Sorry if you’ve missed updates of this blog for the past week or two. The combination of seasonal affective depression, a back injury and poison oak knocked me out for a bit. Hope you enjoy the return! Civilization’s changed a lot in the last hundred years. (That’s an understatement, wouldn’t you say?) We’ve gone from flimsy, barely airborne planes to walking on the moon and probes exploring the solar system; wooden wall phones for the well-to-do to computer smartphones attached to practically everyone; tiny circles of close friends and family to global communities. With all of that change, a lot of formerly private life have become increasingly public. I’m not sure if Elizabeth MacKintosh would have liked the world today. As a mystery writer, she was better than average, but the best enigma she ever created was her life. You say you’ve never heard of Elizabeth MacKintosh? Tell you the truth, I hadn’t much either until I ran into J. M Henderson’s Josephine Tey: A Life. And that is the name mystery lovers recognize. Josephine Tey, the creator of the Alan Grant mysteries and Brat Farrar. The lady who entertained us by breaking the rules laid out by other mystery writers. …
One of the things fiction readers love is something Stephen King described as “pulling aside the curtain”. Grisham fans get a peek at the lives of lawyers because that’s the world their author had known before he picked up a pen. Val McDermid and Patricia Cornwell delight devotees with their stories of police and forensic detection because, as former crime journalists, they knew the turf. But it takes someone like Josephine Tey to pull aside the curtain on that most nefarious tribe – the writers – and give readers an eyeball into the world of professional scribblers. To Love and Be Wise may be sixty-seven years old but when it comes to describing the workings of a writer’s community, this story feels like a vat of fresh, hot, gossip. The plot is simple: Leslie Searle, an American photographer, has gone missing. Since Leslie Searle is a celebrated photographer, no one is surprised he was staying at Salcott St. Mary, an English-Village-turned-Artist-Colony, when he disappeared. What is striking is how this unassuming, interesting, attractive young man managed to upset every creative mind within its borders! It isn’t enough for Toby Tullis, that imperious and pompous playwright, that the young and attractive Mr. Searle…
Parents don’t tell you (even though they should) that it can be hard to grow up with a sister It means there’s there’s always someone else around, and, whether you’re older or younger, you two are always in each other’s shadows. When the two of you are small, sisters are in-house competition for any family attention and favor. And, because a sister gets to know you well, she can figure out every last thing that annoys you. This is knowledge she uses religiously. If someone meets your sister first, they may expect you to be a lot like her. You’re not. In spite of, or maybe because of their physical proximity, sisters can grow up only seeing how they’re different, believing they have nothing in common except relatives and DNA. Ask June Elbus in Tell the Wolves I’m Home how hard it is to have a sister in the house. At one point, Greta seemed like both a sibling and a friend, but now they fight all the time. They can’t help it; they’re such different people. Greta is self-assured, in high school and a gifted actress. June’s still in Junior High and shy. There’s a lot of emotional distance between them and,…
Posts occurring on Valentine’s Day are practically obligated to have a romantic theme. Well, this is as close as I’m likely to get: the Shakespearean play that made me fall in love with love. Everyone remembers their first, I mean the first production of a Shakespearean play. It tends to dominate their world view and every play by the Bard they see after that. Present a newbie with the star-crossed lovers in Romeo and Juliet, and you’ll find you’ve created a romantic; force another to audit a poor reading of Julius Caesar, and they’ll loathe plays and politics for the rest of their days. Like so many others, the first Shakespearean play I ever watched is still my favorite today. It gave me the way I like to look at romance. Tragic lovers can entertain somebody else, I favor the wit and laughter of Much Ado About Nothing. What makes this lighthearted romp so different from Shakespeare’s other comedies isn’t the “supposed” leading couple of the piece (Claudio and Hero) but his comedic characters, Benedick and Beatrice. From one perspective these potential partners have everything in common: they’re both smart, funny, astonishingly verbal, unromantic, sarcastic and brave. Their similarities give them…
Yesterday was the 65th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s accession to the throne. It’s an incredible milestone, one no other ruler of England has attained, and she deserves all the honor and respect she gets. The woman has seen a lot of changes during her reign, but that’s not what England should celebrate today. Today marks the 205th birthday of Charles Dickens, one of the most influential Britons and writers of any time. He didn’t just watch the world change, he changed our language and world with his stories. He was the literary Colossus of the Victorian Age, and his influence is still felt today. Dickens in his early years The life of Dickens holds enough drama to fuel a multi-season mini-series. His terrible childhood has become so well-known we label all other impoverished, chaotic beginnings as “Dickensian.” The funny thing is, he tried to hide these facts for years. Destitution was considered a social and character defect in the Regency and Victorian Eras and Dickens spent much of his life’s energy trying to get as far away from his impoverished past as he could. That drive turned him into a law clerk, a court reporter, a freelance journalist and finally…