Elizabeth Sims
As of early 2017, my most recent book is CRIMES IN A SECOND LANGUAGE. It's a novel about a retired schoolteacher who befriends, then joins forces with, her immigrant housecleaner to crack a crime ring.
The seed of the idea came to me years ago. My beloved aunt (a retired schoolteacher) in Los Angeles had a Mexican-born cleaning woman who couldn't speak English. They both got tired of asking a neighbor to translate, so my aunt offered to teach the woman English. The cleaner came once a week to clean, and she came another day each week to learn.
My aunt found out that not only did the cleaner not know English, she could barely read and write in her own language, having been taken out of school after the fifth grade in Mexico. She started teaching the woman other school subjects as well.
However, the woman's husband was NOT happy about his wife learning so much! And I wondered: what if that guy had some nefarious reason for not wanting his wife to become literate? And that gave me the idea to explore some ideas about crime, punishment, achievement, and all sorts of other things in modern-day Los Angeles. If you read it, I'd be interested to know what you think of it!
The seed of the idea came to me years ago. My beloved aunt (a retired schoolteacher) in Los Angeles had a Mexican-born cleaning woman who couldn't speak English. They both got tired of asking a neighbor to translate, so my aunt offered to teach the woman English. The cleaner came once a week to clean, and she came another day each week to learn.
My aunt found out that not only did the cleaner not know English, she could barely read and write in her own language, having been taken out of school after the fifth grade in Mexico. She started teaching the woman other school subjects as well.
However, the woman's husband was NOT happy about his wife learning so much! And I wondered: what if that guy had some nefarious reason for not wanting his wife to become literate? And that gave me the idea to explore some ideas about crime, punishment, achievement, and all sorts of other things in modern-day Los Angeles. If you read it, I'd be interested to know what you think of it!
More Answered Questions
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more