Laurie R. King

Award-winning, bestselling, thought-provoking mysteries

LAURIE'S NEWSLETTER

Puzzles from the past

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For the story I’m working on—a novella, in which SFPD Inspector Kate Martinelli revisits her past—I needed to have her look at some high school yearbooks. To remind myself what they looked like, I dug out my own.

Now, I graduated in 1970.  Ever since I bought the thing, I’ve wondered what the hell a “Micopacen” is.  So I Googled it—only to find that the sole listings for that word are, yes, yearbooks from this Franklin Pierce High School. (Franklin Pierce being our alcoholic, pro-slave, ranked-among-the-worst, 1853 president. Great name for a high school, right?)

I can only guess that this neologism (indeed, so far as I can tell, this hapax legomenon) may be an acronym.  The school’s first nine teachers?  The students who worked on the first yearbook? Their mothers, their dogs?  Anyone have a suggestion?

Most

Interesting

College-bound

Organizers

Possess

Active &

Carefully

Engineered

Neuroses

??

Oh, but you say you’re more interested in what’s inside, rather than the baffling name on the cover? This was the time of miniskirts and plastered hair, of Vietnam and the Beatles.  Except maybe in suburban Tacoma, where you might find a long-haired, wire-rimmed, ridiculously young LRK:

About whom a friend wrote:

That’s right: “Laurie, our class hippy.  I had a write-in for you on that popularity sheet for our class hippy ’cause they didn’t have a category for it…”

What category did you guys find yourselves nominated for, back in your own Dark Ages?

Winter in Santa Cruz

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Here on the left coast, winter is a really rocky time.

Twice a day, we feel low…tide.

We’re constantly on the cliffs around here.

And yes, we’re all going to the dogs.

But still, here’s some waves to you, from me and Steamer Lane.

 

A woman’s wrath

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Interesting to look at some of the images that have caught my eye in this past week, wandering through a series of European museums.

There seems to have been a theme of some kind.

For the life of me, I can’t figure out what that might be.

Or why.

Can you?

Noel’s work, continued

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The past week saw two kinds of memorial to my husband, Noel King.

One was a talk, the latest in a series of “Noel Q. King Lectures” held at UC Santa Cruz. The second was a publication, with Noel as co-author.

After Noel died, we started up a lecture series to continue his life’s work in comparative religion and inter-faith dialogue. This year’s speaker was Professor Mark Massoud who, like Noel, was born in a developing country, educated at top universities, and fascinated by traditions not his own.

Mark talked about Shari’a law, a topic much shouted about, and little understood (not only in the West). Shari’s has been the object of xenophobic lawmakers, and blamed for the stoning of women and amputation of hands, but in fact, Shari’a has little to do with enforcement and punishment, and everything to do with context and guidance. The word itself means path—a term adopted by many of the world’s religions to describe themselves—and specifically a path through the dry places to water. As with all such “paths”, Shari’a is essentially a guide to ethical behavior and choices, a way to inform a person or group’s responsibilities to one’s self, one’s community, and to the world at large.

(In other words, to judge Islam by extremist interpretations of Shari’a is directly analogous to judging Christianity by the KKK or the Oklahoma City terrorists. Terrorism is terrorism, whether or not we call it “domestic”.)

The other reappearance of Noel King is in a book about Ibn Battuta, one of the great travelers of all time. Born in Morocco in the early years of the 14th century, he set off on pilgrimage to Mecca, got diverted by a local war, finally made it to the holy city…and then kept going. Fez and Grenada, Timbuctu and Constantinople, wandering and studying with other scholars for his whole life, getting as far as modern Beijing before finally returning to Tangier to live out his days.

Noel was a traveling man, too, a constant scholar on constant pilgrimage to the sites of the world’s religions—he envied Ibn Battuta his visit to Timbuctu, about the only place his own passports did not have a stamp from. Some years ago, he co-authored a book on his 14th century predecessor’s travels in deepest Africa—

—and when he dies, he was working on the professional pilgrim’s further travels with one of his favorite graduate students. Now, Albion Butters has finished the work the two of them began collaborating on all those years ago, with a new book just appearing. I haven’t received my copy yet, but the cover is gorgeous, don’t you think?

Here’s what the publisher says about it:

The Riḥla is of great value as a historical document and for its religious commentary, especially regarding the marvels and miracles that Ibn Baṭṭūṭa encountered. It is  also an entertaining narrative with a wealth of anecdotes, often humorous or shocking, and in many cases  touchingly human. The book records the journey of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, a Moroccan jurist who travels to the East, operating at high levels of government within the vibrant Muslim network of India and China in the 14th century.  It offers fascinating details about the cultures and dynamics of that region, and a dazzling narrative that goes well beyond the standard travelogue.

The book is here. And in celebration of the Noel Q. King Lecture, if you mention that you’re a friend of Noel (or indeed, of his wife) the publisher will give you a 20% discount.

Enjoy!

Fire season

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So there I was, deep in a restaurant in Venice, when a variety of loud sounds from the outer world penetrated my bubble and I looked up to see this…

And this…Rather alarmingly close, in fact…

So I unplugged my laptop and got in my car and went someplace else for a little while.

Now. Where was I with that scene?

Takeback Tuesday: fiction edition

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I’ve been in Honolulu this past week with crime writers, and it’s been interesting how often politics has been the unspoken presence on a panel. Some of us are outright in our opinions, while others feel that they need to keep their opinions to themselves.

Whichever way you feel, there’s no doubt that books carry in their pages a lot of hidden truth–more so when the stories feel real. Strong characters let a reader walk in the shoes of people they wouldn’t have imagined they had anything in common with. The Guardian had an article about this recently, looking at how fictional characters become real to the reader.

Nineteen per cent of those respondents said the voices of fictional characters stayed with them even when they weren’t reading, influencing the style and tone of their thoughts – or even speaking to them directly. For some participants it was as if a character “had started to narrate my world”, while others heard characters talking, or imagined them reacting to things going on in everyday life.

So I’m wondering, just how influential fiction can be. Have you ever experienced a fictional character so real, he or she spilled over into your daily life? And if so, did something they did in the story change your mind, about a situation or a person?

Let us know, in the comments.

Takeback Tuesday: our rights

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Takeback Tuesday is Team LRK’s weekly vote of confidence in the future, when I talk about steps our community of readers can make in asserting the good.

My husband Noel was born in what is now Pakistan. He grew up among Muslims, lived in Africa for many years, and had friends of all religious persuasions all over the world. When he first came to the US, it was on a work visa. Later he was given a green card, and eventually became a citizen. People seemed to agree that he enriched his community.

At one time, the father of my two children would have been among those turned back at Immigration under the recent xenophobic Executive Order. That his sort has been allowed to return to their families and homes is due in part to the instantaneous and unflinching work of ACLU lawyers.

The American Civil Liberties Union is a nonprofit organization that since 1920 has fought for individual rights as given by the US Constitution. You may have heard of them in recent weeks. Some of their causes are pretty fringe, but others are central to what we are as Americans. When I talked about having to “outsource our checks-and-balances” back in November? I meant groups like the ACLU.

They need our donations, they need our numbers. I make an automatic monthly donation. I encourage you to do so too, here.

What’s this stuff falling from the sky?

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It is raining in California. Raining, pouring, pelting, pissing down in a way it hasn’t for years. Hillsides slump, culverts fountain, trees collapse. Feet mildew and children climb the walls. The cell phone has taken to blaring out really quite redundant flood warnings, to suggest to the oblivious or catatonic that the creeks may be rising.

The last time we had quite this much rain was thirty years ago. I was in India when I happened to buy a copy of the international edition of Time magazine, and opened it to see my home town.

We’re not quite that bad yet. But there’s also a rather dramatic combination of high tides and record swells out in Monterey Bay, which has inflicted what may be its terminal injuries on our beloved Cement Boat—

the SS Palo Alto—

just two years short of her centenary.  She was built during WWI, an experiment in finding an alternative to steel for the Navy, but was not launched until after the war was over.  Instead, she found a grand social life hosting dances, swim parties—and later, a young resident of Santa Cruz who fished off the boat with her father, and who would one day become a writer of mysteries.

But one thing we can say: this five-year drought is now officially over, done, dusted.

(Until next year…)

Moving forward

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As I write this, there is a new Occupant in the White House—my White House, the one I inherited when I was born a citizen, the place that my family and my ancestors have looked to and protected since the day Thomas Jefferson moved in in 1801.

This Occupant is moving in because of a fluke series of events. Even the man himself was clearly as stunned as the rest of the country on November 8th when the results came in. Utterly unqualified, deliberately offensive, a showman playing to crowds of extremist followers. A man the majority of voters turned their backs on.

And yet he won.

I last posted a blog ten days after the election. I haven’t been much more active on Facebook. I, with the majority of my countrymen, have been struggling to wrap my head around this state of affairs and find some firm ground to stand on.

That doesn’t mean I put my life on hold. I finished a very tricky rewrite, I’ve started a term as president of the NorCal chapter of Mystery Writers of America, I did Thanksgiving and Christmas and spent time with family.

But 2016 was a tough year. Lockdown took a lot of work. Family problems sucked up a ton of energy. My oldest friend in the world committed suicide by choosing her Christian Science faith over treatment for leukemia—and told not one person outside of her church until it was too late. Then to top it off, watching this appalling figure get chosen by my fellow Americans as the person they want to guard their lives, their children, their planet…

Since November, whenever I’ve posted anything vaguely political on my author Facebook page, I’ve tended to get pushback—always polite, mind you, just critical, along the lines of: You have no business talking politics here. Which I can understand, since it’s my professional page, not my personal one.

However, I’m not sure how to keep those two parts of me separate any more. And my recent trip to New York, for the MWA board meeting and meet-ups with publishers, made it all the more obvious that a large slice of the population can’t figure that out either.

So here’s my decision: I turn 65 this year. I don’t know how much time I have left here, and honestly, if I’m not grown-up enough to figure out how to act in public, I’m never going to be. So I’ve decided that I’m not going to separate the parts of my life. I will be polite about it because that’s who I am, and good manners are the only thing that keeps us from each other’s throats, but my identity goes in this order:

1) Human being

2) Woman

3) American (genus: Californian)

4) Writer

And although I’ve always assumed that it’s category #4 that most interests the majority of people reading this blog—and will continue to make that assumption—you’re going to get the other three categories here as well.

Let me say it clearly, on this day of all others: There have been presidents who have infuriated me, and presidents whose acts I have loathed, but I would not have imagined that I could ever regard an Occupant of my White House as an abomination. This one is: a joke whose punch line comes with a fist attached.

And to you supporters of this new White House Occupant who also enjoy my books (or have in the past, at any rate): I hope you stick around and stay part of our conversation. As I’ve said from the start, I pray your optimism is justified, and would be overjoyed to be proved wrong—but I don’t think that’s going to happen. When I see a whole lot of highly intelligent and respected experts becoming alarmed, I can’t help feeling that panic may be justified.

So while I hope you’re right, I won’t keep my head in the sand. I’m not at all sure where these next four years are going to take us—either us the nation or us the community of readers—but one thing I do know: I need to pick my ground and stand on it.

I don’t intend to post my outrage—that way lies madness—but I will talk about the ground I stand on. The people I support, the organizations I’m giving money to, the people who need our care.

Because, in that list of Laurie King categories? Each and every one is permeated by a larger sense of responsibility. Call it Christianity if you like, or ethics, or just an awareness of commonality, but if I am a human, I am one of billions. If I am a woman, then half the people on the planet are my sisters, mothers, daughters. If I am an American, am I not required to see that my country’s power is used responsibly? And if I am a writer, it’s my job to make my words public.

I will be polite—well, I’ll try—but I will not be quiet.

The King’s Stilts

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As a child, one of my favorite books was The King’s Stilts.

unknown-1

Unlike Sam I Am or The Cat in the Hat, this may be a Seuss book you haven’t met  (Indeed, Wikipedia says its initial sales were “a disappointment.”  Perhaps in 1939, people did not welcome pointed lessons about the evil nibbling at their roots.) so I’ll give you a brief description. Being as perceptive a reader as I suspect you are, you may see why I’m talking about the story today.

When King Birtram worked, he really worked. But when the king played, he really played. And what King Birtram loved best was to fly over the ground on his stilts, urging his vigilant Cat Patrol to chase away the wicked nizzards that threatened to eat the trees whose roots grew around the kingdom, protecting it from the sea.

kings-stilts-nizzards

But stilts lack regal dignity. And the chief minister, Lord Droon, disapproved of them. So he arranged for the stilts to disappear.

The king could no longer play so hard. And so, he no longer worked as hard. Nor did his Patrol Cats. The nizzards ate, the trees gave way, and water began to leak across the land…

You can probably see the ending: the king’s page brings back the stilts, the king’s humor is restored, the Cat Patrol resumes its duties, the kingdom is saved. (And Lord Droon? He’s imprisoned, and condemned to eat roast nizzard every day.)

Stilts are all about balance.

Work: play.

Responsibility: fun.

Many of us have spent the last week in mourning, sitting and staring into a bleak future of 48 months under the next White House Occupant (which come to think of it, may be the best way to address the person.) My last post here talked about the need to step in and become the missing checks-and-balances during those 48 months (or at least, the 24 months until the mid-term electees are sworn in) and right now yes, I agree that the task is a dreary one, too enormous to even begin to wrap my head around. Damn it, climate change is real, as in a real and present danger! Women are people before we’re body parts!  And I happen to like having Hispanic neighbors!  Good God, there’s so much work it’s hopeless–where do I even begin?

But we have to remember that autocrats hate freedom. Tryants are afraid of honest laughter. The holy fool speaks painful truths and grins in the face of the king. (And occasionally gets beaten up for his temerity, but we’ll leave that for the moment…)

The coming months will be filled with the need for serious action and committed response. But don’t forget to breathe deep. And when your lungs are full, use your breath to laugh aloud.

Really play, so we can really work.

Time to get out the stilts.

king-page