Author: Amber Foxx

Author of Mae Martin psychic mystery series.

New Mexico Mystery Author Interview: Anne Hillerman

Last week I reviewed Rock with Wings by Anne Hillerman. She is an award-winning reporter, the author of several non-fiction books, and the daughter of New York Times bestselling author Tony Hillerman. She lives in Santa Fe, and this is her second novel. This week I’m delighted to have her as my guest for an interview.Uncropped AnneHillerman author photo credit Felicia Lujan

  AF: I appreciate the Navajo glossary in the back of Rock with Wings. I’ve heard the language spoken, and I cannot begin to reproduce the sounds even when I know a word and what it means.  Do you speak Navajo?

AH: Just a very few words.

AF: Which language do Chee and Bernie speak at home? Do they slip back and forth—English and Navajo for different kinds of topics?

AH: Yes, they slip back and forth—English when they are talking about work and financial discussions; Navajo for more important matters of the heart.

AF: One of things I enjoy in your books is the way you portray family and friendships. Several years ago I read your father’s wonderfully titled autobiography, Seldom Disappointed, and I recall that you grew up in a large family. Remind me how many siblings.

AH: I have two sisters and three brothers.

AF: Would you say this has affected your writing? In what way?

AH I believe almost everything you experience in life helps you in some way as a writer (and a person, for that matter), although you may not realize its value at the time. Growing up as the big sister to such a diverse group of siblings helped me learn how to negotiate and compromise—skills I later discovered I needed in the world of commercial publishing. Also, because we were a busy, lively household, I learned how to focus despite chaos. The amazing and unexpected things that happen in a large family certainly honed my sense of humor. And, of course, the diverse personalities I shared dinner with each night might have given me ideas for a few characters.

AF: You’ve attended citizens’ police academies and learned from members of the Navajo Nation police and other police forces in northern New Mexico. What are some of the most surprising things they taught you? The most useful for you as a writer?

AH: The most surprising, and most useful too, was their absolute willingness to let an outsider civilian like me into the club. I was humbled by the openness of the officers I spoke with who shared their insights into both law enforcement and human nature. I was swept away by their passion for and commitment to their work, especially officers who were involved with the very difficult assignments relating to domestic violence. I never appreciated the dichotomy in basic police work, where officers can go from static boredom to high adrenalin situations in a matter of seconds. I enjoyed learning about technology used in law enforcement but getting some insight into how cops size up suspects, witnesses, and victims and how they can usually tell when people are lying helped me even more.

AF: Both your books are set in June, the hot windy time before the rains. Are you one of those people who loves the windy season?

AH: No, no, no. Wind is not my friend! It makes me restless, stirs up the pollen from the juniper trees that surround my Santa Fe house, and rolls the tumbleweeds across the highways, creating traffic trouble.  I used June as a setting in both those books because it’s a season of suspense here in the dry Southwest. Temperatures spike in June. If we’re lucky, late June eventually and after much anticipation and broken promises, brings the start of summer rain.

AF: Do you have a favorite time of year, and what makes it special in your part of the world?

AH:  I enjoy the change of seasons and Santa Fe is great for that. I love the transition from winter to spring, the discovery of those early hyacinths in my garden when the nights are still way below freezing, and the way daffodils survive April snow and keep smiling. Summer’s long days and beautiful crimson sunsets remind me of why our mountains, the Sangre de Cristos and the Sandias, are named for blood and watermelon. I enjoy the contrast between summer days in the 90s and nights cool enough to require a blanket. July’s dramatic thunderstorms, usually more sound and light than moisture, sometimes create enough rain to turn the arroyos into running streams. Fall brings more eye-popping contrasts, the brilliant yellow of the shimmering aspen leaves against the deep blue sky. Crisp days scented with apples and pungent smoke of pinon and cedar in the fireplace—and a big pot of green chile simmering for dinner.  I love winter, too. Unlike many places, Santa Fe seldom goes two days in a row without sun. I love the diamond sparkle of fresh snow, the quiet discovery of rabbit and bird tracks along the road, and those crystal-clear winter nights with millions of stars, each with a story to tell.

AF: Tell me about your favorite trading post, roadside restaurant, or other out-of-the way place in the Four Corners Region that most people might not have heard of.

AH: So many places, I hardly know where to start, but I’ll give it a try. I love the old trading post at Toadlena, N.M.  with its beautiful setting at the base of the mountains. The owners and the staff reflect an attitude of hospitality that’s hard to beat. I always try to stop at Teec Nos Pos, N.M. and the Keems Canyon, Az. trading posts when I’m out that way. They always have some surprises. The Hubble Trading Post in Ganado, Arizona always makes me smile. I try to talk advantage of tours to visit the Hubble home when I’m there. It’s like a step into the past. I enjoy the Tuba City Trading Post (also in Arizona) with its wonderful collection of books, and the Code Talker Museum that shares the building. Across the walk is another of my favorite places, Navajo Interactive Museum. It’s filled with wonderful exhibits and videos in which the Navajo people tell their own history starting with their creation stories.  I love to stop for lunch at Earl’s on old Route 66 in Gallup, N.M. The food good, and you can shop while you eat because the restaurant invites native artists sell their jewelry, pottery, sculpture, etc. from table to table. I like the restaurant at the Quality Inn in Window Rock (AZ) with its sweet little patio garden, and the eclectic food at The Junction in Chinle (AZ).

AF: In continuing the series your father wrote, you’ve mastered the inner worlds of Bernie Manuelito and Jim Chee, and I found the glimpse into the workings of Joe Leaphorn’s mind in his little notebook in Spider Woman’s Daughter strangely touching—the intimacy of the ordinary. That orderly little book, without an emotional or private word in it, often just numbers and sketches, still made me think you knew him inside-out. Do you plan to use him as a point-of-view character in the future?

AH: Yes. I’m looking forward to writing about him. He was the character my Dad loved best, and I needed a few novels under my belt before venturing into his complex mind.

AF: What was the greatest challenge in making the transition from writing nonfiction to writing fiction? How has your earlier background helped you as a novelist?

AH: For Spider Woman’s Daughter, my greatest challenge was making the little voice that kept telling me “you’re not Tony Hillerman” understand that I could continue the series without being my Dad. That some changes and my own voice would be OK as long as I was true to the spirit of his work.  I knew there were many, many people who loved Dad’s work and would be highly skeptical of a new kid taking on his characters.  I’ve been touched and humbled by the notes I’ve received from many of them, telling me they were glad to see their favorite Navajo detective back on the job. The research I did for the non-fiction book I wrote about Dad and his work, Tony Hillerman’s Landscape, On the Road with Chee and Leaphorn, was enormously helpful. I didn’t realize when I wrote it that I would write a novel, but it paved the way. That book gave me an excuse to re-read all of Dad’s novels closely and to travel to places he loved in Navajoland and elsewhere in our beautiful Southwest. Also, because I had completed book-length manuscripts before, I know what to expect in terms of time commitment on a big project. Having dealt with New York editors before, I had some insight into the business end of publishing.  All that helped with the transition.

AF: I particularly liked the role of certain plants in Rock with Wings. One of your nonfiction books is on the Gardens of Santa Fe. Your protagonist Bernie Manuelito is interested in plants; she studied botany in college. I’m looking for the roots, pardon the pun, of this synchronicity.

AH: I loved writing Gardens of Santa Fe and the gardeners I interviewed taught me to appreciate plants in a new way. Luckily for me, Dad had established and developed Bernie’s interest in botany and the natural world in several of his novels. I’m glad he did, because it gave me a nice hook for Rock with Wings. The little cactus I mention is real, by the way, and actually is an endangered species.RockWithWings hc c

AF: Some writers start with a plan, others improvise, and some work with a blend of structure and free play. Tell me about your process of creating a story.

AH: For me, it’s a conglomeration of trying to plan, trying to be organized and efficient, and listening to inspiration when it comes, even if it means major revisions. With  Spider Woman’s Daughter, I was guided by the knowledge that Bernadette Manuelito needed to solve the crime and that the crime had to be a big deal.  I knew I wanted to use Chaco Canyon as one of my settings, so that led me to consider a plot that involved archaeology. Archaeology in turn, led me to use Santa Fe as another setting because the city is filled with museums stuffed with artifacts,  and I knew it would provide a nice contrast to the rural reservation substations and to isolated Chaco Canyon.  In Rock with Wings, I wanted to build on Bernie’s interest in plants. Then, I decided to take the reader to Monument Valley, a beautiful setting Dad never used. The story grew from there.

AF: The colorful supporting characters give so much life to your stories. Do these characters just show up? Do they surprise you? Do you intentionally build them?

AH: I’d like to stretch the truth and say I’m smart enough to build my supporting cast based on a long-range plan for the series, but, mostly, they just show up. A couple minor characters in Spider Woman’s Daughter come back in Rock with Wings.

AF: Do you have an idea for the setting of your next book?

AH: Yes. I think it will open at a big basketball game in Shiprock, and then move to Tuba City, an interesting town on the border of Hopiland and a good place to stop on the way to the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon may get in there, too.

AF: Thank you for such thoughtful answers. I look forward to the next book.

A New Mexico Mystery Review: Rock with Wings

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The opening scene of Anne Hillerman’s new mystery hooked me immediately. When Officer Bernie Manuelito stops a driver for speeding, the man’s peculiar behavior, and the rifle and two boxes of dirt in his trunk, set up the first pieces in a complex puzzle.  Two related mysteries seem separate at first, linked only by the fact the Bernie is working on one case and her husband Jim Chee on the other—which takes place on the set of a zombie movie being filmed in Monument Valley. The plot is well crafted, with plenty of twists and red herrings, but there’s more to this book: the characters, their relationships, and the settings.

The author has a gift for portraying vivid personalities and writes with insight into family and friendships. It’s not easy to write a happy marriage and keep it interesting for a reader—conflicted relationships provide a lot more material—but she does it well with Chee and Bernie. The ongoing stories of Bernie’s aging mother and troubled sister are woven into the mystery plot in a natural and effective way. Joe Leaphorn remains a powerful presence. Though nothing is written in his point of view, readers who’ve known him for many years and many books can feel his continuity and integrity. He may be in the background, but his dignity, determination and astuteness haven’t faded, nor has his importance to the younger officers he mentored.

As in Spider Woman’s Daughter, Hillerman peoples this book with memorable secondary characters, such as Chee’s entrepreneurial clan relative Paul, and the very traditional Mr. Tso.

Navajo culture and language are integral to the story and the protagonists’ lives and world views. I liked the way Bernie relates to Mr. Tso as an honored elder, not just a potential witness. The dialogue in English that represents conversation in Navajo is respectful even when intimate, as if every word is framed in a space of meaning and thought.

The sense of place is perfect, from the movie-making, tourism and geologic beauty in Monument Valley to Mr. Tso’s little house near Ship Rock. This couldn’t be set anywhere else.

Midway through the book, Bernie’s mother’s neighbor, Mrs. Darkwater, is working on crossword. A clue in the puzzle provides a clue not only to an element of the plot, but to a deeper theme in the book. The word could be applied to Mr. Tso as well as to something Bernie discovers in those boxes of dirt, as progress and preservation, old ways and new, intermingle or collide. This is a mystery with substance, true to the Hillerman tradition, a strong addition to the series.

*****

Look for my interview with Anne Hillerman next week.

Old and Gray: Joy Grows Deeper Day by Day

 

During my Southeast months, I teach yoga for a fitness and recreation program called “Fifty and Wiser.”  The name has always struck me as comical. At fifty and older, I hope we’re wiser than at twenty or thirty, but that’s not why there’s a whole set of exercise programs for that age group. Apparently it was not good marketing to say fifty and older, though.

In one of my online writing groups, a member asked for feedback on her new web site. Most people talked about the design and content in comparison to her old one. One person, however, addressed her sunny, smiling, middle-aged picture. He was adamant that an author should not post a picture unless he or she looked like a professional model, and said he wasn’t about to post his own picture, because he didn’t want his readers to know he was old but to think he was as young as the characters he writes about.

In honor of that comment, I’m updating my picture. In the one I’ve been using, taken indoors in black and white, my salt-and pepper hair looks only half gray. In bright sunlight, the gray shines and it looks totally silver. I like it—I’m like a little bitty silver-back gorilla. In humans, females get that honor as well as the males.IMG_7667

At the present progress of the Mae Martin Series, she hasn’t turned thirty yet. Starting with a young character allows me to keep the series going for decades if I choose, and the tumult and challenge of that stage of life make for good stories, but at that age I didn’t have either the patience or the perspective to write them.

Yeats published this poem in 1893, a young man imagining his beloved’s aging.

When You Are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

 

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with a love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

 

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

 ***

 When he was old, he wrote The Apparitions.

(I’m only including the final verse; you can read the rest at http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/william-butler-yeats/the-apparitions/ )

When a man grows old his joy

Grows more deep day after day,

His empty heart is full at length

But he has need of all that strength

Because of the increasing Night

That opens her mystery and fright.

Fifteen apparitions have I seen;

The worst a coat upon a coat hanger.

 

***

Who will we become when our empty coat is left behind? Aging. The heart grows full, while the hair grows hollow, light passing through it like a halo.

Remembering his Radiance

One of my meditation teachers from my first yoga teacher training died this week. The message from his yoga center informed students that Goswami Kriyananda had left his body, suggesting the next stage of his soul’s journey rather than an end. I knew he was so far along in years that the parting was inevitably close, but I still felt sad. And then, strangely, I felt closer to him. The touch of his compassion and joy stays with me, reaching deeper than his words. He had the sweetest, sincerest, most humble and loving smile, glowing with both the playfulness of a child and the wisdom of an elder. I can access his teaching through books he wrote and recordings of his talks, but the lesson that affected me most was the heart-sense of his radiance.

 *****

http://yogachicago.com/2014/02/sitting-down-with-goswami-kriyananda

This is an interview from 2008. It’s long, but it tells some of his story and outlook, if you’re interested.

http://www.yogakriya.org/php/archives.php

The video on death, dying and rebirth is quite cheerful and uplifting. Regardless of your view of the nature of life after death, which may not be the same as his, you might appreciate the encounter with his personality and his philosophy. I watched it right before going to teach a college class and I think I was a happier and kinder person and a better teacher for having done so.

Namaste.

 

Giveaway and First-in-Series Sale

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Leading up to the give-away, I’ve introduced my “mystical mystery sisters” from across two oceans, Australian Virginia King and British Marion Eaton. We’re fans of each other’s work and have grown from fans into friends. In the spirit of sharing new series we’ve enjoyed, we’ve teamed up for a giveaway and over a week of discounts from April 21 – 30.

Enjoy a touch of the mystical and an innovative take on mystery from a trio of B.R.A.G. Medallion recipients. Buy each e-book for only $1.99 US. Enter the drawing to win a paperback copy of the first book in each author’s series.

When the Clocks Stopped

The Mysterious Marsh Series, Book One

 When lawyer Hazel Dawkins decides to write some wills while she waits for the birth of her first child, she unwittingly triggers dramatic consequences. Mysteriously, she encounters Annie, a woman whose tempestuous life took place more than two centuries earlier when Romney Marsh was a violent place, dominated by smugglers. Soon that past collides with the present, and Hazel finds herself pitted against an evil that has stalked the marsh for centuries. As her destiny intertwines with Annie’s in the shifting time-scape, Hazel confronts a terrifying challenge that parallels history—and could even change it. If she survives.

Sales links:

http://www.amazon.com/When-Clocks-Stopped-Time-slip-Mysterious-ebook/dp/B00DTV52PK

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/530153

The First Lie

Selkie Moon Mysteries Book One

Selkie Moon is a woman on the run. In a mad dash for freedom she’s escaped her life in Sydney to start over again in Hawaii. But her refuge begins to unravel and she’s running from something else entirely. A voice in a dream says that someone is trying to kill her. Not that she’s psychic, no way. But the messages and threats escalate until she’s locked in a game of cat and mouse with a mysterious stalker. Entangled in Celtic and Hawaiian mythologies, the events become so bizarre and terrifying that her instinct is to keep running. But is she running from her past? Or her future?

Sales link: http://www.amazon.com/First-Selkie-Moon-Mystery-Book-ebook/dp/B00K1VC20Y

The Calling

 The first Mae Martin Psychic Mystery

Obeying her mother’s warning, Mae Martin-Ridley has spent years hiding her gift of “the sight.” When concern for a missing hunter compels her to use it again, her peaceful life in a small Southern town begins to fall apart. New friends push her to explore her unusual talents, but as she does, she discovers the shadow side of her visions— access to secrets she could regret uncovering.

Gift or curse? When an extraordinary ability intrudes on an ordinary life, nothing can be the same again.

The Mae Martin Series

No murder, just mystery. Every life hides a secret, and love is the deepest mystery of all.

Sales links: https://amberfoxxmysteries.wordpress.com/buy-books-retail-links

Enter the drawing to win paperback copies of all three books.

The raffle starts on April 21 and ends 12:00 midnight Eastern U.S. time April 26, 2015. When you click on the Rafflecopter link you’ll be able to choose which series you would like to learn more about. After that, you’ll be entered in the drawing. To get an additional entry, click on the option to tweet the give-away. A random winner will be chosen by Rafflecopter. The winner will be announced on April 27.

To enter, click here: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/eb0a35092/

To learn more about the other authors and their series:

http://www.marioneaton.com/

http://selkiemoon.com/

Virginia’s guest post: https://amberfoxxmysteries.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/virginia-king-mything-in-action/

Interview with Marion: https://amberfoxxmysteries.wordpress.com/2015/03/24/interview-with-m-l-eaton-the-mysterious-marsh/

And an interview with me on one of my favorite WordPress blogs: http://saintsandtrees.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/interview-with-author-amber-foxx/

 

Virginia King: Mything in Action

The First LieVirginia King Portrait

Intrigued by the blend of world mythologies in Virginia King’s mystical psychological mystery, The First Lie, I asked her to write a guest post on how she wove mythical elements into her fiction. Virginia’s answer to that question follows.

*****

Everyone, soon or late, sits down to a banquet of consequences. Robert Louis Stevenson

In The First Lie, Australian girl Selkie Moon has run away to Hawaii to escape a destructive relationship but she’s landed herself in the middle of a mythical nightmare. Her name already has mythic origins – her mother named her after the selkies, the Celtic seal people who peel off their skins and dance in the moonlight on human legs. Ironic, since Selkie almost drowned as a toddler and has been afraid of the sea ever since.

Now that she’s arrived in Hawaii, with mythical symbols lurking under every lava rock, a series of bizarre events beset her. It all begins when a voice wakes her from a dream: Someone is trying to kill you.

The First Lie was originally set in Sydney, my home town. The writing was going through a flat patch so I decided to re-energize by grabbing a camera and visiting all the locations in the story—a whole day on the road. The outcome of that fateful excursion wasn’t what I expected. I came home and burst into tears. None of the places spoke to me.

In desperation I dropped Selkie into a whole new location, Hawaii, and the story came to life. She was now a stranger in a strange place, so I was on a journey of discovery too. My editor wasn’t too sure about it: You’ve got an Australian main character in a Hawaiian setting, but you’re drawing on Irish/Scottish mythology (selkies); it’s difficult to make those disparate elements fit together cohesively. She suggested moving the story to Ireland or giving Selkie a Hawaiian name, but I did the opposite. I made it work.

I mingled the mythical elements across the cultures to see what happened. I don’t plan when I write because it stifles psychological layers emerging in the story. Instead, if I get an idea— no matter how bizarre—I drop it into the manuscript and let it ride, let it niggle away at me until something pops. It’s incredible how connections form—usually in the middle of the night—each time adding another layer of depth. I wake most mornings and decipher the notes I’ve scribbled while half asleep.

In Chapter One, Selkie sees something strange in a mirror. It once belonged to a Kahuna and has special powers. Mirrors feature in many real Hawaiian encounters with the supernatural and they drip with symbolism in fairy tales—remember the queen in Snow White. I allowed aspects of these elements to create their own consequences. The mirror inspires some mythic scenes later in the book.

The First Lie is not a retelling of the selkie myth, but selkies create their own psychological thread. The myth involves a fisherman stealing a selkie’s pelt as the selkies dance in the moonlight. When one selkie can’t find her skin, she has to go with him and be his wife. Then seven years later, she finds where he’s hidden it and returns to the sea without looking back. This is an issue of identity, of theft, of soul. I used these concepts to add depth to this modern mystery.

Pele, the volcano goddess, has been encountered by many real Hawaiians. She’s associated with warnings of danger, such as house fires and other mishaps. Selkie is being stalked by a mysterious woman. Could she be Pele? Then there’s the landslide on the highway that sends Selkie and her friends in the opposite direction. Or could the stalker be warning Selkie about one of her new friends?

For a Celtic connection, I created a fictional Hawaiian beach named by a homesick Irishman—only to remember in the middle of the night that there’s a place in Sydney with the same name, just near Selkie’s childhood home. Spooky! And there are monk seals in Hawaii—they’re aumakuas or animal spirit guides that look out for the living. Meanwhile in Europe, scientists have theorised that the sirens in The Odyssey, who lured sailors to their deaths with their singing, may have been based on the moaning of monk seals. Greek mythology too? Yes, because the oceans are interconnected. Add another layer.

Just to make my editor’s head spin, Selkie has a fondness for Chinese food. Chinese mythology adds another thread to the mystery. Cowry shells, hugely symbolic in the islands and around the world, were used to create the Chinese symbol for money—survival in a strange place is an element in the story. And the cooks in Selkie’s favourite noodle bar see something in her aura that no-one else can see—old friend from far away—the Chinese phrase for a memory. It plunges Selkie into a deep investigation of her past.

I had no idea how The First Lie would end until all the mythical layers and threads collided in the last chapter. I just had to trust that the banquet of consequences would be—as the Irish might describe it—grand.

*****

Bio:

Virginia King has lived most of her life in Sydney, but has travelled to many places. Sheʼs been a teacher, an unemployed ex-teacher, a producer of audio-books, a writer of fifty-plus childrenʼs books, and an award-winning publisher. These days sheʼs a full-time writer who paints a bit, living in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney with her husband.

Web site: http://www.selkiemoon.com

Sales link: http://www.amazon.com/First-Selkie-Moon-Mystery-Book-ebook/dp/B00K1VC20Y

*****

Next week, Virginia King and Marion Eaton and I will be doing a give-away for the first book in each of our series. Details will be posted Tuesday. (Marion was featured in an interview last month. https://amberfoxxmysteries.wordpress.com/2015/03/24/interview-with-m-l-eaton-the-mysterious-marsh ) We are fans of each other’s work and want to share that enjoyment with other readers who enjoy a touch of the mystical in a mystery.

 

 

Random Unearned Happiness

A random collection of encounters that have made me smile:

 Smile 1: Today the college where I teach had a special event for which the faculty was required to wear full academic regalia. We lined up outside one of the buildings in our black robes and caps, assembling for the formal procession. On the railing of the building’s ramp, an equally impressive assembly of flies gathered, matching or exceeding our numbers. I’d never seen so many in one place with no apparent attraction—no food, no late unfortunate animals—just a black iron railing. They looked like an alternate version of us, pompous little goggle-eyed professors from some insect university, preparing for their own convocation.

Smile 2: I remember sitting at an outdoor table at the Cerrillos Whole Foods, getting directions to a hiking place from a stranger I was sharing a table with, and a young man walked by, saying aloud to all who could hear, “Another beautiful day in Santa Fe! Can you stand it?”

Smile 3: I overheard this line during an outdoor concert at the Railyard, spoken a lean, intense, green-eyed man with a little straw hat that turned up at the front: “It hit me—I’m almost fifty. The second half of my life is going to be about exercise and stress reduction.” He seemed elated as he told his friends this profound discovery, and shared the even more amazing fact that he’d talked to other people who’d had the same revelation. What I liked was that he called it the second half of his life. Now that’s an optimist.

Smile 4: The following graffiti were all on the same stall wall (in Santa Fe, of course, where else):

(An Om symbol) Just Breathe

            Think—while it’s still legal

            A good deed brightens a dark world.

            Walk as if your feet were kissing the earth.

Sometimes I walk around with a huge smile on my face just because I’m alive and seeing the sky and breathing the air. My feet are kissing the earth. Sometimes I get bogged down in my to-do list and have to do something to remind myself to smile. Today, being satirized by the flies did the trick. I won’t brighten a dark world by taking myself too seriously.

Interview with M.L. Eaton: The Mysterious Marsh

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In my post a few weeks ago on the conventions in mystery, I mentioned a fascinating book that breaks many of them, When the Clocks Stopped by M.L. Eaton. This mystical mystery takes place in the village of Rype-on Marsh in the south of England. Lawyer Hazel Dawkins is anticipating some peaceful time off before the birth of her first child. When she agrees to a little part-time work, she finds herself drawn into troubling events in the lives of her clients—and in the past. The distant past. Mysteriously, she encounters Annie, a woman who lived more than two centuries ago when Rype-on Marsh was a violent place, dominated by gangs of smugglers. With multiple layers of both time and crime, it’s an amazing and original tale. I’m happy to have Marion Eaton as my guest today. In late April we’ll be doing a ten-day sale and a three-book give-away together with a third mystical mystery author, the innovative Australian writer Virginia King. We’ve enjoyed each other’s work and are excited to introduce our readers to books we think they’ll also enjoy.

Retired from legal practice and semi-retired from holistic therapy—although she still teaches Reiki and other workshops—Marion lives close to the sea in the beautiful East Sussex countryside with a long-suffering husband, a lazy saluki and an urge to write into the small hours.

MLE: Thanks so much for your interest in my book and particularly for thinking up all these wonderful questions. I‘m really looking forward to answering them, so I’m going to dive straight in ….

AF: Your book is historical at two levels, being set in 1976 and slipping in time to 1747. To what extent is it based on real historical events?

MLE: I had to smile when I read this … because I remember many events of 1976 perfectly and it doesn’t seem like a historical period. But, of course it is!

I think perhaps it is best for me to come clean from the start. The book was originally going to be a memoir of the first year when I set up in practice on my own account as a country solicitor (attorney). I’m sure you can guess the date? 1976. I had written a few chapters— very badly and in very stilted language, because after all, I was a lawyer— when I suddenly found myself writing something far more exciting and definitely inaccurate. Not a memoir at all. I stopped and thought about it for a minute or two and then decided that I might as well enjoy myself. Who would be interested in the memoir of a country solicitor, anyway? But hidden away in my memory were a lot of interesting stories that I had encountered around that time. It seemed second nature to stitch them into the story. So the short answer is yes, the story is based on real historical events of 1976. Later, when Annie came into the story, she arrived complete with her own personality and history. It was then that I had to do considerable research to check that the background and events surrounding her in 1747 were as accurate as possible.

AF: I like the fact that the mysterious phenomena in your book happen to people who have no expectation of them, no belief that such things are possible or that time is anything but a linear march. Have you ever had even a hint of this kind of mystical experience? If not, what’s the origin of this aspect of the story?

MLE: When I was a child, my mother used to tell me stories of when she was a little girl. Many of them had to do with her experience of ghosts and other psychic phenomena. I always longed to have similar experiences but I was a sensible, pragmatic child and despite all my efforts nothing similar ever seemed to happen to me. Until, one day I was looking over a house … and the rest is in the story!

AF: Did you set out to write a murder-less mystery? There’s crime and deception in your book, but this isn’t the standard whodunit. How conscious were you of breaking some of the conventions of the mystery genre, while keeping others?

MLE: To be honest, I didn’t actually give much thought to genre when I was writing the book. As I’ve mentioned, I was writing for the sheer joy of writing and the mystery evolved naturally. I suppose that as a lawyer it was my bread-and-butter work to solve problems and difficulties so that was a good starting point. The book had to be interesting for me, as well as for my readers. But in the end I had little choice: my characters fleshed themselves out and made their own decisions about the story!

AF: Tell me about your research concerning the eighteenth century smugglers. Did you do it in the Romney Marsh area? How did you go about reconstructing the speech of the time and place? Is Annie’s role in the Owlers unusual?

MLE: I still live near Romney Marsh. This part of Britain (Kent and East Sussex) is wreathed in history and we are fortunate in having great local museums and local history societies, all of which were very helpful both in giving information and pointing me in the direction of contemporary accounts and records of smugglers.

I have always been fascinated by local and family history and my forebears have lived in this part of the world for generations, so I was brought up on tales from the past. Being close to the continent of Europe, for hundreds of years smuggling was a way of life for many people in this area. (Indeed, only yesterday, there was an item on the news about the foiling of a smuggling gang at Dover, very close to the Marsh).

I have no doubt that, then as now, it was a raw and violent occupation and there were many criminal gangs involved, but over the centuries it has become as romanticized as Robin Hood. Smugglers called themselves ‘Gentlemen Free Traders’ and at one time in the eighteenth century practically the whole local community was involved one way or the other. It was the ‘Preventatives’—Government enforcement officers—who were seen as ‘the baddies’.

It was Annie herself who spoke to me of her role in the Owlers, but from the accounts and tales of the rival gangs of smugglers it is clear that women were often involved. Although most acted as signalers, lookouts and scouts, there were others who worked alongside their men in landing smuggled goods from the boats.

On a personal note, I remember my own grandfather telling me how his father would sometimes warn him that he might hear unusual sounds in the night and if he did, to stay in his bed and put his head under the pillow. And always, the next morning there would be strange horses in the stable in place of their own horses. But beneath a stack of hay would be found a small barrel of brandy or a bolt of silk cloth. The horses would be returned a day or two later, when the other horses would also be returned to their owners.

I was lucky to have contemporary records to help me with reconstructing the speech of the time, and also to recall the local Kentish accent that surrounded me in my childhood. It’s rather sad that such accents are now fast disappearing from common use, but some of the older people in the area still speak in the same way.

AF: The village life and scenery is beautifully portrayed, with vivid details of the buildings and gardens. I’ve never been to a small English village but your book made me feels as if I had. The architecture in Rype-on-Marsh is integral to the plot. How did you work this in? I’m curious to know if there are places that served as models, or this was a blend of reality and invention.

MLE: I’m thrilled that you were able to identify with the area and town in When the Clocks Stopped. To me, as to many others who live there, Romney Marsh has its own very distinct identity—almost its own character—and there’s no doubt at all in my mind that the town on which I based Rype-in-the-Marsh also has its own personality. Both the Marsh and the town feel to me to be a huge part of the story, as well as the history that surrounds them. I did embroider details onto the fabric of the town, the most significant being the King’s Ditch, but most of the description of the town and its building and streets are accurate enough to be recognizable to local people. There really are dikes crisscrossing the Marsh as well as secret passages centering on the church.

AF: You had a lot of choices in how you could have told this story. It could have been third person, past tense all the way, in both time periods. You could have told the story in 1976 entirely as a simple crime mystery without the time slips, and there still would have been a good plot. How did you go about making all these choices, using the various voices and points of view? Why present tense for the glimpses of the past?

MLE: I didn’t seem to have a choice while I was writing. It seemed important to write in the first person, partly for immediacy and partly because of the limitations of doing so which meant that my protagonist, Hazel, was often baffled by what was going on. I felt her confusion added to the mystery.

Then, gradually, the layers of the past rose up like a miasma from the earth and I realized that there was another interweaving story begging to be told. Annie spoke to me in poetic language, closely linked as she is to Nature and the Earth. I felt I needed some way of emphasizing the differences and similarities between my two women protagonists, but wasn’t quite sure how this could be done. In the end, I simply listened to Annie’s voice—and the present tense flowed from my pen, mostly because the past seemed co-existent with the present. To me, it was as though the dramatic events of the past had stamped themselves on the fabric of time, eternally interwoven with the current time, ever present, ever available to those who listen. I hope the use of the present tense helps to convey a little of this feeling to my readers.

AF: The legal detail was intriguing. I enjoyed learning about special Will paper and the origin of the term “red tape” as well as seeing how Hazel’s work as a solicitor brings her so naturally into the center of the mystery. What’s your background in law? Is this the type of work you did? What’s the most colorful story that you can share from your legal work?

MLE: I’m glad you found the legal detail intriguing. I hoped it would be interesting and entertaining as well as helping to convey the way that Hazel has been taught to think and act.

I qualified as a solicitor in 1973 and, as I have mentioned already, set up my own practice on Romney Marsh in 1976. Law and legal practice in England and Wales have changed so much with the coming of computers and the internet that I wanted to preserve a little of its uniqueness for future generations. I also wanted to correct the current myth about lawyers generally: that they are all in it for money. I know many solicitors for whom the most important consideration is their clients’ welfare.

All I can say is that most of the incidents in the book are based on true stories.

AF: I’m pretty sure this is the only book I’ve ever read in which the protagonist is very, very pregnant. Her condition affected everything, and yet didn’t stop her from anything. This is another writing choice I’d like to know more about.

MLE: I was very pregnant when I set up my first practice—the circumstances of which were very similar to those surrounding Hazel, and so it was a ready-made opening to the story, explaining why Hazel became involved with all the events that took place around her.

As the book evolved, I thought about changing this, but by then I had found out how much the pregnancy helped in underlining the difference of my main protagonist from all the usual heroes and heroines in other legal thrillers. I wanted a character who was obviously different, very much a woman in a man’s world, who managed to solve a crime by non-contentious means. Basically she would be an ordinary person in an ordinary town to whom completely unexpected things happen. I feel the pregnancy makes her vulnerable but also gives her an edge. She is determined but protective. She has a reason to be emotional and weak sometimes. There is the frisson of double jeopardy. Above all it makes her ultra-feminine.

AF: Hazel’s dog Poppadum is an important character. Is she based on a real dog that you know? (Your bio says you live with a lazy Saluki, and Poppadum is far from lazy.)

MLE: Poppadum was the very first dog who was truly mine, an unforgettable, wonderful, unique character. She just had to be in the story and I had to use her real name. As you’ve guessed, she was a treasured member of our family. My elder daughter even learned to stand by using Poppadum’s fur to pull herself upright, and then to walk by hanging onto the dog’s tail. Poppadum and she adored each other.

AF: If one were to go to Romney Marsh as a tourist, what would you suggest they see and do?

MLE: Oh there is so much! From Roman Castles to deserted churches sitting alone in the middle of fields; from beautiful wild beaches to the cobbled streets of the ancient Cinqueport towns of Hythe, New Romney, and Rye; from small towns and villages with country pubs where you can eat before a roaring open fire in the winter, or sit surrounded by flowers in a summer garden, to long hikes with gorgeous views along the cliffs of the Saxon Shore; from the strange neighbours of a bird sanctuary, lighthouse and nuclear power station at Greatstone, to soft sandy beaches with drifts of wildflowers, to the huge amazing Victorian follies built at Littlestone; from a miniature public railway to small fishing boats drawn up on the beach and shacks offering fresh fish for sale. There are fields of flowering bulbs in spring, an airport, museums of country life, thick squat Martello towers and boats for hire on the Military Canal, built as a defence against a possible invasion by Napoleon. Ice cream and fish and chips are available everywhere to enjoy in a bracing sea breeze or in the warmth of the summer sun. But for the perfect experience there is nothing better than a full English tea served at Deblyn’s Tea Room on New Romney High Street. Real leaf tea in a teapot or freshly ground coffee, home-made scones, jam and cream, tiny savoury sandwiches, and huge slices of delicious home-made cakes, all served on bone china. Enjoy it in the bower of flowers they call a garden or the cosy beamed front room of the old house that fronts the High Street. Bliss!

AF: What’s your next project?

MLE: My next project is the third in the Mysterious Marsh Series. Its working title is ‘When the Earth Cracked’. I recently discovered a Roman Altar hidden away in the tower of a church on the edge of Romney Marsh so I am going to have to work that into a book sometime. It might be this one, but it might not …

I’ve also been writing a semi-autobiographical series of novellas (The Faraway Lands Series) requested by my daughters about my childhood travels in the 1950s—which are truly historical now. I’m pleased that the first two in the series have been popular, although they’re very different from my Mysterious Marsh Series.

And also on my to-do list:

  • A 1930s Love Story
  • A WWII adventure story
  • A Book of Angel Meditations

AF: Thank you so much for taking time for all these questions.

MLE: No, it is I who should thank you, Amber. It’s been lovely to talk to you and very kind of you to give time and space to this interview. I particularly appreciate it because I love your books and can’t wait to finish the Mae Martin series. On the other hand, I don’t want to as I’ve become very fond of her! You’ll just have to keep writing …

AF: I will. You won’t run out of my books. And from the length of your to-do list, I can happily predict I won’t run out of your books either.

M.L. Eaton’s web site: http://www.marioneaton.com

Her books are available in e-book and paperback:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DTV52PK

My post on conventions in mystery:

https://amberfoxxmysteries.wordpress.com/2015/02/23/stop-talking-and-shoot-the-guy

 

 

… flowers, grass, dancing …

I took a turn east while looking for something Irish to share for St. Patrick’s Day. Yeats took an interest in Eastern thought, and in Japanese Noh theater, writing poetic dramas based on Irish myths to be performed in a manner based on the formal, stylized simplicity of Noh. This poem struck me as a kind of awakening.

Imitated from the Japanese

 

A most astonishing thing—

Seventy years have I lived;

 

(Hurrah for the flowers of Spring,

For Spring is here again.)

 

Seventy years have I lived

No ragged beggar man,

Seventy years have I lived,

Seventy years man and boy,

And never have I danced for joy.

 

In Haruki Murakami’s short story collection, After the Quake, a man dances alone on a baseball mound in the middle of the night.

“Yoshiya took off his glasses and slipped them into their case. Dancing, huh? Not a bad idea. Not bad at all. He closed his eyes and, feeling the white light of the moon on his skin, began to dance all by himself … Unable to think of a song to match his mood, he danced in time with the stirring of the grass and the flowing of the clouds. Before long he began to feel that someone, somewhere was watching him. His whole body—his skin, his bones—told him with absolute certainty that he was in someone’s field of vision. So what? He thought. Let them look if they want to. All God’s children can dance.”

The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats, Macmillan,  New York, 1974

All God’s Children Can Dance, short story in After the Quake, Haruki Murakami, Vintage International, 2003, translation by Jay Rubin

Silence and Words

There’s so much noise in the world—from engines and various electronic hums to the TVs that play in waiting rooms and laundromats to the music and ads pouring out of speakers in every retail space and even at gas pumps.  Partway through working on this post, I went to the hardware store to get a new battery for my car key. Ford chip keys are hard to open, like a kind of puzzle, and mine defeated me. I let the man who was helping me concentrate on solving the puzzle without talking, and over the speakers in the store came Simon and Garfunkel’s song, “The Sounds of Silence.”

How often do we really hear silence? Hiking in Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument a few years ago, I came through a slot canyon and stood alone in the desert, in awe of the view—and realized with even greater awe that there were no sounds.

Then, a single insect made a single sound. One living note in the stillness.

More recently, I was practicing yoga at home while my washing machine was running. I heard my thoughts running, too, chasing each other. When the machine cut off my head suddenly went quiet with it. Such a bright silence, that special kind that comes when noise stops. It made me think of my favorite section in The Phantom Tollbooth—a children’s book I’d recommend to every adult.  “Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven’t the answer to a question you’ve been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you’re alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully.”

Last week one of my regular yoga students mentioned how much he appreciated the fact that I’d used some non-melodic tones for background music. Being a musician, he found that most music took so much attention that he didn’t meditate or focus as deeply as he had with these simple tones. When I told him that the studios where I take classes don’t use music at all, he said that sounded like the perfect way to practice yoga. His wife disagreed. But she works with words. Music without words helps her quiet her mind. She feels a need to get away from words.

In his book of essays The Man Made of Words, N. Scott Momaday discusses the relationship between words and silence in Native American songs and stories. He says that silence “… is powerful. It is the dimension in which ordinary and extraordinary events take their proper places. In the Indian world, a word is spoken or a song is sung not against, but within the silence. In the telling of a story, there are silences in which words are anticipated or held on to, heard to echo in the still depths of the imagination. In the oral tradition, silence is the sanctuary of sound. Words are wholly alive in the hold of silence; there they are sacred.”

Tent_rocks_MG_3174Tent_rocks_2

The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster, Random House, 1961

The Man Made of Words, N. Scott Momaday, St. Martin’s, 1997

Pictures of Kasha-Katuwe by Julius Ruckert, from Wikimedia Commons