The Crime Lady: Linda Millar; Party For One Thanksgiving Reading; and More
Dear TCL Readers:
For years I have wondered about Linda Millar, daughter of the crime writers Ross Macdonald and Margaret Millar. I have wondered about what it was like to be raised by two prominent, difficult, tormented, troubled people who never hesitated to mine their daughter’s life for their work. I have wondered about her adolescence, which included a hit-and-run accident leading to the death of one boy and the near-death of another, a disappearance that made national headlines (yes, that's Macdonald holding a photo of Linda as part of an appeal to find her during her summer 1959 vanishing), and a life that ended abruptly fifty years ago this month, when she, just thirty-one, died in her sleep.
Most of all, I wondered how Linda could possibly exercise any real autonomy in her life. All that wondering, finally, found fruition in my newest, and longest, CrimeReads feature, on the life and death of Linda Millar, a tragedy in four acts: the accident, the court case, the disappearance, and her death.
Linda’s story has been told before — I relied a lot on Tom Nolan’s masterful 1999 biography of Macdonald for details and quotes — but always in relation to her parents, and largely, her father. Having her story stand alone required taking what Nolan had reported two decades ago and augmenting it with my own research, the court files from her 1956 arrest for vehicular homicide, and interviews with sources Nolan never talked to, including Michael Perona, the boy who survived the accident, now in his late 70s; and Joseph Pagnusat, Linda’s widower, in his late 80s.
Writing about Linda, and the damage she carried her entire life and could not outrun, cannot help but make me rethink my own relationship to Macdonald and Millar’s novels. Each wrote great books that could not have existed if not for Linda’s problems. And it is worth thinking about, and considering, and discussing, what made these books exist, and to make room for Linda Millar’s personhood in the process.
This piece was a real journey, and I’m proud at how it turned out. I hope you will take the time to read it during this week when there is so much, far too much, to reflect upon.
**
I’ll be by myself for Thanksgiving. It was a choice, made weeks in advance because I’d been away for a month (book edits are progressing well, thank you), and because the state we’re in, and about to be, was already clear. There’s no such thing as no-risk, but I’d rather err — and live — on the side of low-risk.
But I won’t be alone, thanks to the tireless organization of Jami Attenberg, who is hosting Party for One, an all-star reading at 3 PM Eastern on Thanksgiving Day, 11/26. Just look at this lineup! The wonderful DC indie Loyalty Books will be selling our books. Please register at this link and look forward to seeing you there, in the midst of your own celebrations.
**
READ/WATCH/LISTEN
Book edits have changed what I’ve wanted to read lately. While I was at MacDowell, I binged on 20th century American writers — Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Eudora Welty — because I needed refuge in language, and in fiction that exceeded my wildest capabilities. It is always a pleasure to read great writing.
Upon my return to New York last week, I sought out more contemporary books. The Searcher by Tana French was quite good, especially all of the dialogue scenes between Cal and Trey, and her homage to Westerns paid off in a number of ways. Other books recently enjoyed: The Secret Life of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw; Love Is an Ex-Country by Randa Jarrar; Lessons in Red by Maria Hummel (not out till June, very much worth the wait); and the unusual co-written This Is Not By Memoir by Andre Gregory and Todd London, which utterly mesmerized me, and is another reminder that the best memoirs and autobiographies get written in the twilight years (Exhibit A, for me, is Art and Madness by Anne Roiphe, a book I will never stop recommending.)
Another book I thought very highly of was Becky Cooper’s debut We Keep the Dead Close, as much a true crime book as it is a meditation on whisper networks, sexism in academia, and how women’s stories, still, are criminally overlooked and neglected. I said much more in my review for Airmail earlier this month.
On the podcast front, I would strongly suggest subscribing to Jamie Loftus’s Lolita Podcast, a 10-part series examining the novel, the adaptations, the cultural misunderstandings, and much more. I’ll appear in a future episode, as will Alisson Wood (author of the memoir Being Lolita) and other scholars and writers, and some surprise guests, too.
I am having significant problems, I must confess, with the second season of Murder Book. Most of my feelings about this iteration of Michael Connelly’s podcast are summed up in a piece I wrote for Columbia Journalism Review on a wholly different podcast, but ultimately, there are two issues: I don’t know what it’s meant to accomplish — it’s not journalism, but it can’t be entertainment — and there is simply no proof, none at all, that Sam Little killed as many women as he is claiming, no matter how hard law enforcement want to paint him as the worst serial killer in American history. (The deja vu to what happened to Henry Lee Lucas is very strong.) The most recent episode, which I listened to early Monday morning, set off alarm bells so loudly I could barely hear anything else.
I am saving The Queen’s Gambit Netflix show for this long weekend. But I sure did enjoy these two profiles of Walter Tevis, who wrote the 1983 novel (one of my all-time favorites) that is the source material for the limited series.
The next newsletter will be the last of 2020, Our Pandemic Year. Expect some discussion of favorite books, shows, and podcasts, and much more.
Until then, I remain,
The Crime Lady