now, and I'd say my progress is snail-like, but every now and then I actually recognize what a sentence is saying.

The problem is, our teacher is a lovely older woman with rather fixed ideas about how to teach the language.  I enjoy her company, and that of the shifting cast of other students (half of whom were born or lived in Ireland, which I think is an unfair advantage).  But there are few published books available to us in Irish, and there's not much money for materials, so usually we make do with photocopies.  And most of the photocopies she chooses are of classic "literary" selections.

Now, when you're still at the "I see an cow" stage in reading Irish, being treated to the elegant prose of, say, Pádraig Mac Piarais is kind of wasted on you.  I will freely admit I don't recognize most verb tenses in Irish (like past imperfect or subjunctive), and a metaphor (many of which seem to include bird symbolism) goes flying right over my head.  Joke, that.

So it was something of a treat when recently our muinteoir (that's teacher) brought us something new and different, all the while wrinkling her nose in contempt.  We've been reading chapters from a contemporary police procedural!  Now, we've been given discontinuous chapters, and nowhere near all of them, so the plot is kind of patchy.  Plus our teacher is so disgusted with the whole thing that she hasn't bothered to identify either the writer or the title of the book--not that I could ever find it in a local bookstore, or even one that specializes in foreign books.

But I don't care, because it's so much fun.  I'm learning all sorts of useful vocabulary like "prostitute" and "drug dealer" and "petty criminal."  Seriously, these are terms I might actually get to use in modern Ireland, whereas it's highly unlikely that anyone on a Dublin street will quiz me on the lonely seagulls of the Blasket Islands.

And in a way, the simpler declarative statements typical of a basic procedural are easy to read.  For example, here's a typical section:

D'oscail se a shuile.  Agus seo is an Garda seo, de Londra, ag labhairt aris.


"Feach, a Larry!  Ta tu i driobloid mhor.  Iomportail drugai, daileadh drugai, dunmharu Willie Braine, gunna midhleathac i do sheilbh agus a lan eile."


Dhun se a shuile agus smaoinigh se.

I've left out all the accents (which affect pronunciation), but if you read it out loud you get the drift.  It says, more or less:

He opened his eyes. And there was the policeman from London, speaking again.



"Look, Larry! You are in big trouble. Importing drugs, drug distribution, murdering Willie Braine, illegal guns in your possession and many other crimes."

He closed his eyes and he thought.


There's another fun section where Larry surveys the dead bodies of his colleagues in crime lying on the floor, and several of them have large holes in them.  I won't trouble you with that.
 
If there's a message lurking in here somewhere, it's that the mystery/crime genre appears to transcend language.

By the way, the cover above isn't for this anonymous book we're reading, but it is a vintage Irish publication, whose title translates to "Three Whole Murders."  I think.

Erin Hart Returns with "False Mermaid"

Interviewed by Sandra Parshall

Everyone who leaves a comment will be entered
in a drawing for a free signed copy!

Erin Hart, one of my favorite writers, is back after much too long an interval with her third mystery featuring American pathologist Nora Gavin and Irish archeologist Cormac Maguire. Like her first two books, Haunted Ground and Lake of Sorrows, False Mermaid has received glowing reviews for its beautiful writing and deep characterizations.

Before turning to writing, Erin worked in theater. She also co-founded Minnesota’s Irish Music and Dance Association. She lives in Saint Paul, MN, with her husband, Irish musician Paddy O’Brien, with whom she frequently visits Ireland to carry out research in bogs, cow pastures, castles, and pubs. Recently she talked with me about False Mermaid and her writing life.

Q. Tell us about False Mermaid. What are Nora and Cormac up to in this book?

A. The story takes up where Lake of Sorrows finished, with Nora on her way home to the States, and with Cormac headed up to see his ailing father in Donegal. Nora is determined to crack her sister’s cold case murder once and for all, even if it means that she has to face up to some unsettling truths about her sister—and about herself. Nora’s worst fear is that her eleven-year-old niece may be reaching an age where she’ll begin to defy her father, putting her on dangerous ground with the man Nora has long suspected as her sister’s killer.

Cormac, trying to come to grips with a strained relationship with his own father, also becomes caught up in the century-old disappearance of a Donegal woman believed to be a selkie, a seal who could shed her skin and became human. Did the woman simply abandon her family to return to the sea, or was there something more sinister about her disappearance? As usual, I have parallel mysteries—one contemporary and one historical—and I hope readers will perceive the connections between them.

Q. What inspired the story? And what does the intriguing title mean?

A. I always knew that I’d have to solve the murder of Nora’s sister; it was just a matter of finding the right way to do it. I wasn’t certain in my own mind what had really happened to Tríona, even as I revealed details of her murder as part of Nora’s backstory in the first two novels. As a starting point, I had to rely on the few bits of information that Nora had revealed about the murder, and use them as a place to begin this story. Even though Nora suspected her brother-in-law from the start, it obviously wasn’t an open-and-shut case, since he was never charged, never even arrested for the crime. I knew that I had to give Nora’s investigation some unexpected twists and turns.

I also wanted to explore the idea of the Otherworld, which is so present in Irish culture and mythology. So I began pulling in the selkie stories, and finding all kinds of psychological parallels in modern life—there’s a duality in all of our lives (especially for women, I think) between our rational and emotional lives, between our public and the private selves, between the loyalty we owe to ourselves and to the people we love. The mermaid or selkie is a sort of physical embodiment of that impossible duality, a woman literally divided, unable to exist wholly in either world.

The title, False Mermaid, has multiple meanings, some of which I can explain, and others that I really should leave for readers to discover! Most obviously, the title is a reference to the mermaid and selkie myths that figure in the story. ‘False mermaid’ is also the common name of Floerkea proserpinacoides, an endangered plant that grows along North American floodplains and marshy areas. The seeds of that rare plant actually provide a clue in the murder case. And I must say that I enjoyed playing with the various meanings of ‘true’ and ‘false’—what is reality, and what is myth, how do we know what’s true? True and false lovers come up a lot in old traditional songs, so there’s yet another layer of meaning, all tied up with fidelity and faithfulness. A lot to explore!

Q. Was it a challenge to write parallel plots, with Nora and Cormac in different countries, pursuing different goals?

A. Well, I always have parallel plots, so that in itself wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but I won’t say it’s ever easy. The biggest challenge was figuring out a way to tie the two threads together, so that they complemented and pulled against one another in an interesting way. I’ll leave it up to readers to decide whether it works or not…

Q. I know you don’t want to give away too much, but can we expect Nora’s life to be changed after she investigates her sister’s death? Will her relationship with Cormac be altered by what happens to both of them during their time apart?

A. You’re right—I don’t want to give anything away! So I’ll just say I know that Cormac and Nora have been going along rather tentatively for a while (frustrating quite a few readers who wish they’d knock it off!). But given their histories, I think they’re both understandably skittish about commitment. And we find out in False Mermaid that Nora may still feel something for Frank Cordova, the Saint Paul police detective who investigated her sister’s death. And the story is about a woman feeling pulled in two directions at once…

Q. The creation of a character is often a mysterious process (no pun intended), even to the writer. Looking back, can you see how Nora and Cormac came into being? Did you flesh them out slowly as you wrote your first book, or were they fully formed before you started writing?

A. I still don’t feel as if I know them all that well! They’ve revealed themselves slowly over time, which is all part of the writing process. For me, writing is like archaeology, digging down, stripping layer upon layer, finding my way to the end of a story. There were certainly things about Nora Gavin that I didn’t find out until I started writing False Mermaid, things that she didn’t seem to know herself. I’m fascinated by how little we know ourselves. All my characters seem to rise up out of my subconscious with rather complicated backstories; they all struggle to know their own minds and hearts. How can I, even as their creator, ever know them completely? I don’t feel finished with these characters; the question is how they will continue to grow.

Q. So much in the book business has changed in a few short years – independent stores failing, chain stores closing, blogs and social networking becoming more important to authors than book tours and other traditional forms of promotion. Has your own approach to promotion changed? Will you be doing anything this time around that you didn’t do for your first two books?

A. It’s been so long since my last book was published that the whole social networking thing is completely new since then. I’m on Facebook and Twitter, and am doing some guest blogging, and none of that was even around in 2004. But otherwise, I’m doing many of the same things: book signings, library events, all-city reads, book clubs. I’m also touring with my husband Paddy O’Brien and his Irish band, Chulrua—we’ve done a bit of this before, but are expanding on it this time around. My background is in theater and communications, so events and promotion come sort of naturally to me. The challenge is in keeping enough creative time to write a new book!

Q. Will we see Nora back in Ireland for the next book? Do you think you’ll use the U.S. as a setting again in the future?

A. I’m working now on a fourth book featuring Cormac and Nora (working title: The Green Martyr), about a ninth-century manuscript that turns up in an Irish bog, slightly damaged, but still readable. This actually happened a couple of years ago—I like to start with some kernel of a real-life story and then ask, ‘what if?’ Of course in this case, I’m thinking, what if they found not just the manuscript, but the ninth-century monk who penned it? I’m still working on what sort of modern mystery would tie in with that story…

Q. Where can readers meet you this year? Will you be doing signings and attending conferences?

A. I have a HUGE list of events on my website, with tour dates at bookstores and libraries in Minnesota, Iowa, Ohio, New York, Boston, Texas, Arizona, California, and Oregon. I’m also hoping to get to the San Francisco Bouchercon in October. I’m unfortunately going to miss Left Coast Crime, the Edgars, and Malice Domestic this year, because of other commitments. But I am making a concerted effort this year to hit more Midwest conferences, perhaps Omaha’s Mayhem in the Midlands and Magna Cum Murder in Muncie, Indiana. I’m also doing several Irish festivals around the country, including the Milwaukee Irish Fest, and the Rocky Mountain Irish Festival in Loveland, Colorado, both in August.

Learn more about Erin and her books at www.erinhart.com.

Catching Up with Erin Hart

Interviewed by Sandra Parshall

Erin Hart has been one of my favorite writers since I read her first mystery, Haunted Ground. Her second book, Lake of Sorrows, is equally powerful. Set in Ireland and rich in local color, Erin’s novels feature Nora Gavin, an American anatomist with a special interest in bog bodies -- human remains perfectly preserved in peat bogs -- and Cormac Maguire, an Irish archeologist. Both books have been published around the world and honored with numerous nominations and awards. Erin and her husband, Irish musician Paddy O’Brien, live in Minnesota.

SP: Let’s get right to the burning question that’s on the minds of your fans: When will we see your third novel?

ER: I’m still in the throes of writing book three (working title, False Mermaid), but my deadline is the end of the year. I suppose that means the book won’t be out until sometime in late 2008 or even 2009. I really appreciate all the people who’ve been holding out so patiently for book three, but I want it to be worth the wait.

SP: Your first two books are set in Ireland, but you’ve said the third will be set in the U.S. Has it been a challenge to move Nora to a new setting? Does writing about the U.S. feel markedly different to you? Will any part of the book be set in Ireland?

ER: False Mermaid starts in the U.S., with Nora Gavin returning to Minnesota to re-open her sister’s unsolved murder, but Cormac is still back in Ireland, so part of the story takes place there. It’s a new Irish setting for me as well, the southwest coast of Donegal—heavy-duty fiddle country!

It has been different, trying to write about the place where I live. One of the things that drew me to writing about Ireland in the first place was that it seemed so foreign—almost other-worldly at times. You see a place quite differently when you actually live there—it’s hard sometimes to appreciate all the nuances of a landscape when you’re just driving through it on the way to the dry cleaners. I’m finding that places I’ve taken for granted simply because they’re within a stone’s throw are just as strange and exotic as a foreign country; it’s all a matter of perspective.

SP: You've said in interviews that you write slowly. Have you felt any pressure to speed up and produce a book a year, as many mystery writers do?

ER: Oh, I feel pressure—it just doesn’t have much practical effect on my progress. For me, writing a novel is a gradual process of discovery—I’m uncovering the mystery along with the characters—and I can’t seem to force that. Fortunately, I’ve got a wonderful agent who is interested in quality over quantity, and I feel very fortunate in that regard.

After years of squeezing creative time into early mornings, evenings and weekends, I am able to write full-time now, for which I’m extremely grateful. Of course there are distractions—exercising and cooking dinner and going to the movies are all distractions from writing.

SP: Does promotion interfere with your writing schedule?

ER: You can always do more in the way of promotion, and staying in touch with individual readers, touring, visiting book clubs and libraries. But isn’t that what life in the 21st century is all about—keeping a staggering number of balls in the air at once?

SP: You came to writing late -- you didn't grow up wanting to be a writer. Why did you settle on mysteries as your genre of choice? What does the mystery form offer you as a writer that you wouldn't have in mainstream or literary fiction?

ER: I’m not sure that crime writing offers any more than mainstream or literary fiction, but the genre certainly offers as much as so-called mainstream or literary fiction, if that makes sense. Crime novels are an ideal place to wrestle with human psychology and behavior, with knotty social problems and philosophical questions. Whenever people ask whether I’d ever consider writing a ‘real book’ (and they do ask!) I always find myself wondering, ‘If no one dies, what will the people actually do?’ I enjoy the life-or-death aspect of crime fiction, the inherent conflict and drama that’s built right in. And I really, really enjoy creating suspense, pulling readers deeper and deeper with each chapter into a complex riddle.


SP: How long did it take you to write Haunted Ground? Did the mystery aspects -- clues, red herrings, motives -- come easily or did you struggle with them?

ER: After hearing the amazing true story of the severed head found in an Irish bog, I spent about ten years thinking about how it would make a great opening for a mystery. When I actually sat down to write, it took six years, start to finish, before it was ready to send out to publishers.

The mystery aspects are difficult for me. I’m not a puzzle-solver by nature, and some days it does feel like I’m not quite clever enough to be a crime novelist. But on a good day, I’m content to work my way through the plot along with the characters, getting to know them, letting them take the lead where they will.


SP: Reviews almost always praise the beauty and lyricism of your writing. Do comments of that sort make you self-conscious as you write? Do you find yourself trying to live up to that assessment in your new work?

ER: What some see as beauty and lyricism, others see as flowery overwriting (I believe ‘ornate romanticism’ was the phrase Marilyn Stasio used in her review of Haunted Ground!), so I actually try hard not to overdo it. I’m not even conscious of having a particular style of writing. It’s just what emerges when trying to capture people or places, and in particular, those fleeting moments in every person’s experience that by their very nature are difficult to describe. It’s important to represent those moments as accurately as possible—to me, that’s what great writing is at its core. I keep telling myself that it can’t all be poetry.


SP: It’s difficult to imagine prose like yours coming from the keyboard of a computer. Do you write in longhand and transfer the pages to your computer, or do you use the computer from the beginning?

ER: For some mysterious reason, I have to begin with pen and paper. I have no firsthand experience of it, but from what I understand, some people can work through sentences and even whole paragraphs in their heads and then write them down; I have to go through that whole process on paper. The physical act of writing becomes part of the process of discovery, and the pen seems to be a conduit to my subconscious. I tend to write and rewrite the same words and paragraphs over and over again, until they’re ready to type. (Then the challenge becomes deciphering all those scribbly notes with cross outs and circles and arrows!) A first draft in longhand ends up being an interesting record of how one’s brain works. To quote the great Jackie Mason, “Oy, it’s busy in there!”


SP: What crime fiction authors do you read? What literary or mainstream authors do you enjoy?

ER: Some of my favorite crime writers are P. D. James, Elizabeth George, Martin Cruz Smith, Ian Rankin, Minette Walters, and Iain Pears, among others. I’ve also been enjoying recent books by Leslie Silbert, Michael Connelly, Denise Hamilton, Mark Billingham, Natsuo Kirino, John Connolly, David Hewson, Janet Gleeson—there are so many others I’ve been meaning to read, too, but haven’t had a chance yet. I seem to have a weakness for historical crime novels, and stories that are grounded in very specific places or cultures.

To me, there’s an element of mystery in all great fiction writing; there may not be a murder or a swindle at the heart of the story, but not knowing what will happen next keeps you turning the pages. My taste in mainstream fiction is pretty eclectic, but I’m extremely fond of A.S. Byatt and Edna O’Brien. The list could go on and on—Roddy Doyle, John Fowles, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Alice Munro, Tim O’Brien, Michael Frayn. For sheer glorious entertainment, you still can’t beat Dickens, Austen, and Tolstoy. And I’m a theater person at heart, so of course you must include Shakespeare, Shaw, and Chekhov, along with contemporary writers like David Hare, Michael Frayn (again), Brian Friel, August Wilson.


SP: What aspects of your writing have you worked hardest to improve? Have you learned from reading the books of other mystery/suspense writers?

ER: Character development and description of place have never been particularly difficult, but I’d have to say that plotting, action, and dialogue have all been a challenge, and the reason I spend such a LOT of time rewriting and editing—probably too much!


SP: How often do you visit Ireland?

ER: My husband is from County Offaly in the Irish midlands, so we go back fairly often to visit family and friends—and for traditional music, of course. But it’s been almost three years since we were over, so I’m looking forward to a trip at the end of this summer, which will include research time for the current book. The Irish countryside always provides unexpected inspiration, whether it’s an interesting detail of light or landscape, a newspaper story, or the atmosphere of a great pub session.


SP: Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

ER: Two words: Read. Write. Read everything—good writing, execrable writing, and everything in between. Study stories you love, and stories you hate; pick them apart until you understand what works and what doesn’t, and why. And write, write, write. Then write some more—journal entries, news stories, reviews of other people’s work. Get comfortable with words, learn to use them as tools, play with them. If you have no idea what you think, or how you think, writing is actually a great way to figure that out. Write about what pleases you, what angers you, what fascinates you, what moves you, what makes you laugh.

Don’t be afraid to show your work to other people. Learn how to respond to criticism—it’s a practical skill you’re going to need if you ever want to get published. Be brave. Don’t look before you leap. Figure out whatever you’re most afraid of, and try that next.

Visit the author’s web site at www.erinhart.com.