The Non-Sleeping
City
I opted to stay close
to home for a political event, so I was not in Manhattan on 7/13/19 when the
power went out for a few hours. But I was no longer unsure what to focus on for
this year's Fifty Author's blog from New York. The latest power failure--and
the simultaneously disturbing and hysterical images of battle hardened New
Yorkers dealing with the aftermath allows me to offer a historical montage of
what happens when "The City That Never Sleeps" is plunged into
darkness.
I was a college
student in 1977. NYC was in bankruptcy, and decaying before our eyes. Half of
the campus of Lehman College was boarded up. Construction on the new buildings
was halted for three years when the State Dormitory Authority went into
default.
The Bronx was burning
down, so that landlords could collect insurance money and get out. Son of Sam
was murdering young couples sitting in parked cars, in my neighborhood. I knew
Donna Lauria, one of his victims. The filthy, graffiti adorned subways were so
dangerous you were always relieved to see Curtis and Lisa Sliwa--or pair of
their Guardian Angels standing side by side near the subway car door as the
train rattled through the long dark tunnels.
I had a summer class on the sticky, sweltering evening of
July 13, 2017 and was anxious to get home to go for a swim. I'd just left the
campus when the power went out, glass started breaking, the looters took to the
streets, and I barely got to my car in time. With no traffic lights, my gas
tank on empty, I battled my way home prepared to run over anyone who swung at
my windshield with a baseball bat.
The legendary Sister Mary Assumpta and certain other
Sisters of the Divine Compassion maintained order in a classroom of 52 students
with iron fists, yardsticks and rosary beads as lassos. They'd taught us more
than we gave them credit for: Never flinch or you’re done for.
For some vintage
images from the citywide blackout of 1977--and haircuts--check out this clip
from The New York Times: https://nyti.ms/2XOARKr
In the summer of
2003, the power went out in NYC and multiple others cities in a chain reaction
failure of the power grid. Midday, in the blazing heat (hint: climate change
and energy inefficiency is straining the power grid past capacity). Luckily, I
was upstate, which also lost power, but it was a lot cooler.
In the summer of 2011, there was an earthquake that had New
Yorkers fleeing swaying skyscrapers into the streets and Hurricane Irene with long-term power outages in the same
week. I was using dry ice to keep my
milk cool and writing by flashlight for at least a week. Odd coincidence.
Then, in 2012, Hurricane Sandy roared through the Tri State
Area (during which they actually tried to evacuate Coney Island but that's
another topic). Many people were out of power for over a month. My husband had
to siphon gas out of our lawnmower so he could go get on line to fill the tank.
I had to change dressings on a wound my son had sustained in an unrelated
incident with a flashlight held under my right armpit.
On July 13, 2019,
forty-two years to the day of the Big Blackout of 1977, J-Lo's concert was cut
short. The lights of Broadway and Times Square East went dark, but Times Square
West stayed lit. Major subways lines stopped dead, and people had to be
evacuated from trains stuck in the tunnels, in oppressive 80 plus degree
temperatures, which is the most scary (and disgusting) part, with all those
aromas, rats, bugs...
And most New Yorkers
took it in stride, because it was only half of the West Side this time. And
some actors continued Broadway shows on the street. The inhabitants of in NYC,
and the entire Tri State area may have PTSD after the horrific events of
September 11, 2001, but we're battle hardened. There's always someone that will
try and take advantage of a bad situation, but most New Yorkers in 2019 are in
a much more united we stand, divided we fall mood than we were in 1977--and
candlelight vigils were already planned to show solidarity with immigrants, so
many of us had illumination right at hand when the need arose. 
Carole Ann Moleti
lives and works as a nurse-midwife in New York City, thus explaining her
fascination with all things paranormal, urban fantasy, and space opera. Her
nonfiction focuses on health care, politics, and women's issues. But her first
love is writing science fiction and fantasy because walking through walls is
less painful than running into them.
Excerpts
of Carole's memoir, Someday I'm Going to Write a Book: Diary of an
Urban Missionary range from the sweet and inspirational in A
Quilt of Holidays to the edgy and irreverent
in Not
Your Mother's Book: On Being a Woman.
Carole's work has
appeared in a variety of literary and speculative fiction venues. Short stories
set in the world of her novels are featured in several of the Ten Tales anthologies. The Unfinished Business Series, a
three volume paranormal romance, was published by Soulmate.
Links:
From Author, Eleanor Kuhns:
Paul
Bunyan, lumberjacks, and Simply Dead
Paul
Bunyan and his blue ox Babe are part of the mythos of the frontier United
States. The stories about his exploits are part of a uniquely American body of
stories; the tall tale. Usually accompanied by Babe, an enormous blue ox, Paul
Bunyan roamed the country performing feats that showcased his size and
superhuman strength. He is credited with
forming landscapes like the 10,000 lakes of Minnesota (his footprints) and the
Grand Canyon. (by dragging his axe through the ground.)
Like
so many folktales, the stories about Paul Bunyan contain elements of the truth.
They portray an exaggerated and idealized version of the lives of lumberjacks –
as it was before 1945 when only hand tools were used. (Logger is the term for the men who do this
work in the 21st century.) A job done exclusively by men, lumbering was
seasonal and was frequently migratory as the lumberjacks traveled wherever the
trees were being harvested. American lumberjacks were first centered in
north-eastern states such as Maine, where Simply
Dead is set.
In an
era where wood was used for everything, especially those all -important masts
for the sailing ships, lumbering was an essential job and lumberjacks were much
in demand. It was physically demanding,
dangerous and low paid. Before various kinds of machinery took over some of the
jobs, all of them were done by men with axes, cross cut saws, ropes and other
simple equipment.
The
high climber (also known as a tree topper) used iron climbing hooks and rope to
climb a tall tree. He would chop off limbs as he climbed and then chop off the
top of the tree. Other specialized skills included chokers and chasers. The
choker setters attached steel cables (or chokers) to downed logs so they could
be dragged into the landing. The chasers removed the chokers once the logs were
at the landing. Despite the common perception that all loggers cut trees, the
actual felling of trees was also specialized job. Chokers and chasers were
entry level; the fellers were a higher level and a position the chokers and
chasers aspired to.
The
cut logs were ‘skidded’ down a road or, as was done in Maine, floated down a
river to a sawmill. Every spring, logs were floated down the rivers to
Falmouth. Log rolling, or controlling the logs by walking on them as they
floated, was considered a great skill and is still demonstrated in Maine as a
tourist attraction.
The
lumberjacks prided themselves on their physical strength and their ability to
do this hard and dangerous job. With few females present other than the wives
of cooks and foremen, this was a very masculine culture that glorified
competitiveness and aggression.
In Simply Dead, Rees first meets a
lumberjack when he travels into the mountains in search of the men who abducted
the midwife’s daughter. And a threatening and frightening individual this man
is too.
By
the 1960’s and 70’s, many of the jobs formerly done by the lumberjacks had been
taken over by specialized machinery. Taking down trees is still treacherous and
risky. Just ask the man hired to remove the dead trees from your yard.
All
that’s left of the culture personified by Paul Bunyan are the stories and the
statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe, most notably in Minnesota and Bangor, Maine.
Eleanor
Kuhns is the 2011 winner of the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First
Crime Novel. A lifelong librarian, she received her Masters from Columbia
University and is currently the Assistant Director of the Goshen Public Library
in Orange County New York.
Website
URL: www.eleanor-kuhns.com
Blog
URL: www.eleanor-kuhns.com/blog
Facebook
URL: www.facebook.com/Eleanor-Kuhns
Twitter:
#EleanorKuhns
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/eleanor-kuhns-36759623
From
Author, Frankie Y. Bailey:
If
Someone Made a Movie
I
think most writers hear this question sooner or later – from the moderator of your
panel, or a reader who stops to chat as she’s buying your book, or maybe it’s a
question you ask yourself. I think you’ve guessed from my title what that
question is: “Who would you want to play
[name of protagonist] in a movie?”
Let
me admit up front, I have spent more time than I should have on the Internet
trying to come up with a good answer to that question. After all, Lizzie Stuart
is my character. I should know who I would like to play her in a movie – or on a
television series. So, I’ve looked at photos of the talented African American
women who might portray Lizzie, my female sleuth. I keep looking and thinking,
and I still don’t have an answer.
Not
that I’m anticipating needing to know. First, Hollywood is not sending me or my
agent emails begging to option my series, and second, even if a director were
interested, I would probably have no say-so at all regarding casting. And,
then, there’s the third issue. Lizzie is a first-person narrator. She doesn’t
spend a lot of time looking at herself. She only comments about herself in the
context of haircuts or pet hairs on a skirt. I know that other characters find
her attractive. But I – perhaps intentionally -- have never tried to imagine
her face feature-by-feature.
You’ll
notice that there is an illustrator that we assume to be Lizzie on the cover of
both Death’s Favorite Child and A Dead Man’s Honor. These are new covers,
created for the books as they were being reissued. I really love the look of
these covers and the connection they establish among books in the series. But I
also really liked the covers on the first editions published by Overmountain
Press on which she did not appear. And I thought it was really cool when “In
Her Fashion,” my first short story in Ellery
Queen Mystery Magazine (July 2014) included both an illustration of Lizzie
and of another character in the story. (If you’d like to listen to that story,
it’s at https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/eqmm/episodes/2014-06-27T06_59_34-07_00).
I’m
fine with all of this because I’m interested in how other people imagine Lizzie.
I may never find a photograph or see someone on the street or movie screen and
think, “That’s her! That’s Lizzie!” It’s more important that I, as author, know
who she is and how she thinks and feels.
I
have a much better idea how John Quinn (the Philadelphia homicide detective
that Lizzie meets in Death’s Favorite
Child) looks. Lizzie describes him to the reader. I would be able to pick
him out in a crowd. And, no, I don’t know who should play him in the movie. But
I do know the feel of the chemistry between Quinn and Lizzie that would be
crucial to make their relationship work on the screen. I have spent some time
looking at white male actors because Lizzie and Quinn are an interracial
couple. But they aren’t a “cute couple” (in the cozy sense). In fact, if I ever
“saw” them in a café, they’d probably be having a rather intense conversation
about suspects.
Her mystery novels
feature Southern-born crime historian, Lizzie Stuart, in five books, beginning
with Death’s Favorite Child and A Dead Man’s Honor. The books are being
reissued by Speaking Volumes. Frankie’s two near-future police procedurals
feature Albany police detective, Hannah McCabe in The Red Queen Dies and What
the Fly Saw (Minotaur Books). Frankie has also has written several short
stories, including “In Her Fashion” (EQMM,
July 2014), “The Singapore Sling Affair” (EQMM,
Nov/Dec 2017), and “The Birth of the Bronze Buckaroo” (The Adventures of the Bronze Buckaroo, 2018). She is currently
working on a nonfiction book about dress and appearance in American crime and
justice, a historical thriller set in 1939, and the plots of the next Stuart
and McCabe books.
Frankie is a past
executive vice president of Mystery Writers of America and a past president of
Sisters in Crime.
Twitter: @FrankieYBailey
Amazon: A Dead Man’s Honor
Amazon:
Death’s Favorite Child
(all info provided and released by participating authors)
Thanks for having me!
ReplyDeleteThanks to all of you who shared. It was great seeing Frankie and Eleanor here, as I've met both of you. Carole, I hope to meet you at some point.
ReplyDelete