Ask the Author: Marcy McCreary
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Marcy McCreary
When one thinks about the late sixties, the words “summer of love” definitely comes to mind. The expression was first introduced in 1967 to describe the 100,000 people (hippies, beatniks and counterculture figures) who converged in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district and Golden Gate Park. They shared a common philosophy of spiritual awakening, anti-war sentiment, and sexual freedom. The phrase “summer of love” resurfaced in June 1969 in reference to a series of love-ins that brought together like-minded folk in celebration of free music and good vibes, and for the most part, were peaceful.
But the summer of 1969 was also a year marked by death and violence. On June 28th, New York’s Stonewall Inn, an underground gay bar, was raided by police on the grounds the bar refused to pay an increase in bribery. For three days, hundreds of patrons rioted against police. This clash came to be known as The Stonewall Rebellion, considered the birth of the gay rights movement. In July, The California Zodiac killer shot a waitress in Vallejo. The shot was fatal, adding the woman to the list of victims of the unknown, notorious murderer. In Chappaquiddick, a car driven by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy plunged off a bridge leading to the death of the passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne. On August 8th, cult leader Charles Manson and a group of his disciples murdered five people including Sharon Tate, in her Los Angeles home. The year ends with four dead at Altamont Speedway in Livermore, California, where The Rolling Stones staged a concert and hired the Hells Angels for security. And of course, there was the Vietnam War which led to the death of 52,800 U.S. service members.
This juxtaposition of “love” and “death” played out in the back of my mind as I sat down to write the novel.
The Summer of Love and Death is a dual timeline narrative, set in both 2019 and 1969. Love is front and center in both timelines. The 1969 chapters play out against the backdrop of the Woodstock festival, while the 2019 chapters feature a love story between Detective Susan Ford and Detective Ray Gorman. So, the phrase “the summer of love” immediately popped into my head as I began to write. But this is a whodunnit mystery about a serial killer and a copycat killer . . . and themes of intergenerational trauma and senseless death. The title was so obvious to me, I came up with it as soon as I finished writing the first chapter.
But the summer of 1969 was also a year marked by death and violence. On June 28th, New York’s Stonewall Inn, an underground gay bar, was raided by police on the grounds the bar refused to pay an increase in bribery. For three days, hundreds of patrons rioted against police. This clash came to be known as The Stonewall Rebellion, considered the birth of the gay rights movement. In July, The California Zodiac killer shot a waitress in Vallejo. The shot was fatal, adding the woman to the list of victims of the unknown, notorious murderer. In Chappaquiddick, a car driven by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy plunged off a bridge leading to the death of the passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne. On August 8th, cult leader Charles Manson and a group of his disciples murdered five people including Sharon Tate, in her Los Angeles home. The year ends with four dead at Altamont Speedway in Livermore, California, where The Rolling Stones staged a concert and hired the Hells Angels for security. And of course, there was the Vietnam War which led to the death of 52,800 U.S. service members.
This juxtaposition of “love” and “death” played out in the back of my mind as I sat down to write the novel.
The Summer of Love and Death is a dual timeline narrative, set in both 2019 and 1969. Love is front and center in both timelines. The 1969 chapters play out against the backdrop of the Woodstock festival, while the 2019 chapters feature a love story between Detective Susan Ford and Detective Ray Gorman. So, the phrase “the summer of love” immediately popped into my head as I began to write. But this is a whodunnit mystery about a serial killer and a copycat killer . . . and themes of intergenerational trauma and senseless death. The title was so obvious to me, I came up with it as soon as I finished writing the first chapter.
Marcy McCreary
My great grandmother and great grandfather both worked at the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and supposedly eloped to get married on March 25, 1911--the day of the fire. We have an oral history, based on stories my great grandmother has told us, but no documentation to prove this. We do know she was pregnant at the time, as my grandmother was born in early November 1911, just 8 months after the fire. We know for a fact that they worked there, but whether or not they eloped on that day remains a mystery.
Marcy McCreary
The second book in the Detective Susan Ford series. I've got a few working titles (Sackett Lake, The Murder of Madison Garcia, Murder on Sackett Lake), but haven't settled on one yet.
Marcy McCreary
I spent every summer of my youth in the Catskills resort area. My dad was the Activities Director and nightclub emcee (and entertainer/singer) at The Hotel Brickman in South Fallsburg, NY. I knew I wanted to write a story in this setting, but the question became… what story/what era… A coming of age? A romance? A memoir? Then, in 2017, I came across an article about a woman (a coffee shop waitress at one of the hotels) who disappeared from the area in the mid-70s and was found forty years later in an Alzheimer’s facility (in Massachusetts) through the fluke of a social security number search by a detective. She was unable to tell the detective what had happened to her in the intervening years. That was my eureka moment. I was intrigued by the idea of fictionalizing this woman’s story—filling in the forty-year gap between disappearing and being found. Throw in a father-daughter detective team--some murder and mayhem--and I knew I had my story.
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