Thursday, October 21, 2021

Writing Hurricanes, Blackness and Hope: Where Ideas Come From (Mine, at Least…) @LaurelSPeterson


LUCY BURDETTE: Today I'm delighted to welcome Laurel Peterson to the blog. She doesn't only write novels, she writes poetry, and in fact spent three years as poet laureate of Norwalk CT. She's visiting today to chat about the inspiration for her new novel, The Fallen. I can't wait to hear the discussion...welcome Laurel!


LAUREL S. PETERSON: Thanks so much, Jungle Red Amazing Women for giving me a spot on your blog, and for doing so much for the mystery world. I’m so honored to be here. 

Really, this millennium hasn’t been that great so far. We started off with 9/11, pitched into war in Iraq and Afghanistan, endured floods and multiple “once in a lifetime” hurricanes, watched the rise of political extremism, and now are in a pandemic. That’s why I love mysteries; there is always justice at the end. (True confession: I spent the pandemic rereading all my Dick Francis. Love! Horses! Justice! What more could a girl want when the world is falling apart?) 


But back to the subject at hand. People ask where ideas come from, and sometimes it’s even possible to answer that question. The idea for my latest mystery, The Fallen, came from a number of places, but most centrally from the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, the anniversary of which we just “celebrated” with Hurricane Ida. We are now blessed with the technology to predict these monsters, which allows some crazy weatherperson to stand in the middle of it, soaked in his Channel 2 windbreaker saying, “Look at those waves,” thus giving us the horror and the thrill in real time. This is sort of like a mystery novel. 

Katrina was the first of its kind in the U.S., not only destroying our sense of safety, but also our superficial sense of ourselves as an egalitarian nation. People of color already knew that, but when a group of Blacks trudged over the bridge in Gretna, everyone saw the fear in their white neighbors’ faces. We heard how police officers left town rather than serve, making it that much harder for those left to do their jobs. What would it be like to be a black officer in that situation, I wondered. What would be the long-term effects of living through that trauma? What if there were unfinished business, even years later? 


From that came The Fallen, the story of a black police officer who moved to Connecticut to be chief in a small town. He is escaping his Katrina past, and the racism that damaged his career and his relationship with his family. Now, he is involved with Clara Montague, the protagonist of the first book in the series (Shadow Notes). She is a white woman. How can he explain what it was like to endure that storm? And how would he explain to his family that he’d fallen in love with a white girl? (Meanwhile, someone in his new town is shooting at him. So there’s that.)

Portraying a black man as a central character was a scary choice. The reaction to Lionel Shriver’s speech on cultural appropriation at the Melbourne Literary Festival made me wary of this territory. On the other hand, I wanted to see if I could imagine it fully enough to represent it honestly and truthfully—the trauma, the blackness, the policeman. I wanted to make my readers think while they were having a good time with the mystery.

Plus, mysteries are often about creating order, right? We are just beginning to emerge from that pandemic disorder, so being able to heal trauma in a piece of writing, if only a little, felt like a good kind of power. Mystery fiction permits us, at least temporarily, to believe that things will turn out all right. Maybe they will. You be the judge. 

What are the risks you are willing (or not) to take in writing or in life? How do you approach ideas or characters that scare you? 

Laurel S. Peterson lives and writes in Connecticut with her husband and dog. Find her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter or at www.laurelpeterson.com. 

39 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your newest book, Laurel . . . it’s so interesting to know how the story came about; now I’m anxious to find out how Kyle’s story plays out . . . .

    I’m not a big risk-taker, but I’d like to think that I’d always take a risk to do the right thing . . . .

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    1. I agree, Joan. I think we all hope we'd take that kind of risk. It's so hard to know until one is in it, which is what's fun about writing. I get to try out all those situations on the page. :) Thanks for stopping by!

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  2. So many questions! I am in a comfortable niche writing popular cozy mysteries, but I wanted to push myself as a writer. I took the risk over the last year to write two historical mysteries, books not under contract, and we're still working to sell them (well, one I'm still working on).

    Did you work with a Black man or a Black person to check your character's reactions and viewpoint? If so, how did that go? Of course you took a risk, but we're always writing about people not like us. This just takes it another step, or maybe a more visible one. I look forward to reading your book!

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    1. Hi Edith: Good luck with your historical mysteries. Even if you don't sell them (and of course you will!), the process of doing it teaches so much, right? That's how I feel at least. When I first sold the book (two publishers, one defunct, longer story), it was reviewed by a Native editor, who said that it worked. I was grateful for that, as I did not have someone I could ask to read it. I really struggled with that. How much would it be asking them to read for everyone who is black? What's appropriate and what's not?

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    2. That last is such a good question! I was part of a racial justice reading group last year and we read STAMPED (not an easy book!) One takeaway was that you can't reasonably ask a black person to speak for the entire race and explain all of it to clueless Caucasians. Sounds obvious, but it was a new thought for me.

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  3. Welcome to JRW, Laurel and congratulations on your new book. It is so interesting to know where the inspiration for this story came from and it is now on my TBR list.

    I am curious to know the answers to all of Edith's questions and also if you wrote this book in first person. To really get someone's voice would be much harder than to honestly telling their story. As a reader, I am willing to suspend reality, to wrap myself in a story and not fixate on the fact that the author isn't really from Dune. But, I am one of those readers who likes to begin a series with book 1, so I'll look for Shadow Notes first. (Let us know if you do any live events in Connecticut;-))

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    1. Hi Judy: Funny you should ask! I'll be here http://connecticutliteraryfestival.org/ this weekend, reading at 1:20 on Saturday and signing books at 10 AM.

      As for the question of person, I wrote two different POVs: Clara's is in first person, and Kyle's is in third, and I alternate throughout the book. Switching back and forth was a bit of a challenge, but it was fun to try on the different voices. Thanks for dropping by!

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  4. Laurel, congratulations on the Fallen and thanks for providing the details on what inspired you to write your story.

    I agree with Edith and Judy about the challenges of writing from the POV of a Black man. I don't know if it was a risk to do so and have his love interest be a white woman. As a reader, I am just interested in the story and how authentic the characters are with each other and in their community.

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    1. Thanks, Grace. I guess risk depends on the context, yes? I'm not quite sure what you are saying. Do you mean that having him be in love with a white woman lessens the risk? I agree that putting him into mostly white contexts makes it easier on me. I just finished reading a friend's draft of a memoir about her relationship with a black man (she is white) during the 1960s, and the incredible stress racism put on them. I found it interesting how much he hid from her, and what she noticed and didn't. Clara has grown up in this rarefied atmosphere and needs to grow and to notice. It's not his job to train her! But hopefully she is becoming sensitized. Thanks for your comments!

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    2. Hi Laurel. Maybe risk was not the right word. I meant it was a challenge for you to authentically write in the POV of a Black Man. I enjoyfish out of water stories so I would be interested to see how he adjusts to life in CT.

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    3. Well, yes, that too! LOl. Thanks for clarifying.

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  5. Congratulations, Laurel. I introduced a secondary Black character a couple of books ago, but she doesn't have a POV. I don't think I'm ready to take that leap yet.

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    1. I've had a Black friend of my protag all the way through in my Country Store series, and Robbie's senior citizen Aunt Adele dates his grandfather. And my other contemporary protag is multiracial and I do write in her POV.

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    2. Hi Liz: I think that whatever steps we take are good ones! And maybe I've leapt too far too fast. Time will tell. :) Thanks for your comments.

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    3. Edith, you are braver than I am. :)

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  6. Edith raises good questions - right now successfully writing from the viewpoint of someone very different from yourself can be like skirting the third rail. So hard to get it right and so many ways to screw up.

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    1. Yes! But my life is sort of like that! I've started taking photography classes during the pandemic to give myself something to do that's not words... and it brings back into focus the creative process. Just being able to try something different, something that isn't what I am comfortable with and know I can do, is so freeing. Maybe it will be a disaster. Maybe I will have gotten New Orleans all wrong, too! But there's such a joy in exploring something, right? In these difficult times, that exploration has become so important. I hope that you all have ways of getting to that as well.

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  7. This is a hard one--but how far do you take it? Should a man write a female character? Should a woman write a male character? What about age of characters? What about disability? Trauma? I'm with Hallie, so hard to get it right and so many ways to screw up or get called out for.

    I'm gong to look for book 1, Laurel. And this time, I'm not so far behind!

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    1. Thanks, Flora! And yes, to all of the above. why not? Men have been writing female characters for ... forever. Don't we betray ourselves and our imaginations if we constrain them?

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  8. I knew this would be an interesting discussion. I do understand the concern about cultural and racial and sexual appropriation. On the other hand, if writers only wrote from what they knew completely, wouldn't that be a boring bunch of books? We would not have Kent Krueger's Cork O'Connor series, or Michal Connelly's Renee Ballard books, or what about Julia's renditions of Russ Van Alstyne? I don't know the right answers, I'm wondering...

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    1. Lucy, this is how I feel. If I was only writing about a white, straight, middle-aged woman who lives in suburbia, well, I'm sure I could make it exciting, but I'd get bored pretty quickly I think.

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  9. And ps another question for Laurel: How does your experience writing poetry help or hinder with writing a novel?

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    1. Thanks, Roberta! The right answer may depend on the writer. Part of writing for me is exploring what I don't yet know: places, people, experiences. Even Clara's psychic gift is part of that. I want to know, so writing helps me find out.

      As for poetry, I tell my students that anything you write helps with everything else. It's a particular kind of attention to language that I hope I bring into my novels. I tend not to do them at the same time, though, as it's a different kind of work and thinking. Sometimes the poems come as a sort of stress release from the novel! And I find novels easier to work on as projects: sit down every day and write a little. Poems are harder for me to create that way, although there are poets out there who swear by it. Thanks for all your great questions.

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  10. SO fascinating, and of course this is the top of mind discussion in writer world today. I hear the question being asked "Whose story is this to tell"? And the statement: "It's not is/her/their story to tell." And I think this opens so many doors--because it's easy to say that, but it's the follow-up discussion that's revealing and illustrates it's not such an obvious answer.

    YAY Laurel! The potential and elusive pitfalls of...fiction, right? FICTION.

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    1. Hi Hank: Yes, and that's such an interesting question: "Whose story is this to tell?" But since what we are writing is fiction, as you point out, doesn't that mean the story doesn't belong to anyone but the person who made it up? Is that controversial? I'm not sure.

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  11. I think it's important to take risks of various kinds when writing, or else you're likely to fall into a rut where each new book is just like the last. We've all read series that have become like that, and it's disappointing and frustrating as a reader.

    As for the touchstone of "whose story is this to tell" that Hank mentions, above, I feel it has different meanings depending on what the author is borrowing. Adding a character of a different race/ethnicity as a white author doesn't feel much different from writing in a male POV as a female author. But writing a tale of a a primarily Black or Latinx experience - that story's not mine to tell. The recent in-the-news example of this was AMERICAN DIRT.

    Another element I'm trying to be more aware of is co-opting another racial/ethnic/sexual identity experience and turning it into a white lady story. I just read a devastating critique of the well-loved HANDMAIDS TALE, which pointed out how Margaret Atwood used the real-life historical experience of Black women in the US and then erased them entirely from Gilead, instead having white women act out that experience. That's not very far from those movies where the Civil Rights struggle is primarily a background for the white protagonist to Learn Lessons and Grow.

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    1. This is a great distinction, Julia. I'm interested in this critique of Handmaids Tale. Does Atwood say that she did this? (I've read the book ages ago, but not the analysis around it.) I'm curious what role intention plays here. And good intentions, road to hell, etc., yes. I talk about intentions all the time with my students. What are the intentions of the writer? And what was the time period? What were the expectations? Atwood has written a powerful story. Where does that leave us?

      And while Kyle is teaching Clara things in my novel, his purpose isn't that. Thanks for bringing that point up. He stands on his own, speaks in his own voice, learns his own lessons. Their stories are parallel and he is independent of her, not subordinate to her in the story hierarchy. At least that was my intention. :) Thanks for all these great thoughts and challenges!

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  12. Not only are you writing a black man's POV, but also taking on his Southern backstory. I'm assuming he grew up in New Orleans. That city's neighborhoods are all so different from each other! When I moved there in high school I suffered a little culture shock. You're brave to take all this on.

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  13. Congratulations on your new book, Laurel. And, you have jumped into novel writing with a challenging boldness. Writing a black man protagonist who comes from the South and now lives in the North seems to be quite an undertaking. With the issue of appropriation front and center these days, that's a fine line to walk. But, then I don't think writers should only write characters with whom they personally identify either, because that's so limiting, usually. I do think that lots of research and having someone of cultural similarity reading the manuscript would be an essential part of me ever tacking a person of color in writing. But, I do believe it can be done successfully, and I've read some of those books. It sounds like you took the task of a Southern black male protagonist very seriously, so I'm betting the result is a good one.

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    1. Thanks for your comments, Kathy. Yes, research! But when to stop? For me, that can get so out of hand, and then I don't know what to think anymore. Travel works best, but here we are in COVID. I appreciate your stopping by.

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  14. Hi Laurel! Fellow Dick Francis fan here! And I did some rereading on his novels at the beginning of the pandemic as well. Maybe someday we can get together and talk about all the reasons we love them.

    What a brave and intriguing book you've written, and this is such an interesting discussion about viewpoint/cultural appropriation. It is a very tricky line to walk in fiction. But I think writers are meant to be curious about people whose experiences are different from their own, and I think novels would be the poorer if we all stuck to exactly what we know.

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    1. Ah! I would love to know what you thought of the latest Felix Francis, Iced. He takes a step away from the formula, and gets in a few zingers about what it means to live up to a father's reputation.

      So, to throw another little twist into the mix, I'm wondering if male writers agonize over this quite as much.

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  15. Congratulations on your release, Laurel. I met a man named Rudy who survived Katrina (he was my car salesman in 2008) and - wow - did he have some stories to tell about the bridge. Your post reminds me of the journey he made to get to Phoenix, having lost everything and hoping to start his life over. I really hope he succeeded.

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    1. Those chance encounters can really stay with us, can't they? I hope he did too. Thanks for stopping by!

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  16. I don't think writers should have to worry about cultural appropriation because you are writing fiction, and only writing Kyle not every and all black men. People say stereotypes are bad but when someone writes something different, they often complain that ___ wouldn't do that. I have German American heritage. My grandma made sauerkraut but I never liked it.

    That said, if you're not black, don't say you've written the great black novel. Some problems stem from the publicity not the actual book.

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    1. Thanks, Sally. And yes, I wish I could not worry about all these things! SO many things. :) And I hope at some point we can find a way to write about each other with love and honor.

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  17. One last comment from me, and that's to thank all you amazing women for creating this blog. I am such a fan of your books! They are all so smart. I love smart. It has been such an honor to participate in this conversation with you today.

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    1. OH! We loved having you here today! Thank you so much for everything! xx

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