Lea Wait's Blog, page 147

Three Dead Guys Walk into a Bar

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There is a bar in Somerset County. Biker gangs and cops avoid it for very good reasons. It caters to the dead. A select few living souls are permitted to stop in if invited by one of the regulars. I’m one of those who gets to hang there on occasion. Another interesting aspect to the Nameless Dive as it’s known to patrons is it’s immunity to time. You can walk down the stairs on October 31st, 2019 and find yourself in 1861. I’ve had it happen and the experience is quite unsettling. I got an invite three days after Christmas and here’s what happened.

Gahan Wilson, H.P. Lovecraft and Hieronymus Bosch greeted me when I entered. They informed me that they had been recruited by Governor For Life Paul LePage III to design and write the brochure for Maine’s 250th Anniversary Celebration. That was my first hint that we were well into the future.

There was a good natured argument between Gahan and Hieronymus over cover art, while both deferred to Lovecraft in terms of the text. All three were excited about highlighting changes to the state in the past (at least for them) 50 years. Knowing what I did about pending climate change, I was literally sitting on a razor’s edge. How bad had things gotten and what was the state (no pun intended) of Maine in 2070?

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First came an updated map and I damn near lost my cookies as it was unveiled. The land mass had shrunk a lot more than even the most pessimistic projections I’d seen online. Portland, Bangor, Camden, Bar Harbor and Eastport were no more. Augusta was an island, as was Lewiston. From what I could determine, the Piscataqua River Bridge was now seven miles long, resembling those in the Florida Keys.

“Chill, my friend,” chuckled Lovecraft as he started filling in the highlights describing the New Maine. “Sure, some of the changes might seem uncomfortable, like a 125% increase in skin and colon cancers, but nobody worries about getting enough heating oil to survive winter. In fact, the state hasn’t had a day with freezing temperatures since 2045.”

Here are the highlights as I remember them from the pamphlet (I wasn’t allowed to take notes).

The population shift has finally settled. The last person under age 40 left the state in 2049, but technology adjusted. New employees are manufactured in the Rumford, Millinocket and Jackman plants. After bodies are created using high speed 3-D printers, skill sets and personalities are programmed into tiny nuclear powered neural networks inserted into cranial cavities. Since these creations have no need for sex and can work 24/7, the term ‘screwing around’ is on its way out of the English Language. This easily expanded work force, coupled with significant warming, has brought many new industries to the state. While most are owned by Russian and Chinese entities, the economic boom has lowered the overall tax burden slightly. It would have a greater impact, but the decrease in population, coupled with a jump in median age to 70, has put quite a lot of pressure on the healthcare system.

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The last automobile in Maine was retired in 2065 and now is part of the new floating Maine State Museum, located over what used to be the town of Union. Clary Hill and Appleton Ridge provide adequate shelter from the winds that accompany the fall monsoon season that averages 60 inches of rain between October and January. Public and private transportation is primarily by solar powered jet boats and monorails, including ferries to Mount Battie and Mount Desert enclaves.

With the last cod, haddock and mackerel dying off when Gulf of Maine temperatures reached 65 degrees in 2048, new species have begun to flourish, particularly since the great adaptation began in 2053. Nobody could have envisioned what took place following the huge solar flares in 2051-52. Granted, they wiped out many land species and death rates in poorer countries spiked, but one real benefit was that certain marine and land species metabolisms adapted as they began consuming plastic in massive quantities.

Ocean fisheries now concentrate on three mutated species, Tarpaulin, Sundomefish and Great White Sharkaloons. Granted it took some hard selling to get consumers to consider, then welcome seafood that was 25% polycarbons in content, but the abundance and very low price of these new food sources did the trick. This was particularly important given the huge decrease in cropland, not only in Maine, but across the rest of what remained of the United States. Raising cattle, poultry and pork became cost prohibitive and the algae and seaweed substitutes reminded too many of the movie Soylent Green, thus never catching on.

With the extinction of chickadees in 2062, it took several years for the debate over a successor as state bird was settled. The referendum vote was close, but the turkey vultute beat out the crow by 3%.

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The brochure will note the death of the lobster industry, while noting its exciting replacement. Those solar flares hit the invasive green crab population, creating a breeding frenzy and size gain never seen in history. It took a few years before people got over reading about fishermen and unwary tourists being attacked and eaten (the latter was pretty upsetting to children when they experienced it), and for fishing boats to be refitted with armor plate, but the markets for crabmeat, coupled with the crab harpooning tournaments that draw entrants from across the globe, have helped the economy big time.

While some old timers lament the loss of potatoes and dry beans, the rest of the country welcomes the huge rice harvest from Aroostook County and in southern Maine, the genetic modification of poison ivy to produce mangoes is another bonus.

Unfortunately, my visits to the bar are time limited, so I wasn’t able to hear about additional changes in store for our state. Maybe I’ll get back there sometime soon, but What I learned was more than an eye-opener.

Heralding Julia Spencer-Fleming’s Return

Do you know Clare and her husband Russ? Have you missed them?

If so, I have terrific news—they’re back, or they will be on April 7 when dear friend and MCW blog alum Julia Spencer-Fleming will launch into the world her ninth mystery, HID FROM OUR EYES.

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The cover of the long-awaited ninth book in Julia Spencer-Fleming’s Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne series.

Set in the fictional Adirondack mountain town of Miller’s Kill, New York, Julia’s character-driven Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne series has won a boatload of well-deserved awards (Agatha, Anthony, Dilys, Barry, Macavity and Gumshoe) and many fans for its engaging mix of suspense and humor.

Protagonist Clare Fergusson is a female Episcopal minister and former Air Force pilot who continues to serve in the National Guard. (If you haven’t read Julia’s books and are skeptical about how that can possibly work, trust me, okay?)

Russ Van Alstyne is the chief of police in Miller’s Kill. Early in the series Russ was Clare’s foil, then it seemed for a while he’d be her unrequited love. But as we in the fiction writing business know, life can turn on a dime, so now they are co-protagonists in every sense, and married to boot.

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Julia Spencer-Fleming

Recently, Julia made me a very happy fan by giving me an Advance Reading Copy of her much anticipated book. I assure you, there was no (ahem) quid pro quo involved. In fact, she had no idea I planned to dedicate this month’s post to lauding HID FROM OUR EYES. But friends, I flew through it, delighted to be immersed in another Miller’s Kill mystery.  It’s a terrific book, smart and deft and twisty, a worthy successor to the first eight books in the series.

Julia’s longtime fans will be happy to be reunited with the stellar supporting cast as well as Clare and Russ, who are adjusting to a big change in their life together. Wonderful new characters enrich the plot with the humanity that distinguishes Julia’s work. I’m not going to summarize the story—you can go here for that https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250261144—but instead would like to talk about the most appealing aspect of a Julia Spencer-Fleming book, which is true from start to finish in HID FROM OUR EYES.

Julia writes what she knows, and she writes the heck out of it.

Because she was raised in a military family, Julia has lived in more than her share of small towns, and she captures their essence on the page like few other authors. The long memories and unspoken rivalries. The quiet kindnesses and hidden jealousies. The power and pettiness of local politics. Her characters are people you might recognize from your own community if you’ve ever attended a town meeting or gotten roped into organizing a fundraiser.

Spirituality is a through line in her books—the titles are drawn from hymns—and Clare somehow always winds up in the middle of a murder without it seeming forced. That she’s a minister is presented in a matter of fact way, warts and all (vestments are not always the most practical clothing, she has a lot of explaining to do when her diocesan superiors inevitably learn she’s hip-deep in another crime solving mission). The fact Clare is a priest informs her world view, just as the fact Julia herself is a devout Episcopalian affects her approach to life. It works on the page because it’s organic.

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Julia, on the right, with her daughter Victoria, a/k/a The Maine Millennial, at a joint event in Portland last winter where they spoke about their writing life.

Julia also embraces the complex equation that is law and order in the modern world. Miller’s Kill is not immune from the plague of opiate addiction, the corrosive power of greed, the tragic aspect of human nature that makes people who love each other sometimes turn on each other.

She writes about these real-world truths and never loses track of the fact that her characters—both heroes and villains—are real people. There are no stock characters in a Julia Spencer-Fleming book, no stereotypical good guys, bad gals or even people on the sidelines. Every single character is a living, breathing human being, which is a tremendous accomplishment.

If you’ve not read the earlier books in Julia’s series–the first is IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER–you have plenty of time to do so before April 7th rolls around. If you’ve read every one and can’t wait for Book Nine, go ahead and pre-order HID FROM OUR EYES so it’ll be in your hot little hands on or about the day it’s released. You’ll thank me for the tip.

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Speaking of ordering, pre- and post-publication, it’s not too late to enjoy the most recent books written by our very much missed friend and colleague Lea Wait, who died in August after a long and successful career as a writer (among other things.) THREAD ON ARRIVAL and THREAD AND BURIED, the eighth and ninth books in her Mainely Needlepoint Mystery Series, are the perfect read for a winter’s night. Lea also wrote historical books for young people set in and around her beloved Edgecomb. You can find descriptions and buy links here: https://www.leawait.com/

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Brenda Buchanan brings years of experience as a journalist and a lawyer to her crime fiction. She has published three books featuring Joe Gale, a newspaper reporter who covers the crime and courts beat. She is now hard at work on new projects. FMI, go to http://brendabuchananwrites.com

Whose Story Is It?

Does the title ring a bell with you? The one thing that I battle is Point of View! Yes that thing editors watch closely and the trap many authors fall into–POV.

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Vaughn

First we must define what POV is. In his book, Story Robert McKee says: “Each story is set in a specific time and place, yet scene by scene, as we imagine events, where do we locate ourselves in space to view the action. This is Point of View–the physical angle we take in order to describe the behavior of our characters, their interaction with one another and the environment.”

The simplest way for a writer to ensure they remain consistent is to use a 1st person POV. The reader experiences the action through the eyes of the narrator–usually the protagonist. The problem for me is that I don’t like being restricted and I feel that it is difficult (again, for me) to create viable subplots.

I write in 3rd person. This too can be a problem. It’s my tendency to fall into an omniscient voice; the view of God–all-knowing and all seeing. This is not to say we aren’t God to our characters, after all we created them and put them in the situation and location of our choosing (we even go so far as to give them a family). Regardless, the character must interact with them emotionally, spiritually, and physically. It is our job to show this and the way to do it is through POV.

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My Brother’s Keeper

I prefer to use a 3rd person limited POV. Don’t panic (as I did at first), you can shift POV, only the shift should be related to characters and be done between scenes or chapters. For example, George R. R. Martin in his A Game of Thrones series writes each chapter from the perspective of a different character–he goes so far as using the POV character’s name rather than chapter numbers. The key point is regardless of whether you are writing in 1st or 3rd person, in each scene stay inside one character’s head. In her book, Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel, Hallie Ephron writes: “Reading a scene where the point of view slides from one character’s head to another can feel like riding in a car with loose steering. It feels out of control and confusing.” (Sliding POV is my personal bane. I continually find shifts in my first draft.)

In closing, Robert McKee defines the importance of POV in a single paragraph: “The more time spent with a character, the more opportunity to witness his choices. The result is more empathy and emotional involvement between audience and character.” Sounds like a plan to me.

 

Weekend Update: January 4-5, 2020

[image error]Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will be a posts by Vaughn Hardacker (Monday), Brenda Buchanan (Tuesday), John Clark (Thursday) and Joe Souza (Friday).

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

Encircle Publications has notified Vaughn C. Hardacker that they want to publish The Exchange. A contract and publication date are forthcoming. The novel follows Dylan Thomas (yup, same name as the poet) as he searches for his three-years-old niece who has been abducted in an adoption for money scheme. The trail will take him from Maine to Boston.

Kaitlyn Dunnett‘s blog last Thursday  https://mainecrimewriters.com/2020/01/02/where-did-you-get-that-idea/#comments included a giveaway. It’s not too late to go there and leave a comment to be entered in a drawing for an advance reading copy of A View to a Kilt.

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An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

 

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. Contact Kate Flora

Planning, Plotting, and Other Adventures

Kate Flora: January is always a time for reflection. My friend Lea Wait used to make five[image error] year plans, and January was a good time to review and revise them. I admired her greatly for that, but I’ve never been that kind of planner. Sometimes I hit January 2 in mid-book. Sometimes with no plan beyond sitting down at the computer and waiting to see if a Thea or Burgess wins the “me first!” contest. This year, I’ve promised my publisher a new Burgess by June, so that’s the direction I’ll go in.

My writing life, though, often seems to have plans of its own. When I finished my first Joe Burgess police procedural, Playing God, after four and a half very intense months, I had planned to write something else, but being away from my characters made me feel so lonely I started book two, The Angel of Knowlton Park,though I took it at a far more leisurely pace.

Other times, my plans are interrupted by an invitation to submit a short story to an anthology. A few years ago, that resulted in a story called Michelle in Hot Water, about Michelle Obama and women from other government agencies who have a secret vigilante group who persuade drug company moguls who’ve raised the price of critical drugs for children to change their minds. The story ended up in a collection called The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noirand gave me that magic moment writer’s dream of: Maureen Corrigan read from my story on NPR.

Twenty-nineteen began with me in the midst of my tenth Thea Kozak mystery, Death Comes Knocking, but a chance meeting with an agent who suggested a new series sent me in a different direction, resurrecting seven chapters that had come to me a few years ago when a dark and damaged character sat down on a barstool beside me and started to talk.

Yes, Virginia, our characters really do this. Not reliably, but often.

I ended up putting Thea on the back burner and spending a lot of last year turning those seven chapters into the rough draft of Gutted. Now Detective Rick O’Leary and a vicious serial killer are resting and awaiting rewrite.

[image error]Just as I came into the end zone with that book, I got another invite to submit a story—this time to an anthology: The Faking of the President: Nineteen Stories of White House Noir.Before I could pick up Thea and the mysterious pregnant stranger on her doorstep, I had to do a deep dive into the life of Huey Long to compose a story of what might happen if his assassin had failed, Long Live Long. The anthology debuts in April, 2020.

Also along the way, a kind friend on Facebook nudged me to submit one of the books I’ve kept in the drawer (most of us have them) to her publisher. Thanks to Mary Harris, and my FB friends who helped me find a title for the book, my first (and likely last) romantic suspense, Wedding Bell Ruse,will be published by Soulmate Publishing in May.

If I did have a plan for 2020, it would definitely involve finally finding a home for another book that languishes in the drawer, Teach Her a Lesson, a domestic thriller.

Meanwhile, I will write the book that’s on deadline, keep my eyes out for another true [image error]crime story that needs telling, and try to finish my novella about a wayward U.S. Marshals Service agent named Gracie who likes her Manhattans heavy on the vermouth with three cherries, and handsome fellows to help her decompress after an action. And of course, wait for the the universe to derail my plans and send me something that absolutely has to be written. I will also go to more libraries, hopefully to do our great program, “Making a Mystery,” to show readers how we develop characters, choose settings, and plot our novels.

As you can see, I am not a planner, but I love an invitation to adventure. How else would I have gotten to hide deep in the woods to be found by search and rescue dogs? Or found the bad guy when I was on a stake out? Or get to take the medical examiner to lunch?

I look forward to an exciting 2020 with my Maine Crime Writers compatriots, and all of you, our readers.

 

Where Did You Get THAT Idea?

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, with more ARCs to give away. See the end of this post for details. And now, on to resolve the burning question posed in the title.

Writers are always being asked “where do you get your ideas?” Most of the time we give a flip or sarcastic answer because, truthfully, we don’t have a clue. Every once in a while, however, the source of a plot, subplot, or incident in a novel has very clear origins. That is the case with one of the key elements in the thirteenth Liss MacCrimmon Mystery, A View to A Kilt, which will be in stores on January 28.

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A View to A Kilt was the third book in a three-book contract that dates way back to October of 2016. At the time I signed on the dotted line, it would be fair to say that “untitled book three” was just as vague in concept as that description makes it sound. I had some notion of finally taking readers to Moosetookalook, Maine’s annual March Madness Mud Season Sale, mentioned in earlier books, but all that did was pinpoint the time of year in which the story would be set.

March and April aren’t renowned for much in this part of central Maine except mud. Ski season is winding down. Signs of spring are still elusive. Tourists are scarce. Cabin fever is at its peak, which probably helps increase attendance at annual town meetings where citizens argue over every item on the warrant before voting to approve a budget for the coming year.

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late in mud season (less mud) at my house

In January 2018, the time had come to start writing the official proposal for this book. It was due on the first of March. Called “outlines” in the book contract, these don’t have to be very long or even terribly specific, but they do need to contain enough detail to convince an editor that they will add up to 75,000 words worth of story. That Liss had been put in charge of the annual mud season sale wasn’t enough by itself. I didn’t even have a murder victim in mind.

On January 26, I had a doctor’s appointment in Augusta. That’s about an hour’s drive from my home. Since the roads were iffy, my husband drove. On the way, we brainstormed ideas for the new book. I’d had one thought—what if Liss and her husband, Dan Ruskin, found the body of a murdered man in their own backyard? What if no one knew who he was?

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There was lots to play with there. Whoever finds a body automatically becomes a suspect, at least as far as the police are concerned. In fact, that’s what happens to Liss in Kilt Dead, the first book in the series, when she finds the murder victim in the back room at Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium. Obviously, the circumstances had to be different this time around. There’s a real danger of repeating one’s self when one writes a long-running series. So—no ID on the victim. But his identity would have to come out at some point, and make things worse for everyone involved, so who could he be? And why was he there, in the Ruskins’ back yard, in the first place? There had to be some connection to Liss or her family.

The suggestion from the driver’s seat was: “How about an uncle she’s never met.”

“She doesn’t have an uncle,” I objected. Hadn’t I made a detailed family tree for the MacCrimmons? I’d given her father a sister but no brothers and Liss’s aunt, Margaret, is a widow.

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“A long lost uncle nobody’s ever told her about?”

We went back and forth for a while, at times getting pretty silly, but by the time we reached our destination, “long-lost Uncle Charlie” had evolved into a pretty interesting character. It would take me until I was actually writing the book to figure out all the ins and outs of his disappearance and his reason for coming back to Moosetookalook, only to be murdered before he could make contact with his niece or his brother, but I had enough to write my proposal. I even had what I thought was a pretty good title, The Lost MacCrimmon.

The title bombed but the “outline” was approved. As A View to a Kilt this book will be available in e-book and hardcover formats at the end of this month and it’s not too early to preorder a copy by following the links to booksellers below or asking your local independent bookseller or library to order it for you.

https://www.kensingtonbooks.com/book.aspx/39170

For those who just can’t wait, I still have a few Advance Reading Copies left. If you’d like your name to be entered in a drawing for one of them, leave a comment below or on my Kaitlyn Dunnett Facebook page. Sorry, it has to be US only. Postage elsewhere is more than the price of the book! The drawing will be held on January 10 and copies will be mailed as soon as the winners send me their snail mail addresses. Good luck!

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With the January 2020 publication of A View to a Kilt, Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett will have had sixty-one books traditionally published. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. Currently she writes the contemporary Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries and the “Deadly Edits” series as Kaitlyn. As Kathy, her most recent book is a collection of short stories, Different Times, Different Crimes but there is a new, standalone historical mystery in the pipeline. She maintains three websites, at www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com and another, comprised of over 2000 mini-biographies of sixteenth-century English women, at A Who’s Who of Tudor Women.

 

Happy New Year from Maine Crime Writers

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Sealed Off Research

by Barb Ross, who arrived in Key West yesterday

I’m excited to be back in my first guest spot on the Maine Crime Writers celebrating the release tomorrow of Sealed Off, the eighth book in the Maine Clambake Mystery series. Here’s the cover.

[image error]The titles of cozy mysteries are often punny. In this case, “sealed off” refers to a sealed room discovered during demolition at the Snowden family’s abandoned mansion on Morrow Island.

But I also was determined to have a seal in the story. I love watching these playful creatures in Boothbay Harbor or the Damariscotta River.

[image error]I enlisted granddaughter, Viola, then age five, to help me with the seal research. Together we read (many, many times) Andre, The Famous Harbor Seal, (by Fran Hodgkins, illustrated by Yetti Frankel, DownEast Books, 2003) and our favorite, Cecily’s Summer, (by Nan Lincoln, illustrated by Patricia J. Wynne, Bunker Hill, 2005) I also read the books for grown-ups, The Summer of Cecily, (By Nan Lincoln, Bunker Hill, 2004) and A Seal Called Andre, (by Harry Goodridge and Lew Dietz, Dea 2014). The days are long past when a civilian could have a harbor seal as a pet as Harry Goodridge did, or even foster an orphan pup as Nan Lincoln did, and for good reasons. Nonetheless their books provide wonderful, intimate portraits of these smart sea mammals. Viola and I loved them!

[image error]We also read Do Seals Ever…? (by Fran Hodgkins, illustrated by Marjorie Leggitt, DownEast Books, 2017), a fun book that combined interesting facts about seals, sea lions, and walruses with facts about sirens–manatees and dugongs. God knows why, because the two classes of mammals have almost nothing in common except being large and floaty. Viola quickly memorized the book and would call me on it whenever I missed a little factoid, even if it was part of an illustration or in the book’s margins. We also learned about the Stellar Sea Cow, an extinct species of siren that lived in the Bering Sea.

Viola has long been fascinated by the concept of extinction. When she was very small she would list all the theories about the extinction of the dinosaurs in order to keep from falling asleep. I remember vividly Bill and I driving away from the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens and hearing a little voice from the back seat reciting, “Asteroid, volcano, disease…” until she passed out in her car seat.

The extinction of the Stellar Cow was therefore most interesting to Viola and she had a lot of questions. Her mom, bolstered by Wikipedia, did her best to answer them, which led, a few hours later to Viola, naked and soaking wet, enthusiastically describing to her aunt the differences between First Nations and European hunting practices, while down the hall  water ran and her dad yelled, “Viola! Where the heck are you? Get back in the shower!”

Which is a long way of saying, I hope you enjoy the book as much as Viola and I enjoyed the research.

About the book

Early October is “winding down” time in Busman’s Harbor, Maine, but there’s nothing relaxing about it for Julia Snowden. Between busloads of weekend leaf peepers at the Snowden Family Clambake and a gut renovation of the old mansion on Morrow Island, she’s keeping it all together with a potentially volatile skeleton crew—until one of them turns up dead under the firewood.

When the Russian demo team clearing out the mansion discovers a room that’s been sealed off for decades, Julia’s baffled as to its purpose and what secrets it might have held. Tensions are already simmering with the crew, but when one of the workers is found murdered, things come to a boil. With the discovery of another body—and a mysterious diary with Cyrillic text in the hidden room—the pressure’s on Julia to dig up a real killer fast. But she’ll have to sort through a pile of suspects, including ex-spouses, a spurned lover, and a recently released prisoner, to fish out one clammed-up killer.

Buy links

Sealed Off is available in mass market paperback, ebook and audiobook editions. Large print format is coming soon.

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1496717953/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i9

Barnes & Noble https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sealed-off-barbara-ross/1131080244?ean=9781496717955#/

Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/sealed-off-1

Your independent bookstore https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781496717955

Weekend Update: December 28-29, 2019

[image error]Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will be a guest post by Barb Ross (Monday) and posts by Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Thursday) and Kate Flora (Friday).

 

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

 

 

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

 

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. Contact Kate Flora

Life Lessons For The New Year

Need inspiration as we begin the 2020 decade? Help could be in the holiday books lying around the house.

For those who celebrate Christmas the list starts, of course, with A Christmas Carol. Dickens had recently visited the Field Lane Ragged School for London’s street children, which prompted the underlying theme. The novella was published on December 19, 1843 and the first edition had sold out by Christmas Eve.  Novelist William Thackeray wrote that A Christmas Carol was “a national benefit and to every man or woman who reads it, a personal kindness”. A terrific book with a powerful message.

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In O. Henry’s 1905 The Gift of the Magi a couple with very little money sell precious items—she her long hair and he his gold watch—to buy gifts for each other. Neither can use their presents—her combs and his watch chain—but their love proves priceless. A sweet story to be sure.

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I may be the only balletomane who didn’t know that The Nutcracker and the Mouse King was actually an 1816 book written in German by E.T.A. Hoffmann. This was a post-Industrial Revolution time when income grew quickly and the middle class lived comfortably with electricity, lighting, telephones and the rest. That luxury is right there in the Nutcracker’s opening scene—people in fancy dress wandering about in a lovely home filled with gifts and holiday decorations. Ballet with a history lesson.

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We’ve all heard the WWI story about a Christmas truce in which soldiers on both sides played soccer and drank ale in “No Man’s Land” between the trenches. In Silent Night author Stanley Weintraub uses stories of the men who were there, as well as their letters and diaries, to illuminate the fragile truce and make real this extraordinary moment in time.

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I can’t leave out “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” by Theodor “Dr Seuss” Geisel, ranked # 61 among the “Top 100 Picture Books” in 2012. The greatest Christmas villain since Scrooge, the Grinch steals the Who’s Christmas presents, trees, and food only to realize that “maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little more” than the stolen items.

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Of course, there are terrific Hanukkah stories as well. In “All-of-A-Kind Family Hanukkah” it’s 1912 and five girls (“all of a kind”) on New York’s Lower East Side watch the Hanukkah preparations. Gertie, the youngest, throws a tantrum when she isn’t allowed to help prepare latkes. Sent upstairs, she can hear the sounds and smell the smells. Finally, Papa comes home and gives her best job of all—lighting the first candle on the menorah.

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Dear Readers, wishing you a new year replete with books in whatever form you consume them and lovely stories of any kind.

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