Clea Simon's Blog, page 3

Talking “Butterfly” with House of Mystery

In the lead-up to “The Butterfly Trap,” I got to chat with House of Mystery host Alan R. Warren and fellow author John Copenhaver. Our free-wheeling, wide-ranging conversation can be accessed here:

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Butterfly is “a must”!

“On the surface this is a he-said, she-said crime tale, but there’s much more going on in this darker departure from Simon’s previous work …On the surface this is a he-said, she-said crime tale, but there’s much more going on in this darker departure from Simon’s previous work.“

Thrilled with this early review of THE BUTTERFLY TRAP from librarian Henrietta Thornton writing for firstCLUE newsletter!

Crimespree’s “What Women Liked in 2024”!

BAD BOY BEAT makes the list! See all the lists – and women to follow – here. In brief, since 2020 CrimeSpree magazine has asked a select group of librarians, industry folks, English professors and more to list their favorites of the year, including but not exclusively, crime fiction. OK, my “newspaper noir” only made one list. But it’s still an honor!

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Hoarding time

Following up “How to Talk to a Cancer Patient,” was thinking this morning about support groups. Specifically, why I haven’t joined one (Jon has). I know for many people they are invaluable. In part, that’s because living with cancer involves so much more than simply our treatment. Dana Farber has fantastic resources, and my team has been beyond wonderful – both present and empathic. But all the side effects and their myriad variations call for a crowd sourcing of responses. And certainly, the accumulated peer knowledge of other people with cancer could be useful. 

Would I have found out about Bioten (a gel that keeps my mouth from getting painfully dry) sooner if I had been in a group? Possibly. (My oral hygienist turned me onto it.) Are there other hacks I’m missing? Likely.

So why the resistance? Me, being me, I thought at first that I was being avoidant. Like, “I’m not one of those people… a cancer patient!” (There’s likely some truth to this: I suspect that one reason I took so long to write that Globe op ed is that making something public makes it true. Probably why my father didn’t tell me about his cancer until he was told he had less than six months to live, but that’s another story.) 

And, for what it’s worth, I have found it very freeing to be “out.” To be able to discuss my health, cancer, what-have-you openly.

But I still have no desire to join a group, and I think I know why. 

Cancer – any disease – steals time. That can be in the long run, if, say, I die earlier than I might have otherwise. But it is certainly true in the short run. Right now, every other Thursday, Jon and I spend most of a day at Dana Farber in Chestnut Hill. The following Saturday, we spend more than an hour at DF in Longwood, so I can be hydrated and my pump detached. Following that, I have a couple of days of declining energy and (mild) stomach upset. Jon has learned to work during my infusion, but it’s still a hassle. And I often find I can’t really work – can’t write, though I sometimes edit – during those bi-weekly Thursday through Monday routines. It’s worth it, for sure. And we’ve made friends and some happy routines along the way. (Infusion is great for reading!) But it is time lost. 

And so, when I’m up and about again – when I’m back to myself, as I think of it – I want to leap back into my life. My life, with the friends I don’t get to see enough. The projects that matter to me. 

To be sure, I spend a lot more time reading about cancer – and my fellow patients/survivors – these days. I started writing this piece because I’d read this fantastic and encouraging piece in The Washington Post this morning. But that’s an organic interest – an “oh! look at that!” moment – not a scheduled meeting or regular event.

Of course, as I write this, I realize that my interests and concerns may well change over time. But for now, my ongoing life is what I want to spend time with. You are my support group, my friends. 

We’ve passed the solstice. The new year is coming up, the sun is coming back. What better time to celebrate the light and the warmth you’ve all shared with me? (And, again, this piece in WaPo about cancer “thrivers” is pretty amazing.) Love you all.

“How to Talk to a Cancer Patient”

That was my suggestion for a headline for this op-ed (i.e., a signed opinion piece), which ran in today’s Boston Globe. I wrote it over a month ago, and I’m happy to say the good news still holds true – and the book mentioned at the end of the piece (in my “signer”) is now on sale! Anyway, the original piece is behind a paywall. I believe in supporting journalism (and, yes, if you aren’t paying to read a piece, you are not supporting The Boston Globe). That said, I feel this is an important piece and I want more people to read it so. Consider subscribing to your local paper! Consider buying books from the authors you love (hopefully me!). And, for now, read on:

OPINION

Here’s to life: A cancer patient’s plea for real conversationAsk about my health if you’re curious. But then, please, move on. Tell me about your cat’s recent vet visit. The annoying person in your book club. A show you just know I’ll want tickets for.

What do you say to a cancer patient? This is a trick question. The answer is “anything.”

That doesn’t mean it isn’t a question worth asking. Since I was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer in May 2023, I’ve noticed a distinct change in how people behave toward me. In general, and certainly among my close connections, people have been great.

I’ve received a mantelpiece full of lovely cards and flowers. Classmates ferried me and my husband to a college reunion picnic, which fell during my first chemotherapy treatment, and shepherded other classmates to our table. Other friends brought over food and baked goods (so many and so continuously, in fact, that I had to ask for a moratorium: We were both gaining too much weight!).

I’m an outlier in many ways. Surgery successfully removed the original tumor, and my remaining metastasizes are either stable or shrinking, depending on which radiologist does my bimonthly CT scan. My CEA number, a cancer indicator, has been in the normal range for over a year now. I am truly, as my medical team likes to stress, living with this disease. Not suffering from it.

I’m far from alone. Even as diagnoses rise, the number of people living with cancer is growing. Three decades ago, survivorship was relatively rare, and cancer survivors made up fewer than 1.5 percent of the population, according to the American Association of Cancer Research. Now they make up 5 percent. That’s 18 million Americans living with a cancer diagnosis in their past.

But as my biweekly treatment — “maintenance chemo” — goes deep into its second year, I’m noticing something else. I have, in some ways, become invisible. In part, that may be because I look very different than I did less than two years ago. My hair fell out, and my current boyish white mop is a striking departure from even my most recent author photo.

But I think it’s more than that. People feel awkward around any illness. Cancer, with its outdated reputation as a death sentence, is a real conversation killer. People say, “I’m sorry.” Often they ask if there’s anything they can do. Then they fall silent.

I understand. Cancer is scary, even secondhand. I’ve certainly had my down days. During one of them, one of the most useful and kind things a friend said to me (and which I keep as a mantra) was quite simple: “You may not have hope right now,” he told me. “That does not mean there is no hope.”

I’ve also borrowed the personal affirmation of former NBA player Tom Meschery, who was profiled in The Athletic, discussing life after being diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2015 and told he had five years to live:

“I have a little mantra I say to myself: Tom, you are not going to die tomorrow. And Tom, you are not going to die in the next week. And probably not for the next six months. More likely, not for another year. So f— it, get on with your life.”

That attitude has allowed me to draft yet another book manuscript, cover countless assignments for my various freelance bosses, travel, attend parties and dinners and concerts — and even dance, albeit maybe less energetically than once before. In short, to live.

And while I appreciate the “I’m sorry” response I often get when I break the news (or my hair or chemo pump do it for me), and even more so the sincere “How are you doing?” that lets me vent about one annoying side effect or another, what I really want is just that — to live.

Because the bottom line is I am still alive and I want to be included in your life and include you in mine. So, please, ask about my health if you’re curious. Share those stories, like the one about Tom Meschery. But then, please, move on. Tell me about your cat’s recent vet visit. The annoying person in your book club. A show you just know I’ll want tickets for — because I’m planning on being here as long as possible, and I do not want to waste more of it on my illness than necessary.

How lovely it was to go to a party a few weeks ago, me, my cancer, and all, and talk about books, obedience training, musicians playing state fairs. In short: anything and everything else that makes up life.

Clea Simon is a Somerville-based author. Her most recent novel is “ Bad Boy Beat .”

Bad Boy Beat super sale!

Wow, this is great! For a VERY LIMITED TIME, the ebook of BAD BOY BEAT is on sale for only 99 cents! Why not treat yourself? (Here’s the link again: https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Boy-Beat-Clea-Simon-ebook/dp/B0CLKZC3Q7/ )

Want to know more about this fun, fast, and female-centered “newspaper noir”? Check out these reviews…

“[R]eaders will quickly find that the twists and turns of the plot more than satisfy—with a particularly stellar final act that is guaranteed to please even the harshest critic of crime fiction.”– BOLO Books

“[T]ightly written with several twists and turns to keep it interesting…looking forward to another installment in what I hope will be a series.”– Gumshoe Review

“If you want a swift mystery with plenty of clues, you’ll enjoy this. “– Kings River Life

“Simon’s staccato prose sets a tense mood that keeps readers on the edge . . . New territory for Simon that’s definitely worth another chapter” – Kirkus Reviews

“Fast-paced and deeply satisfying . . . Simon is at the height of her considerable powers . . .
The prose here is propulsive, stylish, and pleasingly spare, with narrating crime reporter Emily Kelton’s voice sliding often into noir territory. Bad Boy Beat is a top-notch read, securing Simon’s position as one of the sharpest voices working in crime fiction today.
–Linda L. Richards, award-winning author of the Endings series

Pre-order THE BUTTERFLY TRAP

GET READY! “The Butterfly Trap” – a dark, sexy suspense perfect for our times – is on its way….

Anya and Greg seem to be the golden couple, until dark secrets come to light and unleash inevitable devastation in this slow-burn he said/she said psychological suspense novel.

Greg has his life all planned out: become a doctor, buy a house, and have a wife and children – and when he meets Anya during his post-doc studies in Boston, all of his dreams seem to come true. It’s love at first sight, and Greg doesn’t shy away from changing his life to provide Anya, his beautiful butterfly, with everything she wants and needs.

Anya is a struggling artist, determined to make it as a painter in Boston’s art scene – but getting involved with shy and sweet Greg could thwart her lifelong ambition. Their relationship unfolds like a classic love story . . . except that Anya seems to be hiding something that unsuspecting Greg soon must face.

Are Greg and Anya truly the perfect couple, or will jealousy, uncertainty, and dangerous machinations break them apart in the most dreadful way imaginable?

Megan Abbott meets Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train mixed with some Patricia Highsmith creepiness that will make you turn the pages! A psychological suspense novel “darkly inventive and full of grit” (New York Times bestselling author Caroline Leavitt).

More Witch Cats on the way!

So thrilled that Level Best Books has picked up my Witch Cats of Cambridge series. They’ll be re-publishing the four existing books and have contracted me for two more. Becca and her cats Clara, Laurel, and Harriet are ready for new adventures!

BAD BOY BEAT on sale!

Price drop on the BAD BOY BEAT ebook! If you’ve been curious about this “newspaper noir”* whose “staccato prose sets a tense mood that keeps readers on the edge,”** now’s your chance! Pick up an ebook copy of BAD BOY BEAT for less than $12 (finally!) My agent and I had to lobby hard with Severn House books for this price drop, so I hope you can take advantage of it!

*BOLO Books

** Kirkus Reviews

Me and … Ann Patchett?

Well, at least in the mind of Scot Lehigh, Boston Globe columnist (and author of the delightful Just East of Nowhere).

In today’s column, he discusses reading habits – including some bad ones (have you ever thrown a book out of a car?) – and his current faves, saying:

“I’m currently making my way through Ann Patchett’s ”Tom Lake,” a story that imparts such an immersive experience in summer stock theater that you feel like a participant. I haven’t had as vivid a vicarious sense of the world of performing since “Hold Me Down,” Clea Simon’s compelling tale of a forty-something woman reliving her days as a young rock star — and unearthing repressed memories as she does.“

What a lovely surprise to stumble on while reading my hometown paper. Thank you, Scot!

What are you all reading?

(Here’s the link to the full column: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/09/17/opinion/essay-getting-people-to-read/