Clea Simon

Two cozy authors insisted I must read Clea Simon's book Mew is for Murder. I did ... and she's terrific. A wonderful writer, a sensitively told story and a complex heroine in Theda Krakow ... what more can we ask for? (see review below) On the right is Clea's photo -- which she says is her favorite. Her feline friend is Ms. Musetta, whose namesake plays a prominent role in Mew is for Murder. "If you look closely, you can see she is really unhappy with the flash going off and is trying to push her way free of me. 'Mother... put me down!,'" says Clea. (For a November 2006 note from Clea, click here.)

Books:

Author Profile

From http://www.cleasimon.com/, used with permission

I'm the author of three nonfiction books and a mystery series. The nonfiction books are Mad House: Growing Up in the Shadow of Mentally Ill Siblings (published as a Doubleday hardcover in 1997, released as a Penguinpaperback in 1998), Fatherless Women: How We Change After We Lose Our Dads (Wiley, 2001) and The Feline Mystique: On the Mysterious Connection Between Women and Cats (St. Martin's Press, 2002). My Theda Krakow mystery serieswas launched with Mew is for Murder (Poisoned Pen Press, 2005). In August 2006, Poisoned Pen Press published Cattery Row as well as the paperback edition of Mew is for Murder.

I also do a fair amount of journalism, including the Boston Globe's "RadioTracks" column about New England radio, which is published on Thursdays andcan be read in the Boston Globe (check in the Living/Arts section). My writing also pops up occasionally in the New York Times and the Boston Phoenix, and such magazines as American Prospect, Ms., and Salon.com. I used to do a fair amount of music criticism, but now primarily focus on relationships, feminism, and psychological issues.

Author Website: http://www.cleasimon.com/

 

Author Interview:

Cozy Library: I’ve been told it’s difficult to make the transition from writing non-fiction to fiction. What, if any, difficulties did you encounter in writing Mew is for Murder? 

Clea Simon: Interesting question -- I thought it would be easier to do fiction. You know, no “fact checking.” You just make stuff up. But the truth is you have to do ALL the work. When you create a character, you have to figure out what she’s like. What she looks like, what she enjoys eating, what gets her goat. All these things. I try to do this for even my minor characters so that they’ll feel real. Plus, you still have to do research: What would happen to a house full of cats if the owner died without leaving a will? I talked to lawyers and went down to Cambridge’s probate court, to look things up and to be able to describe the great, cavernous old building . (I was lucky in that I already had a ton of cat and animal-hoarding info on hand because I’d used it in my last nonfiction book, The Feline Mystique: On the Mysterious Connection Between Women and Cats.) Also -- and other novelists had warned me about this -- sometimes your characters don’t do what you want them to. Sure, you can type words into their mouths. But sometimes they just don’t sound right. Then you’re stuck saying, “Violet wouldn’t do that. So how else can Theda find out about so-and-so?” But it really is great fun.

CL: Theda Krakow, your heroine, has very eclectic tastes in music. Do you?      

CS: I do! I worked as a music critic early in my career. I was (still am) a rock fan. But I got a gig as a stringer -- a freelancer, like Theda -- for a daily Boston paper, and they sent me to see whatever the staffer didn’t want to see. That meant that I ended up covering Las Vegas acts like Wayne Newton, zydeco’s Queen Ida, and jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius. It was excellent training (try describing 90 minutes of instrumental, free-form jazz bass!). And I ended up liking quite a lot of it!

CL: I’m not familiar with Cambridge (other than by listening to Car Talk on NPR), but the clubs and coffeehouses in Mew for Murder seemed very realistic. Are they real or fiction?       

CS: They are all based on real places,  the independent coffeehouses and little clubs around here that I have great fondness for. That said, none are exactly the same as anyplace real. I do borrow details though: A few weeks ago, I realized that there’s a broken trumpet nailed (yes, nailed) to the ceiling of a small rock club near me. That’s going to show up at one of Theda’s clubs, for sure!

CL: The kitten in Mew is for Murder shares its name with your own cat: Musetta. Are their personalities alike?      

CS: Very much so! She’s the most direct-from-life part of my mysteries. However, she has yet to solve a crime. She could, she just hasn’t chosen  to yet.

CL: I don’t typically seek out books with cats or dogs on the cover --- many of them are just too cute, even for a cozy reader. Yet, Mew is for Murder didn’t cross that line. Was that a conscious decision?        

CS: Yes, and thank you for noticing. I love cats, and assume my readers will too (or else why would they pick up a book with this title?). But I don’t much like books where the cats don’t act like cats. I figure, we love them as they are, right? So let them be themselves. Real cats are adorable, but they’re not cutesy. Sometimes they want to be left alone, sometimes they get a little “bitey,” as we say in my house. And their real behavior is so interesting -- and can be used in a mystery -- so why mess with a good thing?

 CL: In Mew is for Murder, Theda Krakow made some very insightful comments on writing. Here’s one: “To really make it as a journalist – especially if you wanted to survive as a freelancer – you had to get more than just what your story required.  You needed to have background, to understand what was going on, even if only a fraction of your research appeared in print.” It seems to me, it’s the same in your fiction. Do you agree? 

CS: I do, and although I can’t claim to succeed, that’s what I try to do. I’m learning that this is very true for fictional characters: that even if a character has just a walk-on role, it helps if you can visualize her fully. Where is she from? What does she do for fun, and what does she do because she thinks her boyfriend will think its cool? It’s certainly true for the factual stuff: You have to know, for example, what the cops will do in a certain situation, otherwise your story won’t ring true. The temptation, once you’ve done research, is to dump it all on your reader. So the challenge is to find everything out -- about your characters, about their situations, about the environment around them -- but then only write in the bits that help the book. I’m very much still learning!!

 CL: What new adventures do you plan for Theda in future books?

CS: Well, in the second book, Cattery Row Theda gets involved with the show world of pedigree cats. I had been reading about the issues around breeding -- specifically, about the differences between responsible breeders and people who run “kitten mills,” and I thought that would be a good backdrop. Also, not many people get to go to cat shows or learn about pedigree cats, and I liked the idea that I could show that.  Some of these cats are worth so much money that I knew I had a good motive for a crime! I like the idea of focusing on a different animal-lovers issue in each book. I’m already starting work on a third mystery, and that is going to have someone who works with feral cats in it.

 CL: Who are your favorite authors?

CS: Wow - can I cheat and say “Whoever I’m reading now?” Among other cozy authors, I just adore Elizabeth Peters, Alexander McCall Smith, and Nancy Atherton. If I could write half as well as any of these three, I’d call myself a success. But I also read a lot of historicals, so I’d also count Anne Perry and Robert Wilson. And then there are the spy-thriller types, particularly John Le Carré, John Lawton, and Alan Furst. I also read a lot of straight fiction and am addicted to Hilary Mantel (“Beyond Black,” her latest, has a mystery in it), Sarah Waters, and Philippa Gregory. I spend a lot of time browsing in bookstores and often just pick something up on a whim and whoever wrote that book is my new favorite.

 CL: Which writers have most influenced your work?

CS: Probably the writers I read as a child -- C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkein, Pearl Buck. But I’ve become a much more conscious reader of mysteries: How does Elizabeth Peters work humor into her Amelia Peabody books? How much physical description does Sarah Waters use when you first meet a character? How do other authors use dialogue? So I read more for research now!

 CL: What are you reading now?

CS: I’m now reading John Lawton’s A Little White Death. He has a series that follows a British policeman from World War II up to, in this book, the ‘60s. His plots encompass social issues of the time, real “window on the world” type stories, and his writing is lyrical and often really funny, too.