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Elizabeth Zelvin
This is the time when we get to tally up and share with others our favorite reads of the preceding year. This year, I started making my list way back in January 2010, when I was still reading a few of the highly praised mysteries of 2009. I’ve been adding to it and winnowing it throughout 2010, and I think I’ve distilled it to the handful of books I absolutely loved reading. In one case, I got the hardcover by a favorite author the day it was published, read it straight through, then turned back to the beginning and read the whole thing again with equal relish. In another, a book and author I came upon by chance, I thought it was so exceptional that I devoted a whole blog to it.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about readers in my years in the mystery community, it’s that every individual’s taste is different. You may hate the books I love, and vice versa. My own husband and I are yin and yang in this regard. Even with the narrow range of books that we may both pick up—a certain kind of high-quality historical and fantasy fiction—I get bored if the battles go on too long, while he gets bored if the relationships and feelings go on too long. (Same with movies, but that’s another story.) But my list is my list, and I want to write about why I think these particular books are so wonderful.
As I said, I wrote a whole blog about Michael Gruber’s The Book of Air and Shadows (2007), so I’ll repeat here only that it had all three elements of great novel writing: storytelling, writing, and characterization.
The same can be said of Lois McMaster Bujold’s Cryoburn (2010), the long-awaited new volume of the Vorkosigan saga, which I insist in including on my mystery list because one aspect of Bujold’s genius is the deft mixing of genres. Cryoburn is science fiction, mystery, galactic political thriller, and immensely satisfying character-driven novel all at once. Miles Vorkosigan and his family and friends are the kind of people readers like me fall in love with, wish they could meet and befriend, and hunger to hear more about. They are endearing, smart, and funny—intensely real, achingly delicious. I can read about characters like these till the cows come home, over and over.
Margaret Maron’s Christmas Mourning (2010), and her Judge Deborah Knott series in general, shares that characteristic, at a less intense and charismatic level, of endearing characters, of a world of family and friends that the reader would be delighted to belong to. Every time the Knotts sit around playing music, I wish I had been born into a family that did that. In this one, the mystery is neatly done and the personal elements enough to satisfy someone like me who (dare I admit this?) is really reading the book primarily for the relationships.
Also on my list is Sara Paretsky’s latest, Body Work (2010). Paretsky, just named a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America and the chief founding mother of Sisters in Crime, writes a protagonist, V.I. Warshawski, who is a different kind of smart from either Miles Vorkosigan or Judge Deborah and a more abrasive kind of endearing. I have to reread Paretsky’s books just to make sure I can follow the more brainy aspects of the plot, which often have to do with business or politics. I don’t exactly long to know V.I. personally, but I care about her and the circle of friends and supporters she’s gathered around herself. I admire her doggedness—she’s as persistent as, hmm, Rocky, in coming back after a knockout—I like the way she cares about her mother’s memory (and those last ruby glasses, or are we down to one?), and I adore her overt feminism. In the case of this new book, after reading the beginning, I settled into this meaty read with a sigh of satisfaction. Yes! Paretsky is still at the height of her powers; neither the tight plotting nor the development of this installment of the series character arc is going to let me down.
That’s not the whole list—more another time. What’s on your Best of 2010 list, and why?
Showing posts with label Sara Paretsky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sara Paretsky. Show all posts
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Blunt Talk about Women at Bouchercon
Sandra Parshall
Sara Paretsky’s big black hat, red feather boa, and interesting footwear caused a lot of comment at Bouchercon last Friday, but as always, her words had the power to make you forget the visuals. Along with moderator Barbara Fister and writers Mary Saums, Kate Flora, and Liza Cody, Paretsky turned a panel with the deceptively dull title “Telling Women’s Stories” into a riveting dissection of women’s roles in fiction and real life.
Paretsky, who joined with other female mystery writers to found Sisters in Crime 24 years ago in response to “being slighted at conferences” and overlooked by reviewers, sounded as if she’s given up on feminism. She said she believes SinC has brought a lot of women readers to mystery by making them aware of books that will appeal to them, but she questions ”whether feminism has made much of an impact” on society. Joking that she was “raised in the woods by wolves” and has “never felt at home in civilized society,” Paretsky spoke in the past tense of being a feminist who was “angry all the time” about the unequal treatment of women. Now she’s more focused on general issues of power and justice – and her protagonist, V.I. Warshawski, has changed along with her.
Other women on the panel agreed that inequality remains rampant in society at large, in the publishing world, and on the pages of novels. Mary Saums said she’s weary of witnessing “everyday abuses of women’s rights.” For the first 45 years of her life, Saums said, she was a “nice” woman, but she finally reached a point when she’d had enough of conforming to expectations. “Women have a right to be who they are,” she declared to applause from the audience.
All of the panelists deplored the prevalence of women characters as victims of brutal crimes in fiction, but none seemed to find it surprising. Paretsky pointed out that “the notion of a woman taking up space in the world still offends some men at such a visceral level” that they want to strike out, “slash and destroy.” Both men and women, Liza Cody said, “are quite comfortable with the idea of women as victims,” but men don’t want to read about male victims.
Kate Flora said she finds it “deeply troubling” that female authors are “increasingly writing about women as victims” of graphic violence. In her own Thea Kozak series, Flora is “exploring what it means to be a modern woman.” In a new series, her male detective owes his sensibilities to his mother, who “taught him to see” the reality of men’s and women’s roles in society.
Mary Saums perceives “a new wave of anti-female feeling in the book business” and some of it is coming from women. Popular female thriller writers are treated as the equals of their male counterparts, but some of those women, according to Saums, are openly critical of Sisters in Crime and “talk down to us.”
In society, Liza Cody fears, too many young women are moving backward. Rather than claiming the right to be unique individuals, they’re “trying to compete with porn stars” in a bid for male attention. (I couldn’t help thinking of the young female cops on TV shows who teeter around crime scenes on five-inch heels and lean menacingly over interrogation room tables with their cleavage fully exposed, inches from the suspects’ faces. The porn star effect is everywhere these days.)
Paretsky observed that both male and female writers all seem to want their women characters to be “five-six and 118 pounds.” She believes publishers are “not thoughtful” about what they publish, but simply put out more of what’s already selling until it stops selling. If books in which women are savaged happen to be selling, publishers will put out more of them. Publishers follow trends instead of taking the lead and breaking new ground.
The mostly female audience responded to the panel with frequent applause, and when the floor was opened to questions, a couple of the women present seized the chance to make speeches of their own.
All this was in marked contrast to an earlier panel called “The Dark Side of the Fair Sex” that featured Megan Abbott as moderator with panelists Chelsea Cain, Sophie Littlefield, and the lone man, Derek Nikitas. Cain, who writes about a gorgeous female serial killer named Gretchen Lowell and the mentally unbalanced male cop who both desires Gretchen and wants to lock her up, seemed amused by readers’ reactions to her characters. (She reported that her grandmother’s comment after reading the first book was that “it’s nicely bound.”) All of the panelists write dark, gritty stories about women who don’t meet society’s expectations, but I didn’t sense the struggle and frustration that was palpable when Paretsky, Saums, Flora, and Cody spoke. Why the difference? That’s food for thought in itself.
Sara Paretsky’s big black hat, red feather boa, and interesting footwear caused a lot of comment at Bouchercon last Friday, but as always, her words had the power to make you forget the visuals. Along with moderator Barbara Fister and writers Mary Saums, Kate Flora, and Liza Cody, Paretsky turned a panel with the deceptively dull title “Telling Women’s Stories” into a riveting dissection of women’s roles in fiction and real life.
Paretsky, who joined with other female mystery writers to found Sisters in Crime 24 years ago in response to “being slighted at conferences” and overlooked by reviewers, sounded as if she’s given up on feminism. She said she believes SinC has brought a lot of women readers to mystery by making them aware of books that will appeal to them, but she questions ”whether feminism has made much of an impact” on society. Joking that she was “raised in the woods by wolves” and has “never felt at home in civilized society,” Paretsky spoke in the past tense of being a feminist who was “angry all the time” about the unequal treatment of women. Now she’s more focused on general issues of power and justice – and her protagonist, V.I. Warshawski, has changed along with her.
Other women on the panel agreed that inequality remains rampant in society at large, in the publishing world, and on the pages of novels. Mary Saums said she’s weary of witnessing “everyday abuses of women’s rights.” For the first 45 years of her life, Saums said, she was a “nice” woman, but she finally reached a point when she’d had enough of conforming to expectations. “Women have a right to be who they are,” she declared to applause from the audience.
All of the panelists deplored the prevalence of women characters as victims of brutal crimes in fiction, but none seemed to find it surprising. Paretsky pointed out that “the notion of a woman taking up space in the world still offends some men at such a visceral level” that they want to strike out, “slash and destroy.” Both men and women, Liza Cody said, “are quite comfortable with the idea of women as victims,” but men don’t want to read about male victims.
Kate Flora said she finds it “deeply troubling” that female authors are “increasingly writing about women as victims” of graphic violence. In her own Thea Kozak series, Flora is “exploring what it means to be a modern woman.” In a new series, her male detective owes his sensibilities to his mother, who “taught him to see” the reality of men’s and women’s roles in society.
Mary Saums perceives “a new wave of anti-female feeling in the book business” and some of it is coming from women. Popular female thriller writers are treated as the equals of their male counterparts, but some of those women, according to Saums, are openly critical of Sisters in Crime and “talk down to us.”
In society, Liza Cody fears, too many young women are moving backward. Rather than claiming the right to be unique individuals, they’re “trying to compete with porn stars” in a bid for male attention. (I couldn’t help thinking of the young female cops on TV shows who teeter around crime scenes on five-inch heels and lean menacingly over interrogation room tables with their cleavage fully exposed, inches from the suspects’ faces. The porn star effect is everywhere these days.)
Paretsky observed that both male and female writers all seem to want their women characters to be “five-six and 118 pounds.” She believes publishers are “not thoughtful” about what they publish, but simply put out more of what’s already selling until it stops selling. If books in which women are savaged happen to be selling, publishers will put out more of them. Publishers follow trends instead of taking the lead and breaking new ground.
The mostly female audience responded to the panel with frequent applause, and when the floor was opened to questions, a couple of the women present seized the chance to make speeches of their own.
All this was in marked contrast to an earlier panel called “The Dark Side of the Fair Sex” that featured Megan Abbott as moderator with panelists Chelsea Cain, Sophie Littlefield, and the lone man, Derek Nikitas. Cain, who writes about a gorgeous female serial killer named Gretchen Lowell and the mentally unbalanced male cop who both desires Gretchen and wants to lock her up, seemed amused by readers’ reactions to her characters. (She reported that her grandmother’s comment after reading the first book was that “it’s nicely bound.”) All of the panelists write dark, gritty stories about women who don’t meet society’s expectations, but I didn’t sense the struggle and frustration that was palpable when Paretsky, Saums, Flora, and Cody spoke. Why the difference? That’s food for thought in itself.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Seminal and Exemplary Mysteries
Elizabeth Zelvin
I recently heard that a gentleman with an encyclopedic knowledge of the mystery genre will soon be revealing the seven mysteries he considers “the” books all mystery writers must read. I don’t know his list, but if I’m allowed to guess, I believe he will probably choose works by Edgar Allan Poe, A. Conan Doyle, Wilkie Collins, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ross Macdonald, and Rex Stout. (If I may hedge my bets, I’ll nominate Sheridan LeFanu, Mickey Spillane, and Erle Stanley Gardner as alternates.) As it happens, I won’t get to hear his talk. But before I realized I had a schedule conflict, I had already compiled an alternative list of works that, if not the seven progenitors of the mystery heritage, are a lot more relevant to my heritage as a mystery writer. My feminist dander is up, and I’m ready to charge to the defense of the traditional and especially the character-driven mystery, as well as the matrilineage of mysteries by women. I hasten to add that none of these have been attacked in any way. This is purely speculation on my part. But I had a lot of fun selecting my seven candidates. So here they are.
Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Dame Agatha is perhaps the most likely to appear on a male mystery historian’s list. After all, she is the mother not only of the cozy, but also of the puzzle in which the murderer turns out to be the least likely suspect. Her plots, highly original in their time although they have become clichés through imitation, are widely admired. Having to pick one book, I chose Roger Ackroyd, although it’s not my favorite, but as the exemplar of the unreliable narrator.
Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night
The presiding genius of the Detective Club during the Golden Age of mystery in the 1930s, Sayers reached her peak in this mystery without a murder that is also a richly textured novel, which I believe earned her the right to be considered the mother of the character-driven mystery. I’ve posted this opinion elsewhere, but it bears saying again. The key passage is one in which Harriet Vane asks Lord Peter Wimsey for advice about her novel.
"'Well,' said Harriet...."I admit that Wilfrid is the world's worst goop. But if he doesn't conceal the handkerchief, where's my plot?'
[Peter suggests a way to define Wilfrid's character that would give him motivation for concealing the handkerchief.] ....'He'd still be a goop, and a pathological goop, but he would be a bit more consistent.'
'Yes--he'd be interesting. But if I give Wilfrid all those violent and lifelike feelings, he'll throw the whole book out of balance.'
'You would have to abandon the jig-saw kind of story and write a book about human beings for a change.'
....'It would hurt like hell.'
'What would that matter, if it made a good book?'"
I suspect that Sayers and her muse had precisely this conversation in her head, and Gaudy Night was the result. The creation of Harriet and Sayers’s increasingly three-dimensional portrayal of her both in relation to Lord Peter and grappling with her own dilemmas regarding her work and what kind of life to choose ushered in the transition of the traditional mystery from primarily a puzzle to a puzzle embedded in a character-driven novel.
Josephine Tey, The Daughter of Time
Tey’s work falls in the period between the Golden Age and what I’d like to call the age of Sisters in Crime, analogous to the Second Wave of feminism in the 1970s and 1980s. My favorite among Tey’s books is Brat Farrar, a character-driven novel that is both endearing and enduring. But The Daughter of Time stretches the boundaries of the genre by applying modern detection, by a temporarily bedridden British police detective, to a famous historical puzzle, the character of King Richard III and the fate of the Little Princes in the Tower.
Sara Paretsky, Indemnity Only
Paretsky was not only chief among the founding goddesses of Sisters in Crime, but also the mother of the American woman private eye novel, along with Sue Grafton and Marcia Muller. Paretsky’s protagonist is not only physically tough but also finds most of her cases in the “man’s world” of business, politics, and finance. Indemnity Only was the first outing of V.I. Warshawski, and it revolutionized the depiction of women in mysteries.
P.D. James, An Unsuitable Job for A Woman
All of the highly acclaimed P.D. James’s novels are works of literature as well as British police procedurals in the Adam Dalgleish series and P.I. novels in the works featuring Cordelia Gray, of which this is the first. James is one of those writers who is always being said to transcend the mystery genre, to the annoyance of mystery writers. I was dismayed to find, among the blurbs of the most recent Wexford novel by Ruth Rendell, her closest rival, a statement by James herself that Rendell “has transcended her genre.” Let us say, rather, that both these writers have set the bar high for the rest of us in our chosen form of literature.
Laurie R. King, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice
King is another superb literary stylist who earned her place on this list by stretching the boundaries of the canon of one of the progenitors and masters of mystery fiction, by giving Sherlock Holmes an apprentice and mate who is not only female, young, and feminist, but just as smart as he is: a worthy partner.
Elizabeth Peters, Crocodile on the Sandbank
A male mystery historian might find this a frivolous choice, but the first Amelia Peabody mystery by Egyptologist Peters (or Barbara Mertz, to use her real name) has it all. It’s an exemplar of the historical mystery, informed by legitimate scholarship and a shovelful of literary license, in a context of romantic suspense. Its protagonist is one of mystery’s memorable characters. And it’s tremendously funny, a welcome and crucial element in the genre.
I recently heard that a gentleman with an encyclopedic knowledge of the mystery genre will soon be revealing the seven mysteries he considers “the” books all mystery writers must read. I don’t know his list, but if I’m allowed to guess, I believe he will probably choose works by Edgar Allan Poe, A. Conan Doyle, Wilkie Collins, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ross Macdonald, and Rex Stout. (If I may hedge my bets, I’ll nominate Sheridan LeFanu, Mickey Spillane, and Erle Stanley Gardner as alternates.) As it happens, I won’t get to hear his talk. But before I realized I had a schedule conflict, I had already compiled an alternative list of works that, if not the seven progenitors of the mystery heritage, are a lot more relevant to my heritage as a mystery writer. My feminist dander is up, and I’m ready to charge to the defense of the traditional and especially the character-driven mystery, as well as the matrilineage of mysteries by women. I hasten to add that none of these have been attacked in any way. This is purely speculation on my part. But I had a lot of fun selecting my seven candidates. So here they are.
Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Dame Agatha is perhaps the most likely to appear on a male mystery historian’s list. After all, she is the mother not only of the cozy, but also of the puzzle in which the murderer turns out to be the least likely suspect. Her plots, highly original in their time although they have become clichés through imitation, are widely admired. Having to pick one book, I chose Roger Ackroyd, although it’s not my favorite, but as the exemplar of the unreliable narrator.
Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night
The presiding genius of the Detective Club during the Golden Age of mystery in the 1930s, Sayers reached her peak in this mystery without a murder that is also a richly textured novel, which I believe earned her the right to be considered the mother of the character-driven mystery. I’ve posted this opinion elsewhere, but it bears saying again. The key passage is one in which Harriet Vane asks Lord Peter Wimsey for advice about her novel.
"'Well,' said Harriet...."I admit that Wilfrid is the world's worst goop. But if he doesn't conceal the handkerchief, where's my plot?'
[Peter suggests a way to define Wilfrid's character that would give him motivation for concealing the handkerchief.] ....'He'd still be a goop, and a pathological goop, but he would be a bit more consistent.'
'Yes--he'd be interesting. But if I give Wilfrid all those violent and lifelike feelings, he'll throw the whole book out of balance.'
'You would have to abandon the jig-saw kind of story and write a book about human beings for a change.'
....'It would hurt like hell.'
'What would that matter, if it made a good book?'"
I suspect that Sayers and her muse had precisely this conversation in her head, and Gaudy Night was the result. The creation of Harriet and Sayers’s increasingly three-dimensional portrayal of her both in relation to Lord Peter and grappling with her own dilemmas regarding her work and what kind of life to choose ushered in the transition of the traditional mystery from primarily a puzzle to a puzzle embedded in a character-driven novel.
Josephine Tey, The Daughter of Time
Tey’s work falls in the period between the Golden Age and what I’d like to call the age of Sisters in Crime, analogous to the Second Wave of feminism in the 1970s and 1980s. My favorite among Tey’s books is Brat Farrar, a character-driven novel that is both endearing and enduring. But The Daughter of Time stretches the boundaries of the genre by applying modern detection, by a temporarily bedridden British police detective, to a famous historical puzzle, the character of King Richard III and the fate of the Little Princes in the Tower.
Sara Paretsky, Indemnity Only
Paretsky was not only chief among the founding goddesses of Sisters in Crime, but also the mother of the American woman private eye novel, along with Sue Grafton and Marcia Muller. Paretsky’s protagonist is not only physically tough but also finds most of her cases in the “man’s world” of business, politics, and finance. Indemnity Only was the first outing of V.I. Warshawski, and it revolutionized the depiction of women in mysteries.
P.D. James, An Unsuitable Job for A Woman
All of the highly acclaimed P.D. James’s novels are works of literature as well as British police procedurals in the Adam Dalgleish series and P.I. novels in the works featuring Cordelia Gray, of which this is the first. James is one of those writers who is always being said to transcend the mystery genre, to the annoyance of mystery writers. I was dismayed to find, among the blurbs of the most recent Wexford novel by Ruth Rendell, her closest rival, a statement by James herself that Rendell “has transcended her genre.” Let us say, rather, that both these writers have set the bar high for the rest of us in our chosen form of literature.
Laurie R. King, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice
King is another superb literary stylist who earned her place on this list by stretching the boundaries of the canon of one of the progenitors and masters of mystery fiction, by giving Sherlock Holmes an apprentice and mate who is not only female, young, and feminist, but just as smart as he is: a worthy partner.
Elizabeth Peters, Crocodile on the Sandbank
A male mystery historian might find this a frivolous choice, but the first Amelia Peabody mystery by Egyptologist Peters (or Barbara Mertz, to use her real name) has it all. It’s an exemplar of the historical mystery, informed by legitimate scholarship and a shovelful of literary license, in a context of romantic suspense. Its protagonist is one of mystery’s memorable characters. And it’s tremendously funny, a welcome and crucial element in the genre.
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