Stretching
the limits of the cozy
by Judy Alter
Writing
across genres is a big deal these days. Writers worry about the non-traditional
novel, the one that doesn’t quite fit in any of the standard sub-genres but has
touches of all—cozy, thriller, supernatural, whatever.
I
have always been comfortable writing—and mostly reading—cozies. I think it
harks back to my Nancy Drew introduction to mysteries—no blood, no guts, no
vampires, but fun. The kind of reading where you like the characters and find
yourself immersed in their world, so much so that you are reluctant to finish
the book and close it. The kind of reading that occasionally makes you laugh
out loud. The kind of reading that supplies suspense and a puzzle but doesn’t
scare you to death.
 |
A Craftsman home from the
Kelly O'Connell mysteries |
In
my two series—Kelly O’Connell Mysteries and Blue Plate Café Mysteries—the
heroines are women like me, though admittedly much younger. They love, they
laugh, they cry. They are ordinary people with lives outside mystery. Kelly
O’Connell is a single parent—been there done that. As fits the cozy tradition,
they are working women—one a real estate broker, the other the owner of a small
café—who are drawn into murder by their sense of justice, their compassion,
their determination to defend their families and communities.
So
what’s verboten in a cozy? Well, a lot of things—on-scene violence, rape, child
abuse, torture, but not murder or sex either one. They just happen off-screen.
I felt I pushed the boundaries with No
Neighborhood for Old Women, because it revolved around a serial killer.
Somehow I didn’t think the villain was your standard serial killer novel. The
victims were all older ladies—doesn’t make it less horrible, as I can attest,
being an “older lady” myself. But they were specific targets, and they weren’t
killed for the joy or thrill of killing. I think the last point made the
difference for me. I could not get into the mind of someone who killed for the
pleasure of it.
When
I started writing Danger Cones Home, I
discussed it with my longtime mentor, the man who has seen me through
everything from a dissertation to western novels to mysteries. When I outlined
my ideas for the novel, he nodded and then slowly asked, “Are you sure you want
to touch the subjects of child abuse and drug rings?” I said I thought I should
spread my wings and do it.
In
the end, as you’ll see in Danger Comes
Home, I pretty much bowed to the conventions of the cozy, though the drug
ring aspect is a bit dark. The child abuse is emotional, never physical, though
the child fears being hit in anger. But she has a protector. I simply don’t
write dark.
I
recently read a thriller by Polly Iyer, who is in my opinion a wonderful,
talented writer. But she writes of the dark side of humanity and all the while
I was reading—and perched on the edge of my seat—I was both captivated by a
riveting story and fascinated by her ability to write scenes that I could never
ever put on paper.
I
write cozies. If I add a dark touch here and there, I don’t think that makes
them cross-genre novels. I could never reach the tension that Polly Iyer
achieves. And maybe I don’t want to, just because I’m me—Pollyanna in Mary
Janes who happens to write about murder.
A Note about Craftsman Homes, which Kelly O'Connell Restores
The Craftsman movement grew
out of revolt against the disappearance of the individual craftsman in the
assembly lines of that Industrial Revolution. Many architects, artists, and
others believed that the Industrial Revolution devalued nature and the human touch
in favor of progress and production, the result being second-rate mass-produced
objects. The movement encompassed architecture, furniture, landscape, almost
all areas of design, and was tied to a lifestyle philosophy.
In the Victorian era, Queen
Anne and other styles of houses were built for families with servants. The
kitchen for instance, was separated from the family living areas. With the rise
of the middle class at the turn of the twentieth century, architects focused on
the housewife who did not have servants, who kept house and also kept an eye on
the children. So floor plans were open. The walled-off pantry was replaced by
built-in sideboards. Kitchens opened into dining and living areas, often
separated not by doors but by arches. With the innovation of the breakfast
nook, the kitchen became part of the family living area. Consistent with the
emphasis on natural materials and on craftsmanship, there was an exuberant use
of dark, natural wood, no longer hidden under plaster and ornament. Built-in
bookcases and cupboards were fronted with leaded and sometimes stained glass. Exterior
windows were often paned, letting the outdoor light flood in but still giving a
distinctive touch to the house. And in most Craftsman houses, a fireplace,
often tiled, was central. Decorative tiles frequently adorned the front of the
fireplace.
Mixed materials were another
hallmark of Craftsman homes, and exteriors were generally wood or shingle with
frequent use of stone. Gabled or hipped low-pitched roof lines sloped gently
down to the exterior walls. Encircling front porches were large and generally
covered by an extension of the main roof of the house. These porches and often
the interior sported open rafters and brackets. Tapered square columns
supporting the roof at the front of the porch were common. The bungalow, a
house reduced to its simplified form, is the most common Craftsman house.
About Trouble in a Big Box
Kelly O’Connell’s husband,
Mike Shandy, insists she has a talent for trouble, but how can she sit idly by
while her world is shattering. Daughter Maggie is hiding a runaway classmate;
protégé Joe Mendez seems to be hanging out again with his former gang friends
and ignoring his lovely wife Theresa; drug dealers have moved into her beloved
Fairmount neighborhood. And amidst all this, reclusive former diva Lorna
McDavid expects Kelly to do her grocery shopping. In spite of Mike’s warnings,
Kelly is determined to save the runaway girl and her abused mother and find out
what’s troubling Joe, even when those things lead back to the drug dealers.
Before all the tangles in the neighborhood are untangled, Kelly finds herself
wondering who to trust, facing drug dealers, and seeing more of death than she
wants. But she also tests upscale hot dog recipes and finds a soft side to the
imperious recluse, Lorna McDavid. It’s a wild ride, but she manages, always, to
protect her daughters and keep Mike from worrying about her—at least not too
much.
Excerpt from Trouble in a Big Box
And so we chattered away
about plans for the summer as we rounded the corner onto Magnolia. Pony Tail
leaned against the building, idly watching us, and didn’t move. Thus began the
longest two-block walk I’ve ever taken. I couldn’t ask Mona if she was as wired
as I was, but I felt as though my back had a bull’s eye painted on it. Each
time we took a step forward, I told myself we were that much closer to the
office, but half of me didn’t believe we’d ever make it. There were people on
the street ahead of us, and I didn’t dare turn around to see if Pony Tail—or
anyone else—was behind us.
“You’re walking too fast,”
Mona said. “Dead giveaway, slow down and tell me what you’re cooking for supper
tonight.”
Wow! She’s better than I am at this. She’s probably
had more practice. I waved a hand
vaguely in the air. “I don’t have any more idea about that than you do about
Jenny’s summer. I bet you and Jenny will have supper with us so something that
feeds a crowd. Maybe Mike will grill hamburgers, and I can pick up some potato
salad or something.”
An award-winning novelist,
Judy Alter is the author of three books in the Kelly O’Connell Mysteries
series: Skeleton in a Dead Space, No
Neighborhood for Old Women, and Trouble
in a Big Box, and Danger Comes Home.
She is alsoof the author Murder at the Blue Plate Café
Her work has been recognized
with awards from the Western Writers of America, the Texas Institute of
Letters, and the National Cowboy Museum and Hall of Fame. She has been honored
with the Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Achievement by WWA and inducted into
the Texas Literary Hall of Fame.
Judy the mother of four grown
children and the grandmother of seven.
I’m in a bind: I respect the notion of History. However, I read and write historical genre fiction.
When readers pick up a cozy mystery, they aren’t looking for a chalk-dry
academic lecture. What exactly is my responsibility, as a writer of
stuff-that’s-utterly-fabricated, to dignified History? Can I make my version of, say, the nineteenth
century, look like the anachronistic faux-land of Disney films? Or should I attempt to replicate, like a
lithograph, the staid language of Nathaniel Hawthorne?
Period slang (zowie, fiddlesticks, gongoozler, humbug) and period
objects (silverware, castles, Model Ts, and dentures) are my toys. When texts become models of reality, things
thaw out. We’re free to start playing.
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