Life’s Playlist by Holly West

JENN McKINLAY: I love the cover of this book SO much! Yes, because I was a tween of the 80's and a total fan of the Go Go's. Heck, I wanted to be one of the Go Go's! Holly West is our guest today and she's talking about what transports us. Welcome, Holly.

Holly West: Many things have the power to transport us to other times and places. Scent, for example. One whiff of Polo by Ralph Lauren and I’m walking through my high school’s corridors, keeping an eye out for my latest crush (thankfully, Polo isn’t on trend these days so those whiffs are few and far between). 

Books and movies, too. The mere mention of Judy Blume or Laura Ingalls Wilder takes me back to my childhood bedroom, where I spent untold hours reading and re-reading books. And films like “Bob Roberts,” “Pulp Fiction,” and “The Crying Game” remind me of my twenties, when I was single and broke and spent every weekend in the bargain matinee at the Beverly Connection in Los Angeles.

But music, I’ve found, is the ultimate time machine. I’ve already dated myself, so I don’t mind telling you that I recently turned fifty. As part of the celebrations, I compiled a playlist of songs representing all of the seasons of my life. It was a long list, spanning not only the decades I’ve lived through myself but those of my grandparents and parents since their musical preferences comprised much of the soundtrack of my earliest years. I can’t listen to Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, or Hank Williams without thinking of my grandparents—they instilled in me an abiding love for twangy country music, as did my mother for the cheerful Broadway musicals of the 60s.

I loved music from an early age and dreamed of being a singer when I grew up (a dream I haven’t quite let go of, by the way). Friday nights were dedicated to the Donny & Marie Show, before I understood that Donny’s version of rock ‘n’ roll bore as little resemblance to the real thing as Marie’s rendition of country did. Still, I loved them. Next came the Bee Gees, Rick Springfield (oh, how I wanted to be Jessie’s girl), and Journey, all of whom I still love, followed by that vast swath of music we call “80s.”

My brother, who works in marketing and PR, told me that supermarkets play 80s music now because that’s the generation—my generation—that’s doing the shopping. And he’s right. I can’t go into Ralph’s without hearing Madonna, Duran Duran, the Go-Go’s or The Cure. There I am, standing in the checkout line, when Whitney Houston comes on the sound system singing “How Will I Know,” reminding me of my senior prom date, who, years later, came out to me at a Mexican restaurant in our hometown.

Not so long ago, supermarkets were playing Fleetwood Mac, Jackson Browne, and the Eagles—songs I knew, but were firmly classified as “before my time.” I suppose Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and Pitbull will sing the next wave of supermarket hits. Even, perhaps, cleaned up radio re-mixes by Post Malone or Cardi-B. That’s when I’ll know I’m really old.

On a side note, one of the best things about living in the digital age is having all the music we want at our fingertips. Kids today will never know the exhilaration—and sometimes, the heartbreak—of having a cassette recorder at the ready, waiting for a song to come on the radio and pressing record at just the right moment. In those days, every recording had Casey Kasem’s voice floating over the song’s opening bars (if you were quick enough to catch those opening bars at all).

Much like books, the music we embrace in our youth becomes an integral part of who we are. I keep semi-current with today’s music and enjoy much of it, but none of it will touch me the way that early music did. I’m no expert in these matters, but it seems that as we get older, we lose our tendency to internalize external things like music. We’re able to enjoy and appreciate it, but it doesn’t have the same impact. We’re older now, and mostly, wiser, with our hearts steeled against every sentimental love song.

Okay, so Lady Gaga’s and Bradley Cooper’s live performance of “Shallow” at the Grammy Awards touched me, but that’s something else entirely. Or maybe, it’s not. Maybe I’m not the hardened old lady I think I am after all.

What about you, Reds and Readers, what music transports you?

***

Holly West is the Anthony Award-nominated author of the Mistress of Fortune historical mystery series. Her debut, Mistress of Fortune, was nominated for the Left Coast Crime Rosebud Award for Best First Novel. Her short fiction has appeared online and in numerous anthologies, and her latest story, “The Best Laid Plans,” appears in Florida Happens, the 2018 Bouchercon anthology. She’s also the editor of Murder-A-Go-Go’s, a crime fiction anthology inspired by the music of the Go-Go’s. Visit hollywest.com for more info.

What Would Mary Write: 2016 Mary Higgins Clark Award nominees

 HALLIE EPHRON: I’ve been surprised to discover that authors, myself included, often don't know what kind of book they're writing. It came as a surprise to me that mine were in the spirit of novels by Mary Higgins Clark, “Queen of Suspense.” But after my first totally unexpected nomination for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, I’ve embraced MHC and consciously evaluate every 4-letter word that tries to sneak into my book, asking myself What Would Mary Write?

NIGHT NIGHT, SLEEP TIGHT is my fourth suspense novel nominated for the award (which btw Hank's THE OTHER WOMAN won), and I am in awe of the nominating committee because I have read the other four nominated books and it's stiff competition.

Here are the criteria for the award, supposedly spelled out by Mary herself:

• The protagonist is a nice young woman whose life is suddenly invaded.
• She’s self-made and independent, with primarily good family relationships.
• She has an interesting job.
• She is not looking for trouble–she is doing exactly what she should be doing and something cuts across her bow.
• She solves her problem by her own courage and intelligence.
• The story has no on-scene violence.
• The story has no strong four-letter words or explicit sex scenes.

Today I’ve invited my fellow nominees, a spectacular group of like-minded writers of creepy (but not icky, per MHC) suspense novels to share with you their own feelings about the nomination.

CATRIONA McPHERSON: You could have fanned me flat with a flapjack when I saw THE CHILD GARDEN short-listed for the Mary Higgins Clark award. As well as the unbelievable honour of it, the book has quite a few f-bombs and – I thought – fell way short of the “primarily good family relationships” that Mary’s books celebrate (and are hard to write well).

I think I worked it out, though. While Stig swears like a squaddie, Gloria, the heroine, hates it and nags him. So the reader gets to nod along with her. Also, while Glo’s relationships with her mum and sister are atrocious, she adores her son and is a wonderful mother to him. So her primary family relationship is great one. That’s my theory anyway. When the judges reveal their identities at the Edgars I’m going to ask. Until then, I’m just beaming.

SUSANNA CALKINS:  When I first began to write my Lucy Campion mysteries—historical mysteries set in 17^th century England—I had to make a decision about how dark or violent I was willing to go. After all, my stories are set in a period where people’s lives were—according to philosopher Thomas Hobbes—“nasty, brutish and short.” But I deliberately put my protagonist Lucy Campion, a chambermaid turned printer’s-apprentice, in households where she was protected and even educated, as women of her station often were not.

While I frequently allude to the violence around her—death, misfortune and of course murder—I’m more interested in the impact of violence on the community, not the violence itself. So, while I did not consciously seek to follow the criteria for the Mary Higgins Clark award, I’m honored that THE MASQUE OF A MURDERER is included among this year’s nominees. 

FRANCES BRODY: Now that you mention it, Hallie, I see connections. Mary Higgins Clark develops the classic theme of a woman in distress: a likable young woman whose life is turned upside down. In A WOMAN UNKNOWN, Deirdre Fitzpatrick needs to earn money to care for her sick mother. Philippa Runcie wants to escape her faithless marriage. Kate Shackleton, widowed detective, seeks truth and rights wrongs. MHC takes inspiration from real life events. The title for A Woman Unknown jumped at me from a social commentary on the period between the two world wars, a time when women’s lives changed dramatically.

LORI RADER-DAY: Just before my first novel THE BLACK HOUR was published, I went through the full manuscript and checked every f-bomb like a loose tooth. Could it be pulled? I imagined my parents reading it; my dad had already announced my forthcoming book to his church group. I was prepared to leave the words in—I enjoy a fine word bomb in real life as much as anyone—but I found that none of them were essential.

They came out. And then when that book was nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, I felt vindicated. LITTLE PRETTY THINGS got the same treatment. I’m not anti-That Word, even now, but like every other word in a manuscript, it has to pull its own weight. Mary Higgins Clark is the better angel of my editing process, helping me watch my saucy mouth.

HALLIE: My favorite criterion: She solves her problem by her own courage and intelligence. I'm 100% onboard. Not so much on good family relationships. My protagonist's are often complicated by things like alcoholism. Explicit sex and graphic violence are easy for me to leave out, and four-letter words have always felt like lazy witing. Unless (BIG exception) it’s in dialogue. Then if there’s a character who cusses, and that’s just who she is, I need to put her on the page and let her cuss. Sorry. Mary.

Reds and readers, where do you draw the line with sex and violence and 4-letter words? Extra points to anyone who knows what squaddie means.