Reaching Inside Out

May 032021
 

Four years ago, I came upon an opportunity to “mentor” an incarcerated individual by becoming a pen pal. The offer came on Facebook via an established and well-recognized journalist friend. That was smart; it got me to notice. What got me to sign up was the chance to do something positive, to get me outside myself.

My pen pal is serving time at Green Haven Correctional Facility in Stormville, NY. One year into our correspondence, I visited. We met in a large open space with long tables and chairs separated by low plastic. No, we didn’t talk by phone through glass. I was in the company of maybe two dozen inmates and their visitors, including children. I was by far the oldest there and palest person there.

Our scheduled forty-five minutes turned into three hours because of an unscheduled lockdown which the prison institutes from time to time. I expected to be nervous, and I was, but not for the reasons you might imagine. My guy treated me like royalty. He was easy to talk with. I just wasn’t sure how we could fill three hours.

I needn’t have worried. We talked, mostly about writing, some about his life inside the prison and his family, a little about my experiences as a widow. He brought a lot of his work, some of which I scanned. I bought lunch at the vending machines and we ate companionably. And then I left.

Driving home took three hours and I realized how much the visit had drained me. Nothing like a visit to a prison to understand how debilitating (as opposed to rehabilitating) life in prison must be for the inmates.

The program that connected us allows selected inmates to express themselves creatively. Many of them keep journals. Others write short stories. One is working on a novel. My pen pal writes essays, stories, and plays. One of his pieces made it into a book called Scrolls From a Forgotten World: Prisoners’ Writings and Reflections. His play was produced a couple of years back and a segment of it aired on CNN.

Sometimes I edit his work, mostly not. For one thing, he is improving with practice. For another, his work is authentic and from the heart. You can’t teach that, but you can inadvertently stifle it, and that I never want to do.

He takes great pride in his acquaintance with a “real” author. He claims it’s enhanced his status. All I know is I’ve sent him all my books and he’s gotten them all into the prison library. I can’t tell you how much I love that.

There are rules of engagement, limits imposed by the program, by the logistics of his situation, and by my determination not to promise more than I can deliver. Sometimes all I can do is listen. Mostly, I have to believe that’s as helpful as anything else.

We had a fallow period last year. Like most everyone else, we were both accosted by feelings of despair. I came off my sister’s death and went almost directly into COVID lockdown. In my pen pal’s case, lockdown was that much more onerous. Prisons have been hotspots for virus outbreaks. Visitors were restricted and prisoners lived with the very real danger of living in close quarters within an aging structure with questionable ventilation. Our correspondence faltered.

We’re back to communicating. He has a new play he’s excited to send me. I have a book I want to send him. The prison now allows for paid emails, which he says is what most of the inmates use. I suggested we use email for “emergencies” and stick to letters the rest of the time. They allow for a more personal kind of interaction. The more he writes, the better writer he becomes. I only hope the more I write to him, the better human I become.

For more information on the program, please visit: https://www.transforminglivesny.org/

Missing My Muse

Feb 232021
 

Here’s what I’ve noticed after a year of relative lock-down: Few people seem happy about it. Sure, I know people who prefer texts to calls, online classes to sweaty studios, food delivery to crowded stores. Most people, though, are going stir crazy. They are feeling crowded, limited, and maybe even homicidal after living cheek by jowl with spouses, parents and restless children.

Quarantine life should be tailor-made for me. I live alone and have for more of my life than I care to admit. It may not be the life I wanted, but it’s one I own. I’ve gotten good at living it. I understand the difference between lonely and alone and can adjust to either. Believe me, I appreciate the absence of pressure, the luxury of solitude, the privilege of quiet time to think and room to breathe.

Besides, I have my dog. And my muse. Although she’s been absent lately.

I’m an author, which is to say, my identity and sense of purpose are wrapped up in my ability and my need to get my thoughts into a readable form and out into the world. The present circumstances would seem an ideal time to create content.

Yet I’m stuck. Unwilling, uninspired, digging for feeling, reaching for words.

This is more than writers’ block. It feels more existential. What’s it all about? Who cares? Why should I voluntarily put myself in front of this cold gray machine and try to enter random thoughts into it?

My muse has left the building.

Maybe I’ve misjudged the effect of so much isolating, avoiding, hiding away, stepping warily into public, limiting in-person contact, eschewing any physical contact. Maybe it’s drained me in ways I wasn’t expecting. Zoom, it seems, isn’t always ideal for observing, much less interacting.

Instead of experiencing the flow that comes from being productive, I’m obsessed with how slowly time is moving. I used to write several hours a day. Now I’m lucky if I can work half that long. I look at the clock and marvel that it’s only eleven o’clock in the morning. I wonder when I can take lunch, or whether a nap is in order, notwithstanding I was in bed for nine hours (albeit restlessly) the night before. I count the hours until I can crawl back under the warm covers.

I thought I’d accepted that quarantine would last this long (has it really been a year?). Perhaps I failed to understand how that would feel. Was I more social in my previous life than I realized? Did I depend on neighborhood gatherings, coffee with friends, a random evening out? Do I need human contact more than I want to admit?

Well, yes, as it turns out. People in all their imperfections, are the featured players in my writing. Technology has been invaluable in bringing me news of the world, as it is. It doesn’t let me read faces or hear tone.

There are tricks to summoning an absent muse. I’m trying them all as I struggle with my third mystery in a series about an intrepid female investigator (is there any other kind?) I still don’t know how the story will unfold. Instead, I try to get a sense of where I’m going by writing scenes of dialogue. You know, the kind people have when they’re face to face across a table or even at a crime scene. When they’re talking in real life.

Sometimes I can almost feel my muse. She’s hovering, more an observer than an interactive part of my process. It’s okay. I understand her hesitation. No one feels like working right now. But we muddle through.

For now, I keep my seat in the chair and my eyes on the screen for as long as I can. I don’t want my my muse to lose faith in me. After all, spring is around the corner. Vaccines are available to the lucky and the persistent. Herd immunity is the new mantra. I’ve got babies to kiss, friends to hug, and words to write. Onward.

Four New Mysteries to Savor

Oct 182020
 

I’m a mystery writer and I’m a mystery reader, too. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy other genres. I love world-building science fiction (NK Jemisin) and literary fiction (Anne Patchett) as well as select biographies.

My reading list, though, mainly consists of mysteries. While I like to encounter new writers, I have my favorite writers whose reputations are secure, whose skills are legendary, and whose stories never fail to entertain. I take my inspiration from these favorites. Among those at the very top of their game are the four below, all of whom have released new books in the last few months.

A PRIVATE CATHEDRAL by James Lee Burke

Burke is author of the mesmerizing Dave Robicheaux series. Set in Louisiana, the novels are odes to the raw splendor of the region and the raw brutality of life on the edges. Robicheaux is an on-again, off-again cop, a barely reformed drunk who shares with his imbibing buddy Clete Purcell, a fatalistic view of the world that directs their often-vicious response to injustice. In A PRIVATE CATHEDRAL, Burke has placed his story in the vague recent past, which handily fudges the issue of how old Robicheaux, a Vietnam war veteran, might actually be in 2020. It works. The book is bittersweet, the descriptive passages achingly beautiful, the action merciless, violent and swift-moving. The experience is heart-pounding.

THE GOOD DAUGHTER by Karin Slaughter

I’ve read a number of books by Karin Slaughter—I’m a fan of her Will Trent procedurals that feature a troubled cop working for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. This novel feels quite different. Her trademark gritty realism is on display, along with a no-filter depiction of violence found in many of her novels. And yes, it is, in part, a who-done-it. At the same time, the story of two physically and emotionally wounded sisters at odds with each other, their father, and the world reads like Ann Patchett or Barbara Kingsolver. Which is to say, this book contains more than a few moving passages mixed in with the nuts and bolts of a crime procedural. Highly recommended—and it would make a terrific film.

ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE by Louise Penny

Penny, the popular Canadian writer, usually sets her Armand Gamache series in Canada’s Eastern Townships region in a fictional town called Three Pines. Gamache, formerly Chief Inspector of Quebec’s Sûreté, is a learned man prone to philosophical reflection although capable of decisive action when necessary. The small, tightly-knit community is his refuge and his strength. This time, Penny sends Gamache and his indomitable wide, Reine, to Paris to visit their children, grandchildren and Gamache’s foster father, Stephen. There, he and his son-in-law, also a cop, uncover a dangerous scheme that draws in the entire family. Gamache’s wit, skill, and courage are as formidable as ever, particularly when his loved ones are threatened.

THE SEARCHER by Tara French

Tara French is an Irish-American writer who gained recognition with her Dublin Murder Squad series. In her newest book, she moves the action out into the countryside and adds a twist. Cal Hooper is a retired Chicago homicide detective who’s moved to find peace and perhaps a good pub following an acrimonious divorce and a disheartening epiphany about his work. His hardscrabble North Carolina upbringing should bind him to the scrappy locals, but theirs is an insular community and they keep their secrets. French unspools her story without haste, yet the throb of inevitability never leaves. Hooper realizes early on that this story won’t have a happy ending. As it turns out, though, it’s the necessary one. Sometimes that’s the best you can get.

 

 

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