Posts
Elizabeth Zelvin
Going down the list I started last week, here are more of my personal favorites and why.
I’ve admired and enjoyed SJ Rozan’s work since reading her Edgar winner, Winter and Night, which put her on the short list of writers whose work I went out and bought in toto after the first dose. Last year’s Shanghai Moon got a lot of praise and attention, and I enjoyed it, but the one I loved was the new one, On the Line (2010).
Rozan’s books alternate the first-person point of view of her two interconnected PI protagonists, Bill Smith and Lydia Chin. That’s alternating books, not alternating chapters. If you ask me which of the two is my favorite, I’d say Lydia Chin—spunky female protagonist, of course I love her. Rozan herself says she first created Bill Smith as the quintessential world-weary but honorable tough American PI, and that when she needed another one, she deliberately came up with his antithesis. Thinking of this, I was wondering what, if anything, made Bill special, why I wouldn’t find another tough-guy PI boring. On the Line reminded me.
Bill is tough, but it’s a purely functional toughness: he can turn on the violence when needed, but he doesn’t revel in it. He’s decent, sensitive, and very smart—a quality I prize in fictional characters when it’s accompanied by heart. The cleverness with which he unravels the villain’s clues is impressive. And his motive is impeccable: Lydia’s in trouble, and he really, really cares about her. I’ve been on Bill’s side all along in the potential romance between these two. Lydia has good cultural reasons for pushing him away: the parental pressure on Asian American young people not to diversify when it comes to love is authentic. But I’m a romantic, at least as a reader. I’ve been wanting Lydia, or rather, Rozan, to unbend and give poor Bill a break.
Rozan’s prose, which doesn’t waste a word or suffer a weak verb to live, has always been a delight. On the Line had this quality, and in addition, the writing struck me as less literary, more immediate, than in any of her previous work. This serves both the pace of the narrative and the tech aspect of the story, which I hardly know whether to call theme, setting, or texture. I hope it’s not a spoiler to say the requisite chase scene takes place on Twitter, a fresh and brilliant twist that I thoroughly enjoyed.
That’s the last of the 2010 novels that sank in deep enough to make my list. I love Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone, but I preferred Locked In (2009), which I read last January, to the more recent Coming Back. Like Lois McMaster Bujold in Cryoburn (see last week’s blog), Muller made sure longtime readers got a glimpse of all their favorite characters, but unlike Bujold, she didn’t pull it off in Coming Back. I found the new book slight, and I suspect readers new to Sharon and her family and friends wondered what all the fuss, ie Muller’s reputation, was about. Locked In, on the other hand, was a real mystery with a fresh plot device—McCone’s medical condition, in which she can think clearly but not move or speak—and plenty of opportunity to display this beloved character’s intelligence and determination.
Showing posts with label Marcia Muller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marcia Muller. Show all posts
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Reading for Romance
Elizabeth Zelvin
I don’t write romance, but I read for it. No, I’m not confessing to a secret taste for bodice rippers. I read mostly mystery and some carefully chosen fantasy, SF, and historical novels. But what most of my favorites have in common, regardless of genre, is fully realized, endearing characters and meaningful relationships, especially though not exclusively romantic ones.
Looking first at my favorite mystery series, let’s take Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone books. I love Sharon, but I’ve never fully bought her relationship, now marriage, with Hy Ripinsky. My pick among those books is Broken Promise Land, when Sharon’s assistant, Rae Kelleher, falls in love with Sharon’s brother-in-law, country star Ricky Savage. Some of it is told from Rae’s point of view, and for me it evokes that achingly emotional phenomenon, falling in love. Now let’s take Margaret Maron’s Judge Deborah Knott series. Like Sharon, Deborah makes a series of wrong choices before she finds a keeper. In her case, it’s a guy she’s known her whole life, Deputy Sheriff Dwight Bryant. And what a delicious twist it is that she lets her inner pragmatist insist she’s settling for a marriage of convenience, while Dwight conceals the fact that he’s been in love with her for years.
Sometimes an author fails to allow romance to triumph or draws the suspense out to my increasing frustration. I don’t think I’ve ever quite forgiven P.D. James for not letting Adam Dalgliesh get together with Cordelia Gray. And I wanted to shake Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, or perhaps her protagonist, Detective Inspector Bill Slider, for several books in a row as he shirked breaking with his irritating wife and committing to his delightful girlfriend.
Several years on the mystery lovers’ e-list DorothyL have taught me that I share my tastes across genres with quite a few other mystery readers. Even the ever-vigilant list moderators will allow members to post about Dorothy Dunnett and Diana Gabaldon. Both write mysteries, but it’s their more popular series, in both cases historicals with just a touch of woo-woo, that are so darn good. Dunnett’s Francis Crawford of Lymond and Gabaldon’s Jamie Fraser both figured prominently in a hugely enjoyable discussion on the list of which fictional characters DLers would happily go to bed with.
Tellingly, the list included Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan, who’s a terrific character and as much of a superhero as Lymond and Jamie, but not sexy and gorgeous like them. Miles is only four feet tall with a big head and a condition something like brittle bone disease—but he’s such a great guy that readers were ready to jump his bones. Virtually, of course. And it probably helps that we know how good he is in bed. The Vorkosigan books are science fiction by genre, though they often contain a mystery. My favorite, A Civil Campaign, does not. It doesn’t need one to carry the story: it’s the perfect cross between space opera and comedy of manners. And the romance between Miles and Ekaterin is very satisfying indeed. Bujold dedicates the book to Jane (Austen), Charlotte (Bronte), Dorothy (Sayers), and Georgette (Heyer), and I think she does her sources of inspiration proud.
Considering my tastes, you’d think I’d have a romance in my mystery, Death Will Get You Sober. But I don’t. My protagonist Bruce is too busy getting sober to fall in love, though he goes to bed once each with his ex-wife (whom readers will learn more about in a future book) and a witness. And if he did, both his sponsor and his best friend Jimmy would remind him that AA wisdom suggests no new relationships in the first year of sobriety. Bruce is one of those characters whose perch on the author’s shoulder is the driver’s seat. He won’t be hurried, and I can’t force him. In the second book, he has a romantic interlude, but it’s transitional for both partners. In the third, he’s attracted to a suspect, but it doesn’t work out. In book four, he meets someone who might become a girlfriend and a recurring character. But I don’t know for sure. He hasn’t told me yet.
So for now, I read for romance, but I don’t write it—yet.
I don’t write romance, but I read for it. No, I’m not confessing to a secret taste for bodice rippers. I read mostly mystery and some carefully chosen fantasy, SF, and historical novels. But what most of my favorites have in common, regardless of genre, is fully realized, endearing characters and meaningful relationships, especially though not exclusively romantic ones.
Looking first at my favorite mystery series, let’s take Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone books. I love Sharon, but I’ve never fully bought her relationship, now marriage, with Hy Ripinsky. My pick among those books is Broken Promise Land, when Sharon’s assistant, Rae Kelleher, falls in love with Sharon’s brother-in-law, country star Ricky Savage. Some of it is told from Rae’s point of view, and for me it evokes that achingly emotional phenomenon, falling in love. Now let’s take Margaret Maron’s Judge Deborah Knott series. Like Sharon, Deborah makes a series of wrong choices before she finds a keeper. In her case, it’s a guy she’s known her whole life, Deputy Sheriff Dwight Bryant. And what a delicious twist it is that she lets her inner pragmatist insist she’s settling for a marriage of convenience, while Dwight conceals the fact that he’s been in love with her for years.
Sometimes an author fails to allow romance to triumph or draws the suspense out to my increasing frustration. I don’t think I’ve ever quite forgiven P.D. James for not letting Adam Dalgliesh get together with Cordelia Gray. And I wanted to shake Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, or perhaps her protagonist, Detective Inspector Bill Slider, for several books in a row as he shirked breaking with his irritating wife and committing to his delightful girlfriend.
Several years on the mystery lovers’ e-list DorothyL have taught me that I share my tastes across genres with quite a few other mystery readers. Even the ever-vigilant list moderators will allow members to post about Dorothy Dunnett and Diana Gabaldon. Both write mysteries, but it’s their more popular series, in both cases historicals with just a touch of woo-woo, that are so darn good. Dunnett’s Francis Crawford of Lymond and Gabaldon’s Jamie Fraser both figured prominently in a hugely enjoyable discussion on the list of which fictional characters DLers would happily go to bed with.
Tellingly, the list included Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan, who’s a terrific character and as much of a superhero as Lymond and Jamie, but not sexy and gorgeous like them. Miles is only four feet tall with a big head and a condition something like brittle bone disease—but he’s such a great guy that readers were ready to jump his bones. Virtually, of course. And it probably helps that we know how good he is in bed. The Vorkosigan books are science fiction by genre, though they often contain a mystery. My favorite, A Civil Campaign, does not. It doesn’t need one to carry the story: it’s the perfect cross between space opera and comedy of manners. And the romance between Miles and Ekaterin is very satisfying indeed. Bujold dedicates the book to Jane (Austen), Charlotte (Bronte), Dorothy (Sayers), and Georgette (Heyer), and I think she does her sources of inspiration proud.
Considering my tastes, you’d think I’d have a romance in my mystery, Death Will Get You Sober. But I don’t. My protagonist Bruce is too busy getting sober to fall in love, though he goes to bed once each with his ex-wife (whom readers will learn more about in a future book) and a witness. And if he did, both his sponsor and his best friend Jimmy would remind him that AA wisdom suggests no new relationships in the first year of sobriety. Bruce is one of those characters whose perch on the author’s shoulder is the driver’s seat. He won’t be hurried, and I can’t force him. In the second book, he has a romantic interlude, but it’s transitional for both partners. In the third, he’s attracted to a suspect, but it doesn’t work out. In book four, he meets someone who might become a girlfriend and a recurring character. But I don’t know for sure. He hasn’t told me yet.
So for now, I read for romance, but I don’t write it—yet.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Learning to Fly
Learning to Fly
Elizabeth Zelvin
I am a great admirer of Sharon McCone, the intrepid PI created by Marcia Muller. Sharon has learned a lot of new skills over the years. None impresses me more than how she’s taken to flying a plane since she hooked up with Hy Ripinsky, her husband in the most recent book, who’s a skilled pilot. When I say that learning to fly is not easy, I speak from experience.
Back in the 1970s, I was married to a guy with a burning desire to get a pilot’s license. He was my future ex, but of course I didn’t know that then. I thought we’d stay married for the rest of my life. I envisioned his getting a license…buying a plane…taking me up in it…getting a heart attack—and how the hell was I going to get back down? My first thought was to take a couple of lessons, ie learn just enough to land the plane in an emergency. As I found out, landing is the hardest part of flying. No way could I do it first and skip the rest. Anyhow, from the first lesson in a little Cessna 150 from the Westhampton airport, not far from where we had our little weekend house, I was hooked—in a terrified kind of way.
I still dream about taking off, which was my favorite part of flying: pulling the stick back, keeping my feet steady on the pedals (which are for steering on the ground, not for braking or accelerating), moving faster and faster down the runway until I see the nose come up and realize we’re in the air. On the other hand, I still look out at the sky on a particularly clear blue winter day and get a shiver of apprehension. The Cessna was so light that if the winds were too high—wind blows harder aloft than on the ground—we couldn’t have our lesson. A part of my mind still wants to make that—didn’t have to have our lesson.
There were two flight instructors: Barry, who looked a bit like Robert Redford in The Great Waldo Pepper and knew it, and Karl, who had less ego and more tact. I cherish the memory of how he handled some of my dumber moments. One time I got all excited about spotting another aircraft. You couldn’t get lost flying on Eastern Long Island. It was literally all spread out beneath you like a map. But you literally had to look out for low-flying planes. I wasn’t very quick at visual comprehension, so I was proud that this particular time I saw one coming.
“Look, Karl!” I exclaimed. “Is that aircraft at the same altitude as us?”
Karl said, perfectly deadpan, “That’s a sailboat.” I was looking at Long Island Sound.
I logged about thirty hours with the instructors, but I never got to solo. I had almost reached that point when I had a setback. I sent the plane into a 2 g bounce on a touch and go in a crosswind, if you must know. As my jaw settled back into its socket, Karl said with his usual calm, “Check if the landing gear are still on the aircraft.”
“You mean are the wheels still on the plane?” That’s what he meant, all right, and it took all my nerve to look out the window. (They were, luckily for us.)
Soon afterward, we decided the lessons were too expensive ($33 an hour—eat your hearts out, 21st-century student pilots) and gave up the dream of becoming pilots. I confess to relief that I’d never have to solo or do another stall. That’s when you let up on the gas and raise the nose so high the engine cuts out—on purpose. I’ve forgotten all the aerodynamics I studied, and I think my ex got the textbook in the divorce. I’d have to do an awful lot of research to create a Sharon in my own mystery. But I’m not one bit sorry I got to do it. When I add up the riches of my life experience—my tradeoff for publishing the first novel at 64 instead of 24—I remember that once upon a time, I could fly.
Elizabeth Zelvin
I am a great admirer of Sharon McCone, the intrepid PI created by Marcia Muller. Sharon has learned a lot of new skills over the years. None impresses me more than how she’s taken to flying a plane since she hooked up with Hy Ripinsky, her husband in the most recent book, who’s a skilled pilot. When I say that learning to fly is not easy, I speak from experience.
Back in the 1970s, I was married to a guy with a burning desire to get a pilot’s license. He was my future ex, but of course I didn’t know that then. I thought we’d stay married for the rest of my life. I envisioned his getting a license…buying a plane…taking me up in it…getting a heart attack—and how the hell was I going to get back down? My first thought was to take a couple of lessons, ie learn just enough to land the plane in an emergency. As I found out, landing is the hardest part of flying. No way could I do it first and skip the rest. Anyhow, from the first lesson in a little Cessna 150 from the Westhampton airport, not far from where we had our little weekend house, I was hooked—in a terrified kind of way.
I still dream about taking off, which was my favorite part of flying: pulling the stick back, keeping my feet steady on the pedals (which are for steering on the ground, not for braking or accelerating), moving faster and faster down the runway until I see the nose come up and realize we’re in the air. On the other hand, I still look out at the sky on a particularly clear blue winter day and get a shiver of apprehension. The Cessna was so light that if the winds were too high—wind blows harder aloft than on the ground—we couldn’t have our lesson. A part of my mind still wants to make that—didn’t have to have our lesson.
There were two flight instructors: Barry, who looked a bit like Robert Redford in The Great Waldo Pepper and knew it, and Karl, who had less ego and more tact. I cherish the memory of how he handled some of my dumber moments. One time I got all excited about spotting another aircraft. You couldn’t get lost flying on Eastern Long Island. It was literally all spread out beneath you like a map. But you literally had to look out for low-flying planes. I wasn’t very quick at visual comprehension, so I was proud that this particular time I saw one coming.
“Look, Karl!” I exclaimed. “Is that aircraft at the same altitude as us?”
Karl said, perfectly deadpan, “That’s a sailboat.” I was looking at Long Island Sound.
I logged about thirty hours with the instructors, but I never got to solo. I had almost reached that point when I had a setback. I sent the plane into a 2 g bounce on a touch and go in a crosswind, if you must know. As my jaw settled back into its socket, Karl said with his usual calm, “Check if the landing gear are still on the aircraft.”
“You mean are the wheels still on the plane?” That’s what he meant, all right, and it took all my nerve to look out the window. (They were, luckily for us.)
Soon afterward, we decided the lessons were too expensive ($33 an hour—eat your hearts out, 21st-century student pilots) and gave up the dream of becoming pilots. I confess to relief that I’d never have to solo or do another stall. That’s when you let up on the gas and raise the nose so high the engine cuts out—on purpose. I’ve forgotten all the aerodynamics I studied, and I think my ex got the textbook in the divorce. I’d have to do an awful lot of research to create a Sharon in my own mystery. But I’m not one bit sorry I got to do it. When I add up the riches of my life experience—my tradeoff for publishing the first novel at 64 instead of 24—I remember that once upon a time, I could fly.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Read A Mystery, Get A Life
Elizabeth Zelvin
As a reader and a writer, I love a mystery. But why? Do I love it for the puzzle, the slow unfolding of the clues and evidence that will show me at the end who done it, er, did it? Do I love it for the theme of wrongs righted and justice done? For the plot, the necessity that in every mystery, unlike certain literary novels, something happens? All of these are pleasures associated with mysteries. However, none of the above provides the burning desire to plunk my money down the minute a new hardcover by a favorite author comes out. I’m a hardcore series reader. I love to return to protagonists I already know and revisit the worlds they inhabit, both in new books and by rereading. And I’ve finally figured out what clinches the attraction.
On the back cover of Margaret Maron’s latest Judge Deborah Knott book, there’s a quote from a review by the Associated Press: “The considerable strength of Maron’s writing lies in giving her sleuth a life.” I read that and thought: “That’s IT!” Judge Deborah is one of my favorites for just that reason. I feel the same about Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone, Dana Stabenow’s Kate Shugak, and a number of others.
If I met Deborah or Sharon in real life, I think I’d get along with them just fine. I’ve certainly wished, if not for eleven brothers, at least for a family that got together to make music the way Deborah’s does. I’ve played the guitar since I was 13, and in my folksinging days, my family had a tendency not to pay much attention beyond asking why I couldn’t sing “something more cheerful.” Deborah herself might have liked my mother, who was a pioneering woman lawyer. As for Sharon, I can empathize with her slow transformation from Sixties free spirit with the All Souls Legal Cooperative to businesswoman with a heart and a terrific team.
Kate Shugak, on the other hand, probably wouldn’t think much of me. I’m not rugged enough for an Alaskan, especially someone like the ultra-competent and indomitable Kate. The one Alaskan I do know, a therapist from Kansas, hikes up glaciers in the rain on her lunch hour. When I visited a number of years ago, I couldn’t keep up. Kate (and presumably Stabenow) shares my taste in reading, though. She’d be great on DorothyL. She also has a fantastic bunch of friends.
I suspect those friendships are the key. Like many Americans of my generation, I hunger for community. I’ve had a taste of it at various times in my life, but time, my big-city location (I live in Manhattan), and the nature of life in the 21st century have left me with not only a diminished family, but also friends who are widely scattered and not known to each other. Each of these fictional heroines has a circle of friends, and vicariously, once I open the book, so do I.
As a reader and a writer, I love a mystery. But why? Do I love it for the puzzle, the slow unfolding of the clues and evidence that will show me at the end who done it, er, did it? Do I love it for the theme of wrongs righted and justice done? For the plot, the necessity that in every mystery, unlike certain literary novels, something happens? All of these are pleasures associated with mysteries. However, none of the above provides the burning desire to plunk my money down the minute a new hardcover by a favorite author comes out. I’m a hardcore series reader. I love to return to protagonists I already know and revisit the worlds they inhabit, both in new books and by rereading. And I’ve finally figured out what clinches the attraction.
On the back cover of Margaret Maron’s latest Judge Deborah Knott book, there’s a quote from a review by the Associated Press: “The considerable strength of Maron’s writing lies in giving her sleuth a life.” I read that and thought: “That’s IT!” Judge Deborah is one of my favorites for just that reason. I feel the same about Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone, Dana Stabenow’s Kate Shugak, and a number of others.
If I met Deborah or Sharon in real life, I think I’d get along with them just fine. I’ve certainly wished, if not for eleven brothers, at least for a family that got together to make music the way Deborah’s does. I’ve played the guitar since I was 13, and in my folksinging days, my family had a tendency not to pay much attention beyond asking why I couldn’t sing “something more cheerful.” Deborah herself might have liked my mother, who was a pioneering woman lawyer. As for Sharon, I can empathize with her slow transformation from Sixties free spirit with the All Souls Legal Cooperative to businesswoman with a heart and a terrific team.
Kate Shugak, on the other hand, probably wouldn’t think much of me. I’m not rugged enough for an Alaskan, especially someone like the ultra-competent and indomitable Kate. The one Alaskan I do know, a therapist from Kansas, hikes up glaciers in the rain on her lunch hour. When I visited a number of years ago, I couldn’t keep up. Kate (and presumably Stabenow) shares my taste in reading, though. She’d be great on DorothyL. She also has a fantastic bunch of friends.
I suspect those friendships are the key. Like many Americans of my generation, I hunger for community. I’ve had a taste of it at various times in my life, but time, my big-city location (I live in Manhattan), and the nature of life in the 21st century have left me with not only a diminished family, but also friends who are widely scattered and not known to each other. Each of these fictional heroines has a circle of friends, and vicariously, once I open the book, so do I.
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