While Traveling

Jule Selbo

Because of losing track of days and locations (where I am waking up each morning) due to travel (family events, conferences, friends’ milestones that cannot be missed, teaching commitments that were made way too early and couldn’t be gotten out of) and not being used to living out of a suitcase, my mind is a bit of a jumble.  And I’m homesick. Mostly for my writing routine and for not being able to attend the very important event in Maine –  Maine Crime Wave.

 The desire to be home grew after reading John Clark’s recent post in Maine Crime Writers Blog about the ills of ILL in Maine. And after seeing the huge varieties of people traveling through airports (those with smiles, nice luggage and relatively fat pocketbooks and those

with lives stuffed into ragged suitcases, juggling three or four children, an aged, sad grandma and most likely fleeing from an old, possibly unfair, dangerous life).

And more homesick after noticing the ills of drug addiction in a very nice German town – (taking a left out of the of my hotel led me to beautiful waterfront and happy bike riders and happier beer drinkers in historic cafes BUT taking a right out of my hotel led me to SROs, needles on the pavement, maimed, terribly thin and twisted personages swerving across the sidewalk).

The homesick feeling was exacerbated by (my choice)  listening to oral histories of a few who had been living in 1933-1945 Germany. And also after touring a Cathedral that took nearly 600 years and the back-breaking work of nearly 2000 craftsmen to build and was built “for the people” but had the most beautiful, most sacred area walled off so that only the most highly risen clergy could gather in its space.

So I decided to concentrate on doing something more positive than noticing the have-and- have-nots on my trips, and since I’m in Germany, I decided to explore female German crime writers that do I not know about (turns out there are a whole bunch but here’s a few…)

I’ll start with Thea Dorn. Thea is a German writer of crime fiction and TV host. (The Brain Queen (1999) and Madchenmorder(2008) She lives in Berlin, she was initially trained as a singer, then turn to the study of philosophy and theatre. She graduated in philosophy with a work on self-deception.  SELF-DECEPTION.  Ahh. Was that the seed that sent her into crime writing?

Also landed on Petra Hammesfar who is a successful mystery writer –  she writes short stories and novels. She is just now being translated into English. What she’s known for: “Accurate descriptions, psychological insights and surprising endings.  Explorations of why good people turn into criminals…

                                             

She thinks it’s perhaps because the monotony and madness of daily life can become too much to bear. Or perhaps highly functional people can become criminally delinquent when one moment in time makes them snap. Hammesfahr combines the very ordinary with the uncanny, the sick, the revolting. The outcast who may not be guilty, the housewife who may be.” (quote is from some review I read).

Then there’s the well-lauded Charlotte Link – who is very very famous in Germany and now, very recently, has had a book translated into English. I learned from her internet bio that her crime novels are highly regarded because she examines contemporary life through her psychological detective novels written in the ‘English manner’.

ENGLISH MANNER?

What does that mean? Anyone know?

In searching out what the term ‘English manner’ means to those in Germany, this is what I found: “The keystone of Link’s popularity is an intelligent mix of suspense and emotion set in evocative historical periods such as Victorian England and WW1-era Germany. Modern day settings and psycho-thrillers are also among them – gripping tales of human relationships and finely wrought intrigues.” Link has been nominated for the German Book Prize, and a few of her books have been adapted for German television – anyone getting much German TV on their streaming devices?  I know I don’t – I will have to look when I get home.

Charlotte Link also writes YA crime mysteries. (I assume in the ‘English Manner’).

Home soon.