Janice Oberding's Blog
January 11, 2021
The Day Agatha Christie Died
My reading tastes are varied. I’m not much on biographies, self-help or romance genres. Mysteries, true crime and fiction are my go to books for relaxation. Above all books, I love a good whodunit best, particularly a cozy. In this genre, Agatha Christie was my first, my all-time favorite. I remember many years ago standing in a convenience store that offered every book she’d written. With my limited book buying funds, I studied each book carefully. I knew that each would be a deductive adventure in which my wits wouldn’t match those of the writer. But which would I buy next? I took a break along the way and discovered other writers. Writers like Ngaio Marsh and Dorothy Sayers, and I enjoyed their works. But there was only one Agatha Christie who wrote 82 detective novels.
I am working on my 3rd and I can tell you writing a mystery is no easy task. Agatha Christie died 45 years ago on this date January 12, 1976. It was a sad day for readers of mysteries. At the news, I vowed never to read Curtain, Christie’s book in which Hercule Poirot dies. Mon Dieu et Sacre Bleu! Writers and readers die. But why must our favorite characters also go the way of all flesh? They are not flesh and blood like you and I. They live in the pages of books. Why can’t their lives be eternal so that when we’ve finished a favorite author’s works we can go back and start the adventure all over again? Maybe it is simply the author’s way of tying up loose ends. I’m going and I’m taking my characters with me.
Although Hercule and his little grey cells were dead, Miss Jane Marple had been spared. So the white haired spinster lived on, knitting one and purling two, in the quaint little village known as St. Mary Mead.
On December 30, 2019 the reading world lost yet another great, M.C. Beaton. While I had enjoyed Beaton’s books, her death didn’t hit as hard as Agatha Christie’s had. I was younger then and perhaps more given to romanticized notions...Beaton had a couple of wonderful characters in Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth. The two series were so much fun to read, I could never decide which one was my favorite. I have my pre-order in for presumably the last Agatha Raisin book Hot to Trot. But is it? After reading R.W. Green’s foreword I have hopes that maybe, just maybe, Agatha will continue on with all her outlandish behavior. I often wondered what might have happened had Agatha wandered into the little village of Lochdubh where Hamish keeps crime in check. Would there have been any sort of attraction. Was he too homespun for her tastes, or she too old for him?
In the years since that dreadful day in 1975 I’ve spent many a snowy night, with a hot chocolate in one hand and a good mystery in the other. Likewise I’ve spent many a lazy summer evening with a glass of chardonnay and the latest Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache book. Years ago I discovered The Dreadful Lemon Sky, John D. MacDonald’s 16th book in the Travis McGee series. I went on to read every book in the series. Travis McGee was such an unforgettable character. And MacDonald was a master. Thinking of masters, I’ll say that James Lee Burke’s Black Cherry Blues caught my eye and I was hooked. Burke certainly isn’t a writer of cozies, but there is no denying that his Dave Robichaux is a most fascinating character.
And so is every character, James Ellroy ever brought to life in the pages of a paperback. But none compare to Ellroy himself in My Dark Places. I treasure this book on so many levels, mostly because the writing is superb (as is all of Ellroy’s work,) and the fact that a lost little kid grew up to be one of our country’s greatest writers.
I love to read, I love to bake and I love to eat. This is where all those food cozies come in. Complete with recipes these cozies have made a place in my heart and in my baking efforts, real and fantasized. I admit to trying a few from Jacklyn Brady’s Piece of Cake Mystery series more than once. If the cake receives its fair share of compliments you keep on baking it. And I have.
Agatha Christie died forty five years ago and I still haven’t read Curtain. Will I ever? Probably not: I like to think of the dapper little Belgian detective, moustache waxed, hair brilliantined and grey cells in full working order, ready for the next case. Thank you, Dame Agatha for leading me down a reading path that keeps evolving.
I am working on my 3rd and I can tell you writing a mystery is no easy task. Agatha Christie died 45 years ago on this date January 12, 1976. It was a sad day for readers of mysteries. At the news, I vowed never to read Curtain, Christie’s book in which Hercule Poirot dies. Mon Dieu et Sacre Bleu! Writers and readers die. But why must our favorite characters also go the way of all flesh? They are not flesh and blood like you and I. They live in the pages of books. Why can’t their lives be eternal so that when we’ve finished a favorite author’s works we can go back and start the adventure all over again? Maybe it is simply the author’s way of tying up loose ends. I’m going and I’m taking my characters with me.
Although Hercule and his little grey cells were dead, Miss Jane Marple had been spared. So the white haired spinster lived on, knitting one and purling two, in the quaint little village known as St. Mary Mead.
On December 30, 2019 the reading world lost yet another great, M.C. Beaton. While I had enjoyed Beaton’s books, her death didn’t hit as hard as Agatha Christie’s had. I was younger then and perhaps more given to romanticized notions...Beaton had a couple of wonderful characters in Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth. The two series were so much fun to read, I could never decide which one was my favorite. I have my pre-order in for presumably the last Agatha Raisin book Hot to Trot. But is it? After reading R.W. Green’s foreword I have hopes that maybe, just maybe, Agatha will continue on with all her outlandish behavior. I often wondered what might have happened had Agatha wandered into the little village of Lochdubh where Hamish keeps crime in check. Would there have been any sort of attraction. Was he too homespun for her tastes, or she too old for him?
In the years since that dreadful day in 1975 I’ve spent many a snowy night, with a hot chocolate in one hand and a good mystery in the other. Likewise I’ve spent many a lazy summer evening with a glass of chardonnay and the latest Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache book. Years ago I discovered The Dreadful Lemon Sky, John D. MacDonald’s 16th book in the Travis McGee series. I went on to read every book in the series. Travis McGee was such an unforgettable character. And MacDonald was a master. Thinking of masters, I’ll say that James Lee Burke’s Black Cherry Blues caught my eye and I was hooked. Burke certainly isn’t a writer of cozies, but there is no denying that his Dave Robichaux is a most fascinating character.
And so is every character, James Ellroy ever brought to life in the pages of a paperback. But none compare to Ellroy himself in My Dark Places. I treasure this book on so many levels, mostly because the writing is superb (as is all of Ellroy’s work,) and the fact that a lost little kid grew up to be one of our country’s greatest writers.
I love to read, I love to bake and I love to eat. This is where all those food cozies come in. Complete with recipes these cozies have made a place in my heart and in my baking efforts, real and fantasized. I admit to trying a few from Jacklyn Brady’s Piece of Cake Mystery series more than once. If the cake receives its fair share of compliments you keep on baking it. And I have.
Agatha Christie died forty five years ago and I still haven’t read Curtain. Will I ever? Probably not: I like to think of the dapper little Belgian detective, moustache waxed, hair brilliantined and grey cells in full working order, ready for the next case. Thank you, Dame Agatha for leading me down a reading path that keeps evolving.
January 10, 2021
Truth, Fact and Fiction
I like to say writers are no different than anybody else. This, even though I know it's not exactly true. We have the same basic human failings, wants and needs as the rest of humanity. Still, we are different, in subtle little ways...and in not so subtle ways. Eavesdropping. Is one of those subtle ways. Yes, writers listen to every conversation going on around them. Listen to the cadence of their words. Why did he choose those particular words? Did they just tumble out of his mouth or had he thought them through. Why did she respond like that?
A writer has mapped out an entire life for the participants of an overheard conversation well before it ends. How accurate are the writer’s assessments. That’s not important. Only that someday a shred of the conversation may appear in his/her writing.
The monster that lives in every writer’s mind has an incessant need to write-write-write and write some more. And nothing is sacred. Everything that transpires in a writer's life is fodder for that need. The friend whose husband left her for a woman with a silicone enhanced chest, she just appeared in this sentence. See what I mean? The food server who brought yesterday’s pancakes with a cheery “Short stacks all around.” You know the one. The one with the tired face and feet; she’s in the waiting area of the writer’s imagination.
So, you ask. What about the non-fiction writer? Aren’t they adherents to the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Yes and no. Here is where the difference between truth and facts comes in. Let’s look at the aforementioned food server counting her tips at the end of a grueling shift. Separating fact from fiction and truth: truth is, the IRS (bless their little hearts,) has determined what tips said food server will make in relation to pancakes served. And truth is, she has made that $17.77. So she will dutifully write that down $17.77 knowing that she will pay tax on that amount as well. That’s a fact, folks. But so is the fact that the food server actually raked in the princely sum of $27 dollars and 85 cents for eight hours’ worth of short stacks all around. Is it fiction to write that she informed the IRS of that extra ten dollars? Or has she learned something from those billionaires and their offshore tax shelters? Ten dollars isn’t squat to them—will she keep quiet, laughing all the way to Wal-Mart with her extra ten to spend? Or will she write down $27.55, in essence telling the IRS that they don’t know a stack of pancakes from a stack of sh--? It’s not the food server’s problem. She’s bought herself a new lipstick, a bottle of wine and heading for her car. But it is the writer’s dilemma. Truth, fact and fiction add a couple of eggs and it might make a very good omelet
A writer has mapped out an entire life for the participants of an overheard conversation well before it ends. How accurate are the writer’s assessments. That’s not important. Only that someday a shred of the conversation may appear in his/her writing.
The monster that lives in every writer’s mind has an incessant need to write-write-write and write some more. And nothing is sacred. Everything that transpires in a writer's life is fodder for that need. The friend whose husband left her for a woman with a silicone enhanced chest, she just appeared in this sentence. See what I mean? The food server who brought yesterday’s pancakes with a cheery “Short stacks all around.” You know the one. The one with the tired face and feet; she’s in the waiting area of the writer’s imagination.
So, you ask. What about the non-fiction writer? Aren’t they adherents to the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Yes and no. Here is where the difference between truth and facts comes in. Let’s look at the aforementioned food server counting her tips at the end of a grueling shift. Separating fact from fiction and truth: truth is, the IRS (bless their little hearts,) has determined what tips said food server will make in relation to pancakes served. And truth is, she has made that $17.77. So she will dutifully write that down $17.77 knowing that she will pay tax on that amount as well. That’s a fact, folks. But so is the fact that the food server actually raked in the princely sum of $27 dollars and 85 cents for eight hours’ worth of short stacks all around. Is it fiction to write that she informed the IRS of that extra ten dollars? Or has she learned something from those billionaires and their offshore tax shelters? Ten dollars isn’t squat to them—will she keep quiet, laughing all the way to Wal-Mart with her extra ten to spend? Or will she write down $27.55, in essence telling the IRS that they don’t know a stack of pancakes from a stack of sh--? It’s not the food server’s problem. She’s bought herself a new lipstick, a bottle of wine and heading for her car. But it is the writer’s dilemma. Truth, fact and fiction add a couple of eggs and it might make a very good omelet
