Peg Herring's Blog - Posts Tagged "dead"
THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY
People often ask authors where their ideas come from. I speak not for others, but as for me--not a clue most of the time.
THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY, my January release, seems to have stemmed from a conversation I had with my son, a Merrill Lynch VP. He mentioned that he had fired one of their employees for selling away. I asked what that was, and he explained. It took root somewhere in my head, and the idea for a mystery formed.
Where the dead part came from, I could not tell you. I had no real desire to jump on the paranormal bandwagon, and to be honest, the story is not a typical paranormal: no vampires, no screaming vengeance from beyond the grave, and most certainly no ghouls or zombies. Think the Thomas part of Odd Thomas, not the fighting-other-worldly-creatures part. Kind of gentle paranormal, kind of speculating on things other-worldly without being scary or gloom-and-doom-ish. It's a mystery that just happens to involve dead people, and even though I don't know where the idea came from, I had a great time with it. And sometime in January, I hope a lot of other people do, as well.
THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY, my January release, seems to have stemmed from a conversation I had with my son, a Merrill Lynch VP. He mentioned that he had fired one of their employees for selling away. I asked what that was, and he explained. It took root somewhere in my head, and the idea for a mystery formed.
Where the dead part came from, I could not tell you. I had no real desire to jump on the paranormal bandwagon, and to be honest, the story is not a typical paranormal: no vampires, no screaming vengeance from beyond the grave, and most certainly no ghouls or zombies. Think the Thomas part of Odd Thomas, not the fighting-other-worldly-creatures part. Kind of gentle paranormal, kind of speculating on things other-worldly without being scary or gloom-and-doom-ish. It's a mystery that just happens to involve dead people, and even though I don't know where the idea came from, I had a great time with it. And sometime in January, I hope a lot of other people do, as well.
Let's Ask the Dead
My upcoming release, THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY, might have put me in a strange state of mind. I keep wondering what the dead would think of the living at a funeral.
Funeral attendance is required more and more often as a person ages. Here's what I notice about them:
First: The ministers in charge seem to miss the fact that the people are there not for a sermon, but out of respect for the person who died. Instead of acknowledging this, many clergymen and women make the occasion into a bid for conversion. My thought: if attendees are churchgoers, they don't need a second weekly sermon. If they're not, you just emphasized for them why they don't go to church.
The other thing I wonder is if the dead really would enjoy seeing their loved ones publicly exposed in the throes of their grief. It is painful to me to be present as family members suffer. I don't want to watch them being led into the church before and out of the church after, following that dreadful box of dead. Where did we get the idea that grief is somehow resolved by publicity?
So here's my personal declaration. No funeral. When I die, I want a nice dinner for anyone who cares to attend. No wringing the grief out of people by capsulizing my life and telling everyone what a great gal I was. The minister can attend, and he will be allowed to say grace if he can do it in a minute or less. After that, just talk about me while you enjoy the chicken and meatballs. Or don't, as the mood strikes. Enjoy each other's company. That's what a funeral should be for.
Funeral attendance is required more and more often as a person ages. Here's what I notice about them:
First: The ministers in charge seem to miss the fact that the people are there not for a sermon, but out of respect for the person who died. Instead of acknowledging this, many clergymen and women make the occasion into a bid for conversion. My thought: if attendees are churchgoers, they don't need a second weekly sermon. If they're not, you just emphasized for them why they don't go to church.
The other thing I wonder is if the dead really would enjoy seeing their loved ones publicly exposed in the throes of their grief. It is painful to me to be present as family members suffer. I don't want to watch them being led into the church before and out of the church after, following that dreadful box of dead. Where did we get the idea that grief is somehow resolved by publicity?
So here's my personal declaration. No funeral. When I die, I want a nice dinner for anyone who cares to attend. No wringing the grief out of people by capsulizing my life and telling everyone what a great gal I was. The minister can attend, and he will be allowed to say grace if he can do it in a minute or less. After that, just talk about me while you enjoy the chicken and meatballs. Or don't, as the mood strikes. Enjoy each other's company. That's what a funeral should be for.
What It's Like to Be Dead
The second Dead Detective Mystery, DEAD FOR THE MONEY, comes out on Friday, and the publicist for LL-Publishing has arranged a blog tour for me beginning in May. (This in itself is cool, because I've always had to arrange my own before.) In most of the posts, I'll be letting Seamus, Dead Detective, explain his view of things. I'll keep you apprised of the schedule as it develops.
So what is it like to be dead? There are so many possible answers that the mind boggles. Some say death is the end of everything, which is so un-fun that I refuse to contemplate it. And where would I get three more novels if I accepted that idea?
I recently read a book called SPOOK, in which author Mary Roach examined the question of life after death. She spent some time on reincarnation, explaining the specifics of that belief system, but I've never been fond of reincarnation as a concept. It seems a lot like the game of Pacheesi, which used to frustrate me as a kid. You move forward and forward and forward, and then you have to start all over at the beginning?
Of course the Judeo/Muslin/Christian belief system, which stems from one root religion, teaches reward and/or punishment after death. I chose to stick with that for this series, putting my own strange twist on things and hoping that my readers know that "fiction" starts and ends with the same letters as "fun." In other words, don't try to analyze me from what I write. It's all Seamus' fault anyway. He's the one who crawled inside my head and left all these outrageous ideas.
So what's the second Dead Detective Mystery about? Seamus is asked to investigate the death of wealthy William Dunbar, who fears his beloved grandson might have pushed him off a cliff. It's a typical case for Seamus, except he's asked to take along a cross-back-in-training, Mildred. The case is more complicated than expected, and Dunbar's young granddaughter Brodie, a problem child with a penchant for practical jokes, finds danger stalking her. As things move toward a frightening conclusion on the Mackinac Bridge, Seamus works to control the over-eager Mildred, help the vulnerable Brodie, and prove that someone did kill William Dunbar, all the while hoping no one else in the family will end up DEAD FOR THE MONEY.
http://www.ll-publications.com/deadmo...
So what is it like to be dead? There are so many possible answers that the mind boggles. Some say death is the end of everything, which is so un-fun that I refuse to contemplate it. And where would I get three more novels if I accepted that idea?
I recently read a book called SPOOK, in which author Mary Roach examined the question of life after death. She spent some time on reincarnation, explaining the specifics of that belief system, but I've never been fond of reincarnation as a concept. It seems a lot like the game of Pacheesi, which used to frustrate me as a kid. You move forward and forward and forward, and then you have to start all over at the beginning?
Of course the Judeo/Muslin/Christian belief system, which stems from one root religion, teaches reward and/or punishment after death. I chose to stick with that for this series, putting my own strange twist on things and hoping that my readers know that "fiction" starts and ends with the same letters as "fun." In other words, don't try to analyze me from what I write. It's all Seamus' fault anyway. He's the one who crawled inside my head and left all these outrageous ideas.
So what's the second Dead Detective Mystery about? Seamus is asked to investigate the death of wealthy William Dunbar, who fears his beloved grandson might have pushed him off a cliff. It's a typical case for Seamus, except he's asked to take along a cross-back-in-training, Mildred. The case is more complicated than expected, and Dunbar's young granddaughter Brodie, a problem child with a penchant for practical jokes, finds danger stalking her. As things move toward a frightening conclusion on the Mackinac Bridge, Seamus works to control the over-eager Mildred, help the vulnerable Brodie, and prove that someone did kill William Dunbar, all the while hoping no one else in the family will end up DEAD FOR THE MONEY.
http://www.ll-publications.com/deadmo...
