The Crime Lady: Odds and Ends
Dear TCL Readers:
Without Consent moves ever closer to publication — sure, it’s November 11, but time zips by fast, and now that the heavy-lifting of edits and legal checks is complete, advance copies are starting to circulate digitally (with physical copies landing this week!) If you are a member of the media — in all forms that it takes these days - please be in touch with my publicist at Ecco, Sonya Cheuse. So much more to come.
A couple of events coming up, too: I’ll be in conversation with Ivy Pochoda at Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn on Wednesday, June 25 at 7 PM for her knockout horror novella Ecstasy. Details/tickets here.
And I’ll be at the American Library Association’s annual conference in Philadelphia, delivering the keynote address at the Carnegie Awards on Saturday, June 28, and signing galleys of Without Consent bright and early at 9 AM on June 29 at the HarperCollins booth (#606.)
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It’s been a little more than two weeks since I got back from a monthlong residency at Art Omi, and I am still reveling in the experience — gorgeous location, warm atmosphere, excellent food, and a group of writers so unbelievably smart, talented, funny, and kind that met for nightly dinners, shared work-in-progress, went for outings (the spectacular High Falls in Philmont; Sinners in the theater in Hudson, and yes, it is a phenomenal film; Rodgers Book Barn; the School’s summer art show opening in Kinderhook) and collectively, got so much work done.
I love residencies because of the concentrated time and space it affords artists to get meaningful work done. In the past I’ve tried to time it to when I’m close to finishing a book draft, or when I’m deep in edits. It was a little different at Art Omi. The first week I was there I didn’t do much other than rest and think. Frankly, Without Consent was the hardest book I’ve written, and while I knew, intellectually, that it had taken a lot out of me, I really didn’t feel it in my marrow until I stepped away from my regular life for a little while. And that’s important for creative work, too.
Eventually the seeds of another book project, still embryonic, were ready to grow, and I’m looking forward to spending the summer figuring out the scope and contours of what this new book might be. And if all goes according to plan, you’ll all hear a lot more about it next year.
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Here’s some of the books I’ve been reading and other art I’ve engaged in:
A common theme of the books I’m primarily interested in reading is that the voice is so idiosyncratic and singular that it could not be possible to replicate with generated AI. I suppose it is possible that a novel like Sky Daddy by Kate Folk could be formed from an LLM, but I doubt it very much. Linda loves planes. Really, really loves planes. But she also desperately wants to connect to humans, and the tension between her two states gives the novel a sweetness that grounds it in real emotion, not just kitsch.
Summer is a great season for crime fiction by people I’m not reviewing. So yes, set aside time for Murder Takes a Vacation by Laura Lippman, El Dorado Drive by Megan Abbott, King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby, What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown, The Medusa Protocol by Rob Hart, Kill Your Darlings by Peter Swanson, The House on Buzzards Bay by Dwyer Murphy — all June publications! — and later this summer, Mean Moms by Emma Rosenblum and Flashout by Alexis Soloski.
I’ve read a lot of excellent nonfiction, too: Fear No Pharoah by Richard Kreitner, Little Bosses Everywhere by Bridget Read, Bad Company by Megan Greenwell, I Want To Burn This Place Down by Maris Kreizman, the forthcoming James Baldwin biography by Nicholas Boggs, and The Dazzling Paget Sisters by Ariane Bankes, which hits every spot if you are looking for a mid-century story of two young women asserting their independence and vivacity in England and Europe before and after World War II.
Finally got to the remodeled Frick Museum, which now has a bar (!) and an open staircase and has generally brightened the place up. This is my favorite house museum and the renovation enhances a lot of what’s great, though there is one room where the lighting did a disservice to some of the paintings, and I’m not sure if that’s fixable. I need to go back and see it when it’s not so crowded, though.
Saw Goddess, the musical that played the Public Theater before its June 8 closing, and the music and dancing was wondrous (Amber Iman especially), the lyrics all right, and the book still kind of a mess — but I also think that it’ll probably be one more round of revision before it’s Broadway-ready, and once it is, it will attract serious crowds.
As for film and TV: I am so behind. It’s laughable. I accept my fate here.
Now it’s time to get back to work. Until next time, I remain,
The Crime Lady