Thursday, May 29, 2014

Mystery Fiction Embraces Genre-Bending

I've noticed, and a recent Library Journal article confirms, that the genre boundaries of mystery fiction are expanding and blurring. Mystery authors seem increasingly prone to borrow from other genres, ranging from romance, paranormal/fantasy, horror and thriller to Westerns. The resulting crossover novels may have the traditional mystery puzzle solving, but they've got a genre-bending persona. For example, how do reviewers categorize the hit Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn? The page-turning psychological mystery about a husband suspected in the disappearance of his wife seems to have jumped right over genre into "literary fiction" status. The current paranormal craze is especially infectious, with paranormal mysteries, like paranormal romances, proliferating. So no surprise that Southerner Maggie Toussaint (author of Cleopatra Jones and Mossy Bog mysteries) is going paranormal with her new book Gone and Done It about a landscaper/pet-sitter who uses dream-walking to help police. The crime-solving Western, following the trail of the late Tony Hillerman, seems to be another mystery crossover category; an example is the Western noir Bad Country by C.B. McKenzie (featuring a Native American rodeo-cowboy-turned-PI). Meanwhile, the success of the The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series has paved the way for imports with a foreign accent, and not just from Scandanavia. I'm looking forward to the summer arrival of Bernard Minier’s Frozen Dead, set in the French Pyrénées and winner of several French literary prizes. Of course, American authors are also pumping out standard mystery fare and doing it well: Police procedurals, spunky women sleuths, historicals and small-town "cozies" abound. But based on sales trends, I'm thinking about penning an erotic paranormal mystery set in Iceland. For the Library Journal preview of 2014 mystery debuts, go to http://reviews.libraryjournal.com/2014/04/books/genre-fiction/mystery/pushing-boundaries-mystery-preview-2014/

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Book Clubs Often Give Short Stories Short Shrift

In an upcoming book club meeting, we are discussing the short-story collection Runaway by Canadian Alice Munro, winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature as a "master of the contemporary short story." Despite the prestigious award, Munro wasn't an obvious choice. There is a hesitation in book groups to tackle a story collection; it's hard enough to structure a conversation about one plot and set of characters, much less multiple ones! That's a shame because some of our most iconic fiction is in short-story form. Consider the authors: Start with Chaucer and move on to O. Henry, Anton Chekhov, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, Franz Kafka, Henry James, Guy de Maupassant, James Joyce, Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, Thomas Mann, Kurt Vonnegut, J.D. Salinger and Jorge Luis Borges, to name only a few. What about sci-fi giants Bradbury, Asimov and Clarke, icons of the eerie Stephen King and Shirley Jackson, or mystery masters Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie? There are hundreds of great writers of short-story gems. Some recent collections include Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman, Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link, Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, and John Updike's My Father's Tears and Other Stories. As Publishers Weekly said of Munro's Runaway stories of love, betrayal and time's surprises: "One never knows quite where a Munro story will end, only that it will leave an incandescent trail of psychological insight." But how to tap those insights in a single discussion? Short-story writers liken the process to appreciating an art gallery or rock album collection, meaning pieces appeal individually yet the collection is more than just the sum of its parts. Unique style and story-telling combine with recurring themes or characters to heighten the overall impact on readers. For book clubs who want to add a story collection to their roster, here's a general plan of attack from one author, and for Runaway in particular, BookBrowse offers a discussion guide at http://www.bookbrowse.com/reading_guides/detail/index.cfm/book_number/1495/Runaway

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

When the Paintbrush Inspires the Pen

Along with readers across the nation, my book club is discussing The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel referencing the painting "The Goldfinch" by Carel Fabritius. The fictional tale has sparked new interest in the real painting, and I wonder what Fabritius would make of booming museum gift-store sales of tote bags featuring his trompe l'oeuil portrait of a little pet bird chained to its perch. Tartt's novel follows the "Dickensian" journey of the protagonist from his boyhood survival of a terrorist explosion in a museum, which killed his mother and left him in secret possession of a famous painting. Like many, I pondered why Tartt chose "The Goldfinch" as the fictionally purloined artwork out of all the other candidates. The painting's history certainly recommends it as a disaster survivor: It is one of the few surviving works of Fabritius, who was killed at just 32 in a massive gunpowder magazine explosion in 1654 Delft. Fabritius, a master of the 17th century Delft school along with Vermeer and de Hooch, has been praised for painterly illusion and originality, breaking from Rembrandt and Dutch conventions to favor light backgrounds, a cooler palette, delicate light effects and spatial illusion. The chained bird may or may not have symbolic significance: A goldfinch was not only a popular Dutch pet of the time but also a symbol in art for death, resurrection and the passion of Christ. For a good discussion of the work, see the Wall Street Journal article by art historian Mary Lewis. So I can think of many themes from the painting that make it an inspired choice: the trompe l'oeuil of fate and freedom; the soul tethered by a traumatic past, by guilt, by responsibility, by obsession; the fragility and transcendence of art; death and immortality. The intersection of visual and literary arts can create unique epiphanies, both universal and personal. So, of course, this is not the first work of art to inspire a fictional work. Remember the popularity, if not the prize quality, of Brown's The Da Vinci Code and Chevalier's Girl With a Pearl Earring? For some other examples, see http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/jan/17/fine-art-fiction-donna-tartt-goldfinch

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Why You Gotta Have Friends (Beyond Facebook)

As of this post, I am actually on a cruise ship sipping wine with three girlfriends -- far from husbands, children, bosses and any other potential stress inducers. A regular getaway with friends is one of those things, like my gym membership, that I consider essential to my health. My friends are more than a collection of Facebook photos; they are the people to call in an emergency, trust with my secrets and share my joys. They improve my mental and physical well-being. Psychologically, my friends buck me up when I'm down, hold my hand when I'm afraid and keep me tethered to earth when I'm full of hot air. They also help me live longer and more healthily. Scientific studies show that friendship's health benefits include a better immune system (people with more social connections get fewer colds), less stress, improved brain power (including reduced risk of aging dementia); lower blood pressure and better sleep. In my opinion, all those social network "likes" and "friends" and shared photos of cute cats are distracting from a dangerous problem in American life: the decline of friendship. Studies show that Americans have fewer close friends today than they did 25 years ago (an average of two friends now), and that the decline in social connections has resulted in a drop in general happiness despite climbing material success. Is that increasing isolation being offset by the rise of social networking? I doubt it. In fact, social networking can actually make you feel more lonely and less happy. Recent studies have shown that the "friendship paradox" is at play on social networks: On average you really do have fewer friends than your social media friends. To make matters worse, you really are less wealthy and less happy as well as less popular on average than your social media friends. No wonder that research finds active social network users have higher levels of unhappiness! For more, read  http://www.technologyreview.com/view/523566/how-the-friendship-paradox-makes-your-friends-better-than-you-are/

Thursday, May 1, 2014

His Sense of Humor Makes Him Sexy. Really?

Humor is an aphrodisiac -- or at least women (and men) consistently tell surveys that "a sense of humor" is a top attraction in a romantic partner, even more important than looks, brains or wealth. So in crafting my next novel's sexy hero, I should forget face and fortune and focus on funny? Really? I just don't buy it, even though I've heard countless girlfriends declare the importance of a "sense of humor" in choosing "the one." Let's get something clear: Men and women mean something very different when they say they value a sense of humor in a potential mate. Women mean they want men who can amuse, while men mean they want women who think they are amusing. Women want a humor generator, and men want a humor appreciator, as one psychologist explained. Natural selection has put humor at the top of the sexual scale for women as an indicator of male "cognitive fitness," opines another scientist, so men naturally use humor to compete for female attention. OK, so laughter and desire are linked. But which comes first? Is a gal enticed because he makes her giggle, or does she giggle because she's already interested in him? It's the latter, asserts comedian Gilbert Gottfried's Playboy magazine article entitled "Women Say They Want a Guy With a Sense of Humor. They Don't." Concludes Gottfried: "If a woman is laughing at everything you say, she already plans to f-- you. That's all there is to it. Your jokes don't have to be any good, because she's not really listening. If she's planning to f-- you, she'll laugh. And if she's not, she won't. End of story." Humor is probably more important in sustaining rather than sparking romance anyway. Marriage researchers have found that when humor plays a role in diffusing tension and conflict, marriages tend to last longer, and that people who joke with their spouses tend to be happier in their marriages. For a more scientific and less profane discussion than Gottfried's, read the Psychology Today article at http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200508/humors-sexual-side