Tis the Season of.... Good Smells.

RHYS BOWEN: Just as we are recovering from Thanksgiving the holiday parties start. Food, food and more food. Why does celebration have to revolve around plates piled high with calorie-laden food: pumpkin pie, whipped cream, corn bread stuffing, mince pies, chips and dip? Not that I don't love it, but by January first  I regret it deeply.

So I'm wondering if I'd get just as much pleasure if I invited people over for an evening of conversation and holiday smells. I love the scent of spices and fresh pine branches and holiday breads baking. For me they say Christmas more vividly than any actual food. Last year I bought a big candle that filled the house with a pumpkin/cinnamon/cloves sort of smell. It was a perfect way to welcome guests.

It's funny how evocative certain smells are to us, isn't it? The smell of a camp fire in the forest, of bread baking, they conjure up some kind of primeval feeling of security that must be in our genes. When I teach writing classes I always stress bringing a scene alive with the five senses, especially the scent of smell.

I can think of a couple of smells that whisk me straight back to a time and place. The first is chlorine from an indoor swimming pool. A strange choice, you might think. But when I smell it I start to crave cheese rolls. There is a reasonable explanation for this: when I was a teenager my friend and I used to go swimming once a week at the indoor swimming baths. The water was freezing and afterward we were so cold that we went to the cafe next door and had a cheese roll and hot chocolate. That roll was perfect--crusty fresh bread stuffed with sharp cheddar cheese.It's a pleasure I enjoy replicating.

Another smell that takes me straight back to a time and place is my mother's sewing box. My father had it made for her--it opens in layers with room for all her sewing needs. I brought it back from Australia after she died and when I need any kind of sewing tool, it's probably in that box.  I open it and instantly I'm back in my parents' house in England--that old smell of damp and furniture polish. Now I put my nose deep into the box and breathe deeply, taking myself home again, if just for a second.

So I'm curious to know, Reds: are there any smells that are evocative to you in the same way?

HALLIE EPHRON: Smells are so evocative. My mother used Elizabeth Arden skin cream and it had a distinctive tangy orange-blossom smell. When I got home from school, I could tell if she was home by whether or not the house smelled of cigarette smoke. And I confess, I pick laundry detergent by its smell. GAIN wins by a mile.

LUCY BURDETTE: Oh Rhys, those cheese rolls sound like heaven! But I don't think a party with good scents but nothing to eat would be very satisfying:). As for smells that take me back, my mother wore Tweed perfume and Jean Nate after-shower spray. I don't see either of those around too much any more, but they come with distinctive memories. And the other day I was riding my bike home from the gym and passed the MARC Plant Store on Seminary Street. Oh my gosh--the scent of pine needles screamed "Christmas." I smiled all the way home.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Hallie, was it Elizabeth Arden Visible Difference? I used that, too, in the 70's. And when I smell it now, it brings back so many memories of those days in Washington DC! At one point they threatened to discontinue it, and I bought a whole slew of it. When we went to Sunday School, all the ladies at temple wore Youth Dew--my sister and I would pretend to gag, so now I laugh every time I smell it. (Sorry, Estee Lauder, it smells...matronly.)  Before my Mom died, she (unbeknownst to us) put together boxes for each of us kids of all the stuff of ours she'd saved--school papers, and photos, and clippings, souvenirs and memorabilia. She taped up the boxes, and had them shipped to each of us. When I opened the box, I got a whiff of--I don't even know what it was. Perfume, and home, and Mom, I guess. I keep the box tightly closed now, and sometimes flip it open to sneak a bit of the fragrance.

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: In New York City, people come and sell evergreens on city sidewalks. One minute, you're in the city, and the next you're transported to a forest of pine trees in Maine. The smell is absolutely delicious. One of my absolute favorite things about the holiday season in the city.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Hank, what a lovely memory. My mom liked L'Occitane Lavender in her later years--just a whiff of that scent makes her seem so close. And isn't it funny how a variation on a scent can call up something completely different?  There's a chemist (drugstore) at Notting Hill Gate in London that carries Yardley English Lavender. Whenever I go in the shop I have to use the tester, and suddenly I'm fourteen again...

And Rhys, here's one as weird as chlorine for you: I went to Mexico City for the first time when I was nine. And now, oh how many years later, whenever I smell diesel exhaust I'm right back in the center of Mexico City on a hot day. I just wish we could write books with smell-o-vision:-)

RHYS: So how about you? Is there one particular scent that is evocative for you?

And tomorrow we're celebrating the launch of Red Lucy Burdette's new Christmas book. Don't forget to check in and find out all about it!

Shopping with Your S.O.

 With Tom Wickersham

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I spent yesterday at bookstores...helping with Small Business Saturday! And it was not only fabulous and fun, it was a real time of insight into relationships. How people deal with each other while shopping--that's worthy of a PhD thesis.

I was staffing the "do you have it" computer at Brookline Booksmith for part of the day. It was such fun! (with Michael Blanding of wonderful The Map Thief and Joan Wickersham of The News From Spain, and Joan's son Tom, the social events coordinator. Oh, and young Cleo Blanding, age about 7, who can recite the first paragraph of  her father's The Map Thief and who is a whiz on the "do you have it" computer!) 

  But I cannot begin to tell you how often my question of "can I help you find something?" was answered with --"Yeah, can you find my wife?"  and just as often "Yeah, can you find my husband?"

SO, yeah. Relationships come out during shopping, that's for sure. And thriller author John Caranen has been thinking about relationships, too.  And not just on Small Business Saturday.

What 're you thinking?

by John Caranen

How does a man see inside a woman's head? How does he discern what motivates her? How does he even begin to understand a woman, especially one who is intelligent, complex, and  -  lethal? Sigmund Freud, whose mother dressed him funny, once said, "My God, what do women want?" Or at least, that's the way I heard it.

In my debut novel, Signs of Struggle (Neverland 2012) I introduce a fine young lass of a woman, Wendy Soderstrom. I had no idea at the time that she would turn out to be a killer. All I had in my head was the image of a beautiful athletic woman sprinting down a country lane toward my protagonist, Thomas O' Shea, who happens to be driving by in his pickup truck. Oh, yeah, and she is covered with blood and is screaming. O' Shea, being, according to him, "the most selfish person I know," contemplates not helping her. He has his own issues. He wants to pretend he doesn't even see her.

But he does, and he makes a huge decision to offer his help.

Wendy's husband has been chewed up by a mower and has bled out. A farm accident. O'Shea renders aid to the young widow until the EMS guys show up to take over as professionals. O'Shea sees to it that Wendy is removed from the scene by a kindly neighbor, who takes Wendy into town to be checked out for shock.

It begins to rain, and with the showers come questions. What, exactly, happened to cause Wendy's young husband to fall from his tractor and be flailed to death by the mower? What distracted him? Why?

Well, these are questions, and Thomas starts asking around. And people start trying to discourage him. He perseveres and discovers that there's more to Wendy, and a simple farm accident, going on in the picturesque farm community of Rockbluff, Iowa. Like, there was no farm accident. And more people die, and Wendy Soderstrom, sweet and alluring, flirtatious and mourning, is involved in more than one would guess, if one were naive, and that's something Thomas O' Shea is not.

When I write about women, it comes from years of observation. I know, I know. I said "observation" because I grew up with a mother and two  older sisters, and I paid attention. Then I dated, a lot, and continued to observe and wonder. Now I have been married for decades and have two grown daughters. They're all women! Even if I weren't paying attention, you'd think I'd learn something. I observe (not stalk) and I listen (yes, eavesdrop) and learn stuff. So, there it is.

HANK:  So--yeah. We'll bite. Let's talk about this. John, what did you learn?  Reds, do you go shopping with your spouse? HOw well does that work?

*****************

John Carenen, a native of Clinton, Iowa, graduated with an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from the prestigious University of Iowa Writers Workshop and has been writing ever since. His work has appeared in numerous popular and literary magazines, and he has been a featured columnist in newspapers in North and South Carolina. A novel, Son-up, Son-down was published by the National Institute of Mental Health.
His debut Thomas O'Shea mystery novel, Signs of Struggle, was published in October of 2012. A Far Gone Night, the long- anticipated sequel, continues the exploits of the enigmatic protagonist and the quirky characters of Rockbluff, Iowa.

John is currently an English professor at Newberry College in Newberry, South Carolina. He and his wife live in their cozy cottage down a quiet lane in northern Greenville, South Carolina. He is a big fan of the Iowa Hawkeyes and Boston Red Sox. 

A Far Gone Night
by John Carenen

Suffering from insomnia, wise-cracking tough guy Thomas O'Shea goes for a late-night stroll through the peaceful streets of Rockbluff, Iowa, and finds himself pausing downtown on the bridge that spans the Whitetail River. When he glances downstream, something catches his eye...something that looks like a body. He scrambles down to the riverbank, pulling the body of a young girl from the water. The girl is naked, with two bullet holes in the back of her head. Ever suspicious of law enforcement, O’Shea chooses not mention the bullet holes when Deputy Stephen Doltch, on routine patrol, discovers him at the river's edge.
When the coroner's report lists the cause of death as "drowning," Thomas goes into action. Confronting the coroner, he is met with hostility. But then the coroner and his wife disappear, along with the body of the dead girl. Once again, Thomas gears up to find answers that will reveal who put the bullets in the girl's head, why she was killed, and her identity, which may hit a little too close to home.
Teaming up with his friend Lunatic Mooning and Clancy Dominguez, an old buddy from his Navy SEAL days, Thomas and the other two men join together to bring justice to the dead girl, a quest that takes them to the Chalaka Reservation in Minnesota, seedy businesses adjacent to the Chalaka Casino, and straight into the world of organized crime.
A fast-paced story, laugh-out-loud moments and familiar, quirky characters from Carenen's debut novel, Signs of Struggle, contribute once again to the complex world of Thomas O'Shea. 

Eric Rickstad, literary genre masher

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HALLIE EPHRON: It’s pretty exciting when your first novel is published by Viking Penguin and declared a New York Times Noteworthy Book. That’s what happened to Eric Rickstad with Reap. Critics call it  “an American classic that draws readers into the dangerous and claustrophobic backwoods of Northern Vermont to witness a drugged out Gothic thriller of maimed and desperate characters.” “A masterwork.”

Now Eric is out with another chiller, The Silent Girls. It’s dark and literary, and the main character is a PI.

Got to ask: crime fiction, horror, Gothic, literary novel? Does it matter how we categorize your newest book, and what inspired it?

ERIC RICKSTAD: It defies categorization, doesn’t it!? I think most of those descriptions are accurate, with the possible exception of horror. The Silent Girls has been called a dark psychological thriller, and that may wrap it up the best. But most of all it's a novel that keeps you on the edge of your seat, compelled to find out what happens next, even if part of you doesn’t want to know. It is full of nasty twists and turns.

My agent told me that he’d never been so shocked by an ending; even upon reading it a second and third time he said he was left shaken. Best of all, most readers have felt that way, and expressed that the novel earns the ending, and does not cheat to arrive at it. Mystery and crime readers are not easily misdirected or surprised, so I am pleased this seems to be the case.

The Silent Girls is also literary in the sense that it has a clear voice, an awareness of language, hopefully fully-fleshed characters, and a singular setting that makes the novel stand out. 

HALLIE: Setting seems so essential to your story: Vermont backwoods. Do you live there, and how do you and your wife get up the courage to walk your dog? (See Eric's noble watch dog himself below.) 

ERIC: Ha! Yes, I do live in Vermont. I grew up in Vermont. I love Vermont. I have lived elsewhere. But I love it here. And so does my wife. This is where we chose to raise our family. 

I'm inspired byVermont’s beauty and the way it contrasts with the rare violent crimes that take place that shatter not just the communities in which they happen, but the entire state. Such acts feel like a betrayal. It can create paranoia and suspicion, and trigger deep emotions. I like exploring that.

 
From my novels, you’d think I’d have to go out armed with my Winchester .30-.30 deer rifle (not that anyone would notice or care). I want the setting always to influence the characters, so that description of setting is not just a backdrop, but impact the characters one way or another, and thus the reader. I think it makes the reader more engaged.

I also love the backwoods of Vermont, the Gothic landscape and the severe changes in weather that can suddenly turn a fishing trip or a hike into something perilous. But, really, the everyday Vermont is quite safe and its pastoral beauty reflects pretty accurately an idyll. I tend to write about the dramatic storms.

HALLIE: Your detective, Frank Rath. Police detective turned PI. What defines him for you, and where did you find him?

ERIC: What defines him most for me is that he is a single father who would do anything for his only daughter. He is devoted, and he is also afraid at every turn, as all parents are, for her safety. But his fear is even greater than most parents, because he came to being a single father through very dramatic and traumatic events that he wishes had never happened. 

He knows that being a single father has made him a much better man than he’d otherwise be. He became a single father as a result of horrific violence, and the experience made him grow up overnight and dispense with his frivolous and empty playboy ways. The irony for Rath is that the most awful event of his life in a way saved him.

HALLIE: We have many writers who follow our blog, and I’m wondering if you can speak from your own experience about the plusses and minuses of an MFA to launch a writing career?

ERIC: It does have advantages and disadvantages. I never intended to earn an MFA. Frankly, I did not even know they existed. A David Huddle, a wonderful mentor suggested I apply. I did not know what to make of the idea. Writers I liked never needed an MFA, and the prospect of earning one seemed too formal for me. Too academic. 

But David put it in perspective by saying, “Look, it will give you two years to write, where all that is expected of you is to write, and the people around you will respect that and understand it and encourage it.”

In the “real” world, when you say you’re a writer, you get one of two responses from people: either they romanticize it as a dreamy life where there is no hard work involved and it’s all just fun and glamor, or they denigrate it: “A writer? Cute. But what do you really do?” 

So what is great about an MFA is you are surrounded by writers and readers who respect what you are doing appreciate the work and perseverance it takes, and can support you in it. And you are exposed to other great writers and mentors. If you are able to find a program that suits your style and temperament, it can be a great experience—one where you can be taken seriously as a writer, where you have an excuse to do nothing but write, and where you can make lifelong friends in the process.

HALLIE: What were your favorite books/authors growing up, and how did that shape you into the writer that you are?

ERIC: Roald Dahl was a huge influence when I was in 3-6^th grade. DANNY CHAMPION OF THE WORLD especially, and Dahl’s macabre short stories. Poe’s stories. THE GREAT BRAIN and ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWN series. There was a book called ALGONQUIN about a boy and his dog I loved and found again through the miracle of the internet. Then later, Stephen King, especially his short story collections NIGHT SHIFT and SKELETON CREW. And Faulkner, Shirley Jackson, Ruth Rendell, Joyce Carol Oates. So many!  

HALLIE: We writers are all shaped by the books we loved, and your affection for King, Oates, and Dahl -- that says it all. Both the high standard and the sensibility.

So asking our readers, how often are you truly surprised by an ending, and do you love a setting that freaks you out?