Q&A with Denise Hamilton discussion

Hi everyone! I hope you will join a Q&A about my new novel "Damage Control" starting tomorrow.

I can't wait to find out what's going on in your writing world!

Hi Stephanie,

Yes by all means post reviews. And thanks again for your great one!

And Maureen, is that you in Ashland?

I am so thrilled to have this new book out. I'm touring a bit and will be in Seattle at the end of the month.

The new book, Damage Control, has a dual meaning. It's how PR people deal with scandals and attempt - not always very successfully - to 'control' the damge.

But it's also about two teenaged girls whose lives are damaged and friendship is destroyed by something awful that happened on a beach one night. While I want to keep you all up way past your bedtime turning pages, I think that the relationship between the girls, as adolescents and then when they meet once more in the present, is at the heart of the book.

And just in case anyone's curious, I did NOT take Adderall to experience its effects so I could write abouto them. But I know many adults to take Ritalin, Adderall and other 'smart' drugs to hone their focus.

I saw that you were going to be at Seattle Mystery Books, and wish that I could join you there. Have I told you how much I enjoyed the special edition of LA Noir published by the LA Times? They sent me 6 copies!! Incredible coverage.

Can't wait to read Damage Control. Maureen in Ashland, Oregon.

You all are getting an early start on this Author Q&A! That's OK...

Hey Maureen, good to hear from you! Each April the LAT Mag will do a mystery/crime fiction edition. Also, did you know I write a perfume column for the magazine now?

The September column is all about perfume in mystery novels, inspired by the fact that perfume is a clue in Damage Control. Here's the link:

http://www.latimesmagazine.com/2011/0...

What got you hooked on perfumes to begin with? What are your favorites, most cherished ones?

Hi Denise, Like Darlene I'm wondering about your perfume obsession. Do tell! Cara

My mother was Russian and French, and she had a shelf of Diors, Chanels, Rochas and more in the bathroom. I was allowed to bring them down (carefully!) and sniff. I always had a strong sense of smell, and also a strong aversion to certain bad smells, especially chemical and synthetic ones. So I've worn perfume all my life.

But it wasn't until I found a bottle of Donna Karan Chaos perfume at the Goodwill that I plunged down the rabbit hole of perfume obsession. It was spicy, sweet, incensey, exotic. Too strong for me. But when I went home and googled it, I found it was discontinued and highly sought after and selling for $300 on ebay so I rushed back to get it.

Then I spent days spritzing it on and sniffing and trying to figure out what was so special about it. Then I had the Eureka moment. Meanwhile I'd discovered all these great perfume blogs and started reading and teaching myself and buying Way Too Many Bottles.

I don't have a signature scent, but I adore the vintage Carons and Guerlains. Unstoppering one of these beauties is like letting an Art Deco beautiful genie out of a bottle. It hurtles me back in time to memories of my mother, grandmother, great aunt.

What about you folks? Are there perfumes or even just odors out there that unlock scent memories?

Sentimental Education

Je Reviens = Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert. Don't know why. Maybe because someone gave that to me as I was reading the novel. Could be as simple as that. But that's my favorite novel and I do love the warm smell of Je Reviens.

My German friend Inge wore White Linen all the time - it's the only scent that stays with me - and brings back memories of a lemon grove, summer afternoons and spending time with her.

Ah, Je Reviens is another one my mother wore. Worth! It brings back my mother immediately when I put it on.

White Linen is by Estee Lauder. While it's a bit too bright white/green floral for me, I do like some of her others, especially Alliage and Private Collection.

Denise, I'm fascinated by your use of perfume -- and other fragrances, scents, aromas -- in DAMAGE CONTROL. It's an incredible book, and almost causes sensory overload (in a good way). What made you focus on scent as a motif?

If you'd like to read more about Denise and her interest in perfume, please read her guest post at Crime Fiction Collective today (9/19/2011).
www.crimefictioncollective.blogspot.com

So has your perfume addiction made you become more "girly" girl in other areas? Do you find yourself putting on lipstick, styling your hair, whipping on some mascara? Just wondering if it's like the Domino theory...

Hi Linda,

I'm so glad you enjoyed my book. Regarding sensory overload, well, I guess that's how I experience the world on a daily basis - on the verge of sensory overload. I've always used a lot of sensory images in my books. In Sugar Skull Eve Diamond is crawling through the dirt basement of an abandoned building damaged by an earthquake and I tried to imagine what it smelled like, that damp, dank smell of earth, of rotting wood, the chalky dust in the back of your throat from the plaster falling off and decaying.

Hi Linda, continued...

I also think that in LA we live in an olfactory paradise - the fragrant orange blossoms, night blooming jasmine, sage and thyme an drosemary of the hills...the salt tang of the sea. So that was all natural scents, and then with my interest in perfume, I added in more complex blended scents. I think that smell is the least appreciated and utilized of our five senses, and it was time to bring it back to the fore, especially in solving a mystery!

Stephanie, thanks for asking about Maggie and Annabelle. They were not based on anyone in my life, but rather on my very vivid and visceral recollection of being a teenager - 15 and 16 - and feeling life so intensely. At that age, my girl friendships were my lifeline. I had one friend so close were were almost twins. We'd eat the same food, wear each others' clothes, pine over boys, obsess over song lyrics, drive around town dreaming together. When our friendship began to dissolve, it was worse than any break-up I'd had over a boy, because there was so much emotion and intensity vested in it.

Stephanie -

I also had to really put myself back in that emotionally raw, intense, moody state of early adolescence, where humiliation is always a whisker away, where the right clothes are so important, where everything is freighted with great significance. I'd get up from writing those scenes and need to go on a long run, they were so psychologically intense to write. At the same time, I think you hit on something, because the relationship (and ultimately the uneasy complicated love) that they share for each other provides the emotional center of the book.

Hi Darlene,

I'm afraid that lipstick remains my one other concession to girlie glamour. My mom wore Revlon Coral Red, and I actually wore that myself for a long time. I like bright dark intense lipsticks. Well ok, here's another confession - I do like vintage cocktail frocks and have a closet full. There was something magical about the clothes from the 1930s-50s that I do adore, but it's more a Lauren Bacall glamour than today's girly girls.

I almost forgot, my review of DAMAGE CONTROL is here:
http://crimefictioncollective.blogspo....

I did not know about your perfume column - how exotic! how sophisticated! and how perfect to reference Suskind's work.

Denise wrote: "Hey Maureen, good to hear from you! Each April the LAT Mag will do a mystery/crime fiction edition. Also, did you know I write a perfume column for the magazine now?

The September column is all ab..."

You know, it's actually quite challenging to write about perfume, because it doesn't have a rich vocabulary, so you have to use the vocabulary of food (vanillic, marzipan) or colors (it's citrusy green) flowers (rose and jasmine). Perfume inspires emotions in us and dredges up memories. Perfumes can be decadent, prim, girly, Baroque. They can be dark, brooding, happy, spring-like, autumnal. But often the only way to describe them is by referencing other things. But I find I rise to this challenge, and enjoyed doing it in Damage Control!

Just getting into Maggie's story, love that she's listening to Lucinda! Honeysuckle is the scent that takes me back to my childhood home on Bonnie Hill, it was growing th hill in front.