Janice Law's Blog, page 24

Psychotic protagonists

Apropos of a new and highly praised mystery, I have come up with the desirable relationship between book length and character psychosis: inversely proportional. That is, the crazier the protagonist, the shorter the book needs to be.

Madness is wearying. Hitchcock knew that. The crazy motel keeper of Psycho makes only brief, but oh, so telling, appearances. Ruth Rendall knows it; her heroes and heroines are frequently beyond the pale but their novels are compact.

At length, too much clever psychosis seems manipulative and unrealistic and not finally any more interesting than ordinary, complex folk. 

Piano Lessons

It’s always a delight to find a good new book and a good new author. Anna Goldsworthy’s Piano Lessons, a memoir of her education as a musician is notable for its clean, honest prose and for its wonderful portrait of her wonderful piano teacher, Eleonora Sivan, a Russian emigre who taught the author in Adelaide, Australia.

I think any music student or former music student will envy Goldsworthy’s lessons with the demanding but ebullient and insightful Mrs. Sivan, who stress  joy, thought, and generosity in music, ahead of virtuosity and flash.

Pianists will love this and violinists, too, I think. 

Fireflies

A big consolation for the heat of summer is the return of the fireflies. Look out at night over the garden, dimly visible with the big white plumes of goatsbeard and astilbe, and there are the  mysterious lights of the fireflies, dancing in the darkness like the spirits of the blessed.

Sure, their bioluminescence is all about making another generation of glowing larvae and eventually adult fireflies, but its a lovely spectacle. Up there with song thrushes, dancing cranes and our own music, vocal and instrumental, as a little gift to the universe.

Tilling the vegetable garden

Tilling the vegetable garden

Second try at tilling. Getting the child the right size in...

Second try at tilling. Getting the child the right size in proportion to the main figure proved tricky. I see that there is something to be said on occasion for conventional perspective.

First attempt at local man tilling garden with grandchild and...

First attempt at local man tilling garden with grandchild and son or son-in-law. Something not quite right about the younger man’s size. First impulses are not always the best.

Elderberry bushes in bloom. Rasps ripening.

Elderberry bushes in bloom. Rasps ripening.

This tranquil body of water was once a reservoir designed to...

This tranquil body of water was once a reservoir designed to keep the town’s water powered mills running in dry weather.

Trail through a grove at the local nature preserve

Trail through a grove at the local nature preserve

Nice Cover

Although it is not always the case, this time I really do like the cover design for my new mystery.

Set in London during the Blitz, The Fires of London features Francis Bacon, the major 20th century British painter, who really was a fire watcher during the attacks, but somehow found time not only to paint but to live a rackety life in London’s gay bohemia.

Coming Sept 4 from Mysterious Press.