Mary Russell: My Story, Part 3

Follow Mary Russell’s account of the story behind how and why Laurie R. King came to have the Russell/Holmes memoirs, as described in Laurie’s prefaces to the first four Russell books. Further chapters to come each week during the Fifteen Weeks of Bees every Monday on Myspace, or Tuesdays in Laurie R. King’s blog, Mutterings.

Mary Russell: My Story

3.

I doubt it will come as a surprise to the reader when I say that my husband’s popularity in the world of letters approximates that of a lesser divinity. More than a century ago, when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had an attack of pique and sent Holmes to his death over the Reichenbach Falls, readers protested with black arm-bands, cancelled Strand subscriptions, and outrage to the author’s face. Were that story to be published now, I should expect Molotov Cocktails to be thrown.

This degree of renown brings, as you might expect, considerable problems. The cooperation of our neighbours is essential, and elaborate ploys are occasionally necessary to turn would-be visitors from our door in Sussex–although we have found that the most effective of these is encouraging the world to think of us as fictional characters. This weeds out all but the overly whimsical and the truly insane and, until one cool spring morning in April of 1992, permitted us to maintain our privacy.

I was in the downstairs sitting room finishing the task of assembling and sealing together the pages of my various memoirs, when my eye was attracted by motion at the window. I looked up, and saw to my horror that our rural home was being invaded, by none other than a ravening pack of Sherlockians…..

2 Comments

  1. strawberry curls on February 17, 2009 at 2:19 pm

    Loving the whole idea of a serial Russell story. “A ravening pack of Sherlockians…” what a phrase. I love the way it rolls on the tongue.
    –Alice

  2. Sara on February 17, 2009 at 3:12 pm

    Ravenous? Us? 😉

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