Lessons from My Grandmother (whoa.)

WINNERS: Of Hank book of choice: Cate Noble. Of Sandra Parshall's book: Flora Church. Of LynDee Walker's: Kathy Reel. Of Jim Jackson's: Hallie Ephron. (Jim is choosing another winner, too..!) Please contact Hank with your snail mail address!

My mom, because I can;t find a photo of Gramma

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: My Gramma, Minnie, taught me to type. And knit and crochet, and make little pancakes, and put together a persuasive argument. (She did not know she was teaching me that particular thing.) She was gorgeous, sleek and white haired, and could make this fabulous coffee/chocolate cake. She left me the recipe, in her handwriting on an index card, which  begins something like this:

Ingredients

Flour

Butter

Coffee

Chocolate

Needless to say, we could never replicate that cake. And I know she would be happy to hear that.

The fabulously talented Hilary Davison had a cool grandmother, too. 

Lessons From My Grandmother

By Hilary Davidson

Hilary's Nannie

If you know me at all, you know that my grandmother had a tremendous influence on me. Her name was Maude — though I called her Nannie — and I’m proud to say she was quite the dame. With her red lipstick and perfectly waved black hair, her sharp suits and high heels, she could’ve been cast in one of the classic Hollywood noir films she loved so much.

I dedicated my latest book, Blood Always Tells, to her. It reads, “In loving memory of my grandmother, Maude Elizabeth Dallas, for teaching me that if you’re going to sin, sin big.” It’s a joke that she would’ve appreciated. She loved saying, “If you’re going to sin, sin big,” which was one of the reasons she seemed so unlike other people’s grandmothers to me (there was also her love of pro wrestling). The stereotypical grandmother is supposed to be sweet. Mine was hot-tempered, affectionate, loyal, and uproariously funny. Sweet, not so much.

Nannie had a saying for every occasion. Her words regularly pop into my mind, along with her voice, which never lost its crisp Northern Irish accent. They were never intended as advice about writing, but I’ve adopted some of them along the way for that very purpose. Maybe it’s no surprise that a dame who adored the films of Barbara Stanwyck and Tyrone Power could dole out advice on writing with more than a hint of noir. But these are some of the things I’ve learned from her.

As you live your life, so you dread your neighbor

Hilary's Nannie and family

I remember being puzzled by this saying for a long time, until one day, I caught myself doing something that had annoyed me when another person had done it. “But this is an exception!” my brain insisted. “This is different.” But I knew that it wasn’t, and that my brain was using fuzzy logic and making a pretzel of itself to insist on the difference. It’s one of the reasons I find people so fascinating. We carry these contradictions around inside, and they ring true if we don’t examine them too closely.

It’s something I keep in mind when creating characters, because they contain that duality. In Blood Always Tells, there’s a character named Desmond who is frustrated by his sister’s secretiveness; naturally, Desmond is carrying around his own secrets, too. When he does it, he’s protecting his sister, but her? She’s just secretive… (This is why I’m never surprised when a government official famous for making pronouncements about family values turned out to have a lover or ten on the side.)

The best in the world can be done without

When Nannie said this, she was usually cutting self-important people down to size. She didn’t have much regard for people who considered themselves indispensible, because the world, sooner or later, would dispense with them. It was also tinged with a bit of memento mori, though. There’s a warning embedded in it to never think you’re indispensible yourself.

Unlike, say, George R.R. Martin, I’m one of those writers who finds it hard to kill a character. It’s not that I’m opposed to the idea, in theory. Many of my plots are built around a murder, so I know I’ll be killing someone along the line, and I’m fine with that. But theory is different from practice. After I’ve spent time writing a character and really getting under their skin, it’s painful to imagine killing them. My brain will contort itself, puzzling out how to keep that character alive. I’ve had sleepless nights over the issue. But I’m always guided, in the end, by my grandmother’s words. 

Nannie and Grandpa

What’s bred in the bone comes out in the flesh

Of all Nannie’s sayings, this is the one I struggle with the most. The idea behind it is that heredity is destiny, and that your genes may well be rooting against you. I agree with that to a point — and scientifically, I know there’s some truth in it — but I believe that it’s possible to overcome a genetic inheritance. Blood Always Tells is filled with this tension of nature versus nurture partly because this question fascinates me so. After all, if all a human being can be is the sum of their genes, how can you hold people responsible for what they do? I’m interested in exploring how people try to change their fates, and how they find the strength to go on when they know the deck is stacked against them. It’s something I think my grandmother herself managed to do when she crossed an ocean and came to Canada looking for a better life for her family.

If you’re going to sin, sin big

This is my all-time favorite. My grandmother wasn’t advocating sin as such, but she hated halfway measures. If you were going to do something, do it with your whole heart rather than timidly putting a toe forward to test the waters. This is advice that’s resonated with me, and it’s a big part of the reason I became a writer. Nannie believed that you had to put your heart and soul into whatever you did, because once you went off on your own path—in a big way or a small way—you were going to face the consequences for it. Not that she feared consequences. As she was also known to say, “Consequences be damned.”

HANK: Go Nannie!  So what have you all learned from your grandmothers?  And a copy of  BLOOD ALWAYS TELLS to one lucky commenter!  (Oh: the winner of Sandra Parshall's POISONED GROUND  is Flora! EMail me and send me your address!)

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Hilary Davidson’s life of crime started with Thuglit, which published her first three short stories. In 2011, she won Anthony Award for Best First Novel for THE DAMAGE DONE, the novel that launched the Lily Moore series, which also includes THE NEXT ONE TO FALL and EVIL IN ALL ITS DISGUISES. Hilary’s work has also won two Ellery Queen Readers Choice Awards, a Crimespree Award, and a Spinetingler Award, and she's been a Derringer Award finalist. Her fourth novel — and first standalone thriller — BLOOD ALWAYS TELLS, was published by Tor/Forge on April 15, 2014. According to reviewer Oline Cogdill, it's "a heartfelt, energetic story about greed, entitlement and the unbreakable bonds between siblings who never stop believing in each other."

BLOOD ALWAYS TELLS

Dominique Monaghan just wanted to get even with her two-timing, married boyfriend, a washed-up boxer stuck in a toxic marriage to a dangerously spoiled socialite. However, an elaborate blackmail scheme soon lands her in the middle of an unexpected kidnapping... and attempted murder. But who is actually out to kill whom?

Desmond Edgars, Dominique’s big brother, has looked out for his wayward sister ever since their mother was convicted of murdering many years ago, so when he receives a frantic phone call from Dominique in the middle of the night, he drops everything to rush to the rescue. But to find out what has really happened to his sister, the stoic ex-military man must navigate a tangled web of murder and deception, involving a family fortune, a couple of shifty lawyers, and a missing child, while wrestling with his own bloody secrets...

Hilary Davidson's Blood Always Tells is a twisted tale of love, crime, and family gone wrong, by the multiple award–winning author of The Damage Done and Evil in All Its Disguises.

Hilary Davidson

The Damage Done (Forge, 2010), The Next One to Fall (Forge, 2012) + Evil in All Its Disguises (Forge, 2013)

Coming soon: Blood Always Tells (Forge, April 15, 2014)

http://www.hilarydavidson.com