Are we still Mad for Don Draper?

ROSEMARY HARRIS: Chiseled jaw. Check.Ferocious libido. Check. Man of few words. Check. And he smokes and drinks with reckless abandon, which, in a fictional character, can be pretty darn sexy. What's not to like about Don Draper (aka Dick Whitman)the tortured soul at the heart of Mad Men?

I came for the clothes but stayed for the characters. (I suppose the same could be said of my addiction to Downton Abbey, which btw got me a nod from the folks at downtonabbeyaddicts.com this week.) Those dresses, those hats. And Joan, who is every full-figured gal's poster girl. But Mad Men belongs to Don.

At first, I shared his Something Happened/Man in the Gray Flannel suit pain. I understood his deception and saw how he got caught up in living a lie. He was hot, he was brilliant and he didn't play by anyone else's rules.

But has he turned into a little bit of a jerk? Why did he ever marry Zou Bisou Bisou? And now that he has,despite his declarations to Pete and anyone else who'll listen as to how much he's changed, why is he treating her like just another hookup? Does anyone else think he should have stayed with the big blonde whose name I've forgotten?

On another note how much do you love not-so-little-anymore Sally? Is she getting an education this season, or what?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I sang Zou Bisou Bisou for DAYS after that episode. Not as well as ..what's her name? But it was SUCH a disturbing scene.
http://youtu.be/pyy8roNU060

Now they're making her a brilliant ad person and a team player, which is fun.) Yeah, I agree, I liked Don at the beginning, when he was mostly..smart. And creative. Then they made him downright creepy and even abusive.
Sally is my candidate for serial killer--selfish and calculating and self-centered. Lies at the drop of a...babysitter. Didn't you love that she said the sitter (Who is she again?) tripped over her brother's toy--when it was really over Sally's phone cord?
Finally--the conversation between Peggy and her mother when she announced she and the beau were going to live together--perfect! I had EXACTLY the same conversation. Word. For. Word.

JAN BROGAN: Wow, Hank, you sang that song for days?  It made me wildly uncomfortable, I felt so embarrassed for poor Megan. But I still root for Betty, which I can't understand because she is so unlikeable.

I actually think Don Draper is improving because he's trying to stay faithful to Megan. At this point in the series, I think he's  truly falling for her and that she is going to dump him as she becomes liberated with the changing times.  But I may be deceiving myself. I saw an interview with Jon Hamm and the cast on Charlie Rose where Jon said the biggest viewer misconception about Don Draper was that "he has redeeming characteristics."  In essence, Jon said, viewers keep ascribing better motives to Don than he really has. (Maybe because he is so good looking? Or because he is the protagonist?)  So that should take us on a wild ride this season.
And I think we should give Sally a break. She's been through a lot and oh, with that mother of hers.  What creeps me out most is her relationship with that kid from the neighborhood. And where is he living now when we see him on the end of that phone? Reform school?

ROSEMARY: That kid is SO CREEPY! He's even hard to look at. If Hank thinks Sally is a potential serial killer (I thought future bra-burner) what does she think of weirdo boy? I see the creator of a Phone Sex empire. Babysitter is Betty's mother-in-law!

HALLIE EPHRON: (Fingers in my ears, humming!) ACK! I have not seen the new episodes! Waiting, waiting -- I get the episodes off Netflix after the season ends and can hardly wait!
But I have to say I never "liked" DD. He's a consummate narcissist, cold, only interested in the quest. And for me the draws of the show are the women, most especially Christina Hendricks/Joan and Elisabeth Moss/Peggy, surviving in a man's world. Yes, and "poor little Sally" who gives as good as she gets--anyone remember The Bad Seed with Patty McCormack? But with parents like that, she's learned from the pros.

ROSEMARY: Hallie don't read this......Have to say I'm curious as to whether or not Skinny Betty will make an appearance this season. Don't especially like (or get the attraction of) Henry but he earned points for telling Chubby Betty she was beautiful.

What do the rest of you think? And pass me that shaker of martinis....

Get this party started!

ROSEMARY HARRIS: Truth be told this party has been warming up since last Tuesday at the Mysterious Bookshop in New York where the launch party for MWA's latest anthology was held. Vengeance, edited by Lee Child, features stories by Michael Connelly, Karin Slaughter, Dennis Lehane, Zoe Sharp, Alafair Burke and a dozen others.

Next up was the Edgars Agents and editors party on Wednesday where Reds Lucy and Ro helped celebrate Hallie's second Mary Higgins Clark nomination. Thursday Edgar Judge Ro got to strut her stuff in a Mad Men style dress at the annual Edgars banquet (that's me with Meredith Cole, Erin Weston and Raven winner Molly Weston waiting for our limo!)- a list of all of the Edgar winners here http://theedgars.com/nominees.html
...and on Friday a trio of JRs headed south for Malice Domestic.

LUCY BURDETTE: We are delighted to report that our own Red, Rhys Bowen, won the Agatha teapot for best historical mystery, Naughty in Nice, Lucy (aka Roberta Isleib) did not come home with a teapot but was thrilled to be nominated for best short story!


HANK PHLLIPPI RYAN: Yay, Rhys! And Roberta, too--that's fantastic! (Oooh, and I'm nominated for three Emmys! For investigative reporting.) Party on!

ROSEMARY: Are you in party mode yet? Well, if you didn't make any of those events, this week on JR we're continuing the celebration by sharing our swag from those parties and hosting our own virtual Cinco de Mayo party on Saturday. Every day this week three lucky commenters will win books and bags from this season's mystery parties.

What's up this week?Tuesday - My trip to Highclere Castle, the real Downton Abbey
Wednesday - a visit from novelist Daniel Judson, who will share information on his latest cutting edge publishing venture with Amazon
Thursday - The Return of Kale (you know how the JRs love food!)
Friday - your official invitation to the Cinco de Mayo party
Saturday - Party On! Best outfit wins a bag of books
Sunday - Do we still love Don Draper?

So in honor of the release of Vengeance - tell us what you'd do - big, small, real or (hopefully) fiction - to get back at someone who did you wrong!

Three winners will receive copies of the book.

(Monday through Friday winners announced on Saturday, Saturday's winners announced on Sunday.)

SMOKE-FREE FICTION

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Whenever I go to England, I realize I live a very insulated, smoke-free life at home in Texas. I am a non-smoker. No one smokes in my family (my husband quit a year ago, thank goodness, and even when he smoked, he never smoked in the house, in the car, or in public places.) No one is ever allowed, on pain of death, to smoke in my car, and when I go out it's usually to smoke-free shops and restaurants.

So it's always a bit of shock to be thrown into the midst of very public London, where people smoke on the streets, and there is a whole new culture of pavement-smoking outside restaurants, pubs, and clubs. Suddenly I have to remind myself that at least some characters in my books should smoke. This is not so much a matter of approval or disapproval, but simply that as a non-smoker, smoking doesn't occur to me.

While certainly bad for one's health, smoking has always provided a nice "bit of business", both on the page and screen. It's something for your characters to do while they have a conversation (other than drink endless cups of tea.) It can convey an emotional state such as agitation or nonchalance, or give subtle insights into character (I've loved Sergeant Hathaway's attempts to give up smoking in the recent episodes of Lewis), class, or background. (Think James Bond here...) Camel or Silk Cut? Does the smoker carelessly put out the stubs in old cups of coffee, or tamp them out and tuck them away in a plastic baggie?

And with many of the popular retro shows like Mad Men, or The Hour (I've yet to see if they will smoke on Pan Am, but am horrified to remember that people actually used to smoke on airplanes!) smoking is once again being shown in a glamorous light (excuse the pun.)

As a reader, I like to play a little guessing game about whether or not the writer is a smoker--if almost every character in a novel smokes, I'm inclined to think the writer (I could name a few) does, too. But at the moment, I'm halfway through Felix Francis's new novel, Gamble, and I've just realized that not a single character has been seen smoking. I'd be willing to bet (excuse another pun) that Felix Francis does not.

So what about you, Jungle Reds? Do your characters indulge? And should they?


JAN BROGAN: I think the characters should smoke if you think that's part of who they are. I had a teenager in Teaser smoking because I thought that's what she'd be doing and I wanted my reporter Hallie Ahern to show she had good getting-people-to-talk skills by allowing the young girl to smoke in her car even though it was driving her out of her mind.

I'm thinking of setting my next novel in southern France, where at least half the French characters must smoke.

DEBS: Yes, the French and the Italians are all big smokers, but the red wine and olive oil probably keep them from getting cancer . . .

HALLIE EPHRON: I'm writing a novel in which the main character's dysfunctional alcoholic mother smokes. As Jan says, it's essential to the character.

It's pretty astounding how much public has changed about smoking. My husband brought home a "Rugged Men" magazine from the 50s. It's a real period piece, soft porn and enlightening article, like "Let's Get Rid of the Girls Who Shake Their Cans" by Dunwoodie Hall. In it there's an article that dismisses the "health scares" of smoking and concludes, "Thus, it can literally be said, 'Smoke--And live longer!'"

ROSEMARY HARRIS: I've had a few characters smoke, but no main characters. If they're going to die, I'd rather kill them off in my own way.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Huh!Not to give anything way, but you've made me realize that the people in my books who smoke--are the bad guys!

(I tried smoking in college. Once. ONCE! My best friend Hallie (a different Hallie!) and I shopped for the coolest package. Montclair, navy blue with a gold crest. I took one puff at age 17, choked, tipped over the ashtray onto my bedspread, burned a hole in the blanket and that was the end of that.)

The good part about people smoking in books--it give them something to do, you know? And it can be very dramatic, a la Bette Davis.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I've just realized that I've had exactly one smoker in my books - and that was because it was necessary for the plot. I'm like you, Deb, never smoked, no one in my family or circle of friends smoke, so it rarely crosses my mind. Since smokers tend to fall into a few distinct groups nowadays, I think having a cigarette-user makes more of a statement about the character than it once might have. We have the 80-year-old Dan Drapers and Joan Holloways who haven't died off yet. Young people still light up for the same reasons they always did - smoking is way down in high schools but on the upswing on college campuses. And increasingly cigarette smoking is a class marker, with a sharp divide in smoking rates between socioeconomic and education levels.

This has definitely given me food for thought! I'm going to go back over my current work-in-progress and see who might profitably be made a nicotine fiend.

DEBS: Interesting, Julia. Yes, there are beginning to be class issues associated with smoking, but one can't make blanket assumptions. My husband fought a forty-year battle with nicotine addiction--and I do mean BATTLE. We learned some very interesting things when he was finally able to quit (we certainly hope for good.) One is that there are take-it-or-leave-it smokers. I was one. I smoked in my teens and gave it up at twenty without a bit of bother. And there are some for whom nicotine addiction is worse, and harder to kick, than heroin. It apparently has to do with the difference in the chemical receptors in people's brains. The same seems to be true for alcohol addiction, except that the take-it-or-leave-it percentage is much greater for alcohol than for nicotine. It's much, much easier to be a social or occasional drinker than an occasional smoker.

So all food for thought, and for creating interesting characters.