Thursday, December 19, 2019

Life Then and Now by Peg Cochran



LUCY BURDETTE: Today I'm delighted to welcome a good friend from the Mystery Lovers Kitchen blog, Peg Cochran. Besides being a wonderful cook, she writes multiple series, including a historical mystery series taking place in the 1930s. I'll let her tell you about the new book--welcome Peg!

PEG COCHRAN: I want to thank Lucy and the Jungle Reds for having me.  I’ve long admired the blog so this is a great honor!

My historical series, Murder, She Reported, is set in the late 1930s in New York City.  Both my parents grew up in New York City and became teenagers during those years.  I’ve been fascinated with the 1930s and 1940s since I heard their stories of eating at the Automat or Chock Full O’Nuts, listening to Tommy Dorsey and Glen Miller and dancing the jitterbug.   I’ve also always been a huge fan of old movies and at one time I was positive that I’d grow up to live in a Manhattan high-rise with a view of the city and a martini glass in my hand! (I did eventually live in Manhattan with a view of Queens but sans the martinis—I hated the taste.)  One of the things I love about the time period is how different it is from today…and yet how similar in many ways.  

Much of the action in Murder, She Encountered, the third book in the series, takes place at the 1939 New York World’s Fair—billed as the “World of Tomorrow.”   

Carrier debuted air conditioning at the fair and became a very popular attraction during the sweltering summer heat.  Dupont previewed nylon stockings that were less expensive and more durable than silk hosiery and the Westinghouse exhibit included Elektro—a seven-foot tall robot with a 700 word vocabulary.  We now take air conditioning, nylon pantyhose and robots—used for everything from manufacturing to surgery—for granted.

A lot of what I learned during my research helped to shape my characters and create an exciting story.  Take one upper-class woman who graduated from Wellesley College and who wants to do something with her life and put her in a time period when she is expected to live at home until she lands a suitable husband and moves into her own home to raise a family, host dinner parties and lunch with her girlfriends—and watch the explosions occur and the sparks fly!   

From the beginning, Elizabeth “Biz” Adams has other plans.  She’d studied photography and much to her mother’s dismay, lands a job at the Daily Trumpet, a tabloid newspaper where she starts as a gal Friday and eventually becomes a crime photographer and a woman working in a man’s world.

Women like Biz fought the good fight for the rest of us who now have opportunities unheard of in her time although we are still battling certain issues like equal pay or the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment or validation of the #MeToo movement.

In Biz’s day there were distinct divisions between the classes—upper class women marry within their social class—an appropriate young man in banking, law or medicine who knows how to play tennis and bridge and knows who and how much to tip at restaurants like the Stork Club.  

Biz again bucks expectations by falling for Sal Marino, a NYC detective who she met while photographing a murder.  Not only is he not from her social class, he’s Italian, his parents are immigrants and they live on the lower Eastside instead of the upper Eastside of Manhattan—all strikes against him in the eyes of Biz’s parents and friends.

America tended toward isolationism at the time—a committee called America First was formed toward the end of the 1930s.  In May of 1939, more than 900 Jews fled Hitler’s Europe aboard the S. S. St. Louis seeking asylum in the United States but were not permitted entry into the country.  Biz is appalled that these poor souls were turned away while the prevailing view was that the United States ought to curtail immigration.  Today we are still striving to regulate immigration and provide a fair and equitable process for those seeking sanctuary within our borders.

All of this, as you can imagine, created a lot of (delicious) conflict between Biz and her parents and friends.  But like Katherine Hepburn, a leading lady of the time who insisted on wearing trousers when most women didn’t, Biz is determined to live life on her own terms and not be bound by the restrictions of the era. 

In Murder, She Encountered, her romance with Marino is heating up and she is saving money for her own apartment—all bound to send her friends and family into a tizzy!

Red readers: If you had lived in the 1930s, would you have conformed to expectations or would you have rebelled like Biz?

Mystery writing lets Peg indulge her curiosity under the guise of “work” (aka research). As a kid, she read the entire set of children’s encyclopedias her parents gave her and has been known to read the dictionary. She put pen to paper at age seven when she wrote plays and forced her cousins to perform them at Christmas dinner. She switched to mysteries when she discovered the perfect hiding place for a body down the street from her house.

When she’s not writing, she spends her time reading, cooking, spoiling her granddaughter and checking her books’ stats on Amazon. A former Jersey girl, Peg now resides in Michigan with her husband. She is the author of the Murder, She Reported series, the Cranberry Cove series, the Farmer’s Daughter series, the Gourmet De-Lite series, the Lucille series and the Sweet Nothing Lingerie series (written as Meg London.) Find her on Facebook and her website.

**And the winners of Tuesday's books are Daisy Dilly (Vicki) for Sherry Harris's SELL LOW, SWEET HARRIET, and MARILYN (ewatvess) for Barbara Ross's SEALED OFF. 

36 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your new book, Peg. Biz sound like someone I’d enjoy meeting; I’m looking forward to reading her story.

    I’m not particularly good at rebelling, so if I had lived in the 1930s, I’d probably have conformed to the expectations of the day. But I’m glad to know that there are many who are much braver than I . . . and that’s a really good thing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I do not like to make waves. I go along to get along. So I would definitely go along with expectations.

    Congrats on the new book!

    ReplyDelete
  3. My older more comfortable self would wish for rebelling against expectations. My younger self would have conformed reluctantly.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow, Peg, you sound like one busy writer! Congratulations on the new book. I have never seen myself as a pioneer, fighting the system for the right to do something groundbreaking. I am, however, absolutely okay with being dismissed as a weirdo because I don't do the conventional thing if it seems silly to me. I would probably have been the bluestocking spinster aunt in my family, with too much education, no interest in bankers or lawyers, and profound annoyance with anyone who tried to cram me into a social role I was unsuited for. I can only hope I would have found a way to make a living on the artsy fringe and marry someone interesting. Or, y'know, move away to Europe or New Mexico or somewhere remote so my poor, embarrassed family didn't have to explain me to the neighbors.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maybe you could have hung out with Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo or Louise Bourgeois or Hemingway and Fitzgerald!

      Delete
    2. A friend loves Frida Kahlo's art.

      Delete
    3. That sounds ever so much more fun than marrying a banker and hosting teas.

      Delete
    4. Gigi, definitely more fun! LOL . Diana

      Delete
  5. I love the premise, Peg! I have always been a bit of a rebel, so sign me up for a desk next to Biz's. I'm sorry I haven't gotten to this series yet - they're going on the TBR pile.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Peg, congrats on the new book!


    As for the question raised: If we assume that I'm the same person back then that I am now, I would've been rebellious. Stubborn, obstinate and cranky too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would definitely be rebellious if I had been the person I am now when I was younger. Courage comes with age!

      Delete
  7. Peg, this sounds like a great read! And a thought-provoking question. I like to think I'd be a rebel. I know I'm certainly stubborn and tend to ignore people who tell me how I "should" behave.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Congratulations on your new release! I would have been a secret rebel, living a double life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That would have been me, too! I would probably have rebelled internally while conforming (most of the time) externally.

      Delete
    2. Thinking of all the women in Mary McCarthy's The Group, set in mid-thirties NYC.

      Delete
    3. That was such an incredible book! Groundbreaking for me.

      Delete
    4. We all passed it around in junior high to read the sex scenes LOL

      Delete
  9. Ooh, Biz sounds like fun, I shall add this series to my TBR, thanks.

    I've been a tiny bit of a rebel most of my life, and have admired that trait in other far more adventurous women than myself. Conformity is boring!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Love that time/place - great for setting a crime novel.

    My mother came of age in the '30s. In NYC. Married at 20. She was a rule breaker -- smoked, drank her whiskey straight on the rocks, did not set foot in the kitchen and proud to tell you so. But she'd never have been a playwright and screenwriter without my dad as her partner. Happily that has changed... and especially so in the last decade. Women can succeed without having to break "rules."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your mother sounds like she was wonderful! One of the pioneers who broke ground for the rest of us.

      Delete
    2. Hallie, you grew up in a fascinating family. And, as expected, you turned out to be a fascinating person.

      Delete
  11. In the 1930s as in the 1960s , I would have been too eager to please to be a rebel when I was younger
    Fortunately, I changed with years and decided to live as I liked and not for others.
    I already like Biz and want to know more about her and will begin with the first in the series

    ReplyDelete
  12. Welcome to Jungle Reds, Peg! I love historical fiction, including historical mysteries. Thought of Abigail Adams, wife of President Adams, when the Constitution was being drafted. She mentioned something about remembering the ladies. Was it a coincidence that you picked the name Elizabeth Adams for your character? I could imagine what would happen if Elizabeth Adams met Abigail Adams and what they would talk about.

    I am not sure if I would have liked to live in the 1930s. It was the Great Depression and the silent movies were replaced by the talkies. I think that if I lived in the 1930s, I would travel around the country documenting people who lost everything because of the Great Depression. Or I would work for Workers Progress Administration (WPA). They did a lot of interesting work. In present time, I was able to learn the names of my great grandparents, when they married and when they started a family because the WPA collected Vital Records of my ancestors in Indianapolis, Indiana.

    Diana

    ReplyDelete
  13. Oh, this sounds absolutely great! I love that era, and, I must say, martinis too.
    I have sometimes wondered what I would have done… Conform or not. My current history shows I probably would not have, but…you never know. It depends on so much, right?

    ReplyDelete
  14. My mother and her sisters came of age in the thirties, and my grandmother was never one to follow the rule/custom. So I hope I would have been the same. However, growing up in the 40s and 50s, I tended to follow the herd who were following the rules. So, so much for rebelling. I waited until the 70s.
    Congratulations on your new book Peg, and welcome to Jungle Red

    ReplyDelete
  15. On an aside, Jungle Red Opaque Nail Polish by NARS is selling on Amazon for $60 plus tax and shipping. Only one left. Julie is reading one of the Peculiar Crimes books and found it referenced. She was so excited that she woke me up to tell me. Heh.

    If they had more than one left, and if I had unlimited means, and if I didn't think it had been sitting on a shelf congealing for 80 years, I'd buy each of you one for Christmas.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I would have been a rebel! However being rich would have made it a lot more fun. Being poor make being a rebel more difficult.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Peg - Biz will live in her OWN apartment? Without a chaperone? What a scandal! My husband's maternal grandmother was a bit like Biz; a Wellesley grad who bucked her genteel family's expectations by having an career and "marrying down."

    Interestingly, I just heard a story about social mobility in the US today, and the reporter was saying people are more likely to marry someone with the same family background/religion/politics/education than at any other time in our history.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's interesting. I could see that being true at other times but I thought we had embraced diversity more than that. Apparently not!

      Delete
  18. Peg - this sounds like a fabulous mystery! I love the historic setting and that Biz is a rebel. Well done!

    ReplyDelete
  19. This sounds like so much fun. Good luck with it. I put it right on my list. One of my books, Brooklyn Secrets, is partly set in NY in the 30's but looking back from now. And definitely way, WAY across the tracks from yours. Myself, I'm not a very rebellious personality but I did grow up in eh 50s, another period when becoming a wife and mother was many, many girls only ambition. Mine was to be a Doris Day-like "career gal" and live in -yes! - a NY apartment!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Peg, Biz sounds like a terrific character! I can't wait to meet her. I like to think I would have been a rebel, even as much of a pleaser as I am. When I was in college one of my boyfriends was from a small town in Alabama where his father and grandfather were the town bankers. I made ONE visit with him. I was informed by the women in his family that if I married him he would be expected to move back, and I would be expected to be a stay at home wife and mother, join the junior league, and do good works. I was so horrified that I broke it off as soon as we got back to Texas!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad you escaped that fate! Reminds me of my grandmother who emigrated to this country from Italy. She became engaged in her early twenties but when the fellow said they would be moving back to Italy to care for his aging mother, she handed him the ring back and said "good-bye and good luck."

      Delete
  21. Peg, it sounds like Biz is unique character that will have readers rooting for her every step of the way. This post has me thinking about my mother, whom I never considered a rebel, but who was born in 1910 and against most odds went to college at either 16 or 17 to prepare to be a teacher. Looking back at that now, I realize that doing so was against all expectations, as her father had died when she was a child and her mother raised her alone. My mother had a teaching career for quite some years before she married my father and had children. She was at the shocking spinster age of 30 before she got married. She did give up teaching at some point when my two older sisters were young, but she was always a strong advocate for education and her children all obtaining a college degree. I wish I could talk to her today and give her the credit she was due for being a rebel without trying.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I'm more of a closet rebel but I can be pretty stubborn when I feel strongely about something. My mother attended that World Fair. I already read the first two books of your series and enjoyed them.

    ReplyDelete