Nothing To Do But Read by Poppy Gee

You get to go on a trip of a lifetime. What books do you bring along?

I've just come back from a trip of a lifetime so I can answer this question honestly. I took three books - Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray by Anita Heiss because I was halfway through and finished it on the plane, Don't Ask The Trees for Their Names edited by Oula Ghannoum which I had read but wanted to review in my free time, and a slim volume of poetry called The Rot by Evelyn Araluen because its light and fitted in my bag. I like poetry because you can dip in and out of it. We were catching trains between European cities, sleeping in tiny apartments above cobblestone streets, and cramming every day with museums, cafes, markets, architecture and galleries. In the end, I actually did more writing than reading. 

I wrote about some of those books in my last blog. So I'm going to interpret this question as 'you're locked in a stone tower in a remote forest for a week with nothing but books. What do you take?'  

A favourite author whose new book I haven't read:

Fox by Joyce Carol Oates

I think JCO is a macabrely seductive and deliciously dark writer. This new one is about a charming mercurial teacher who disappears from an elite New Jersey boarding school. Victim v predator, revenge v restitution, crime v complicity. Sounds fabulous.

An intriguing author I only just heard about:

Carved in Blood by Michael Bennett 

The New Zealand (Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāti Whakaue) author and filmmaker's latest book, Carved In Blood, is about retired Māori investigator Hana Westerman. I heard of Michael Bennett recently because he's coming to Australia for the Sydney Writer's Festival. 

Set in the depths of the New Zealand winter comes the rising of Matariki – a sacred constellation in Māori culture. But this Matariki brings unwelcome change when a shooting sends Hana on a dark and suspenseful journey. 

That premise has me hooked. 

A 'comfort read' / the book I've read the most times:

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

This was published in 2005. I remember seeing it on the bookshop counter at Mary Ryan's Bookstore on Park Road. It looked pink and pretty, it was set in a boarding school, and I read it three times in a row, then once every year for about ten years. I don't know why I kept reading this book. It was a comfort read, but I was endlessly fascinated by the characters. It's about a middleclass white person who feels like a fish out of water at her elite boarding school. The characterisation is strong, the people feel real, and they're odd, too. The protagonist is uncomfortably relatable in her weird awkwardness. I haven't read it for a few years now. But I might like to.

The book I DNF fifteen years ago and feel bad about not finishing:

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

I love history and this story imagines a particularly interesting time. It's about Thomas Cromwell and his machinations in the Tudor court of King Henry VIII. Cromwell was a lowly blacksmith's son who rose in the king's favour and became powerful enough to work out how to make the king the head of the church in England (instead of the Pope). In my remote tower, with nothing to distract, I would persevere with this book. Everyone I know who loves literature, loves this book.

An intriguing new release

The Bookshop of Buried Pasts by Sarah Clutton

Set in an antiquarian bookshop in the Southern Highlands (a charming farming hinterland of heritage villages, boutique wineries and stunning waterfalls) this story is about an abandoned boy and the woman who never forgets him. I'll be interviewing Sarah at Avid Reader next month so it's top of my reading pile. Early readers are describing it as an enchanting story about secrets, love, loss and relationships. 

Two Complete Workses of Shakespeare, by Catriona

You get to go on a trip of a lifetime. What books do you pack?

I know this is just one - the wee sonnets are holding it open

I've been in training to answer this question my whole life. When I was very small, younger than five, I packed to run away from home and go to live round the corner with my Godmother. She never made me go to school. (We visited on Sundays.) She never made me have a bath. (We visited in the daytime.) She never cooked liver. (She couldn't cook so we filled up on Cadbury's chocolate mini-rolls.) Anyway. What I loaded into my little bag was my slippers . . . and the rest was all books.

I never went through with this plan, by the way. My mum pointed out that if I left it was for keeps and I reconsidered.

But, since then, every trip has had a lot of book planning associated with it. And besides that I've been listening to Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 every Sunday for about half the time it's been broadcast. (It started in 1942.)

You get eight tracks to take to the desert island where you're washed up and they give you the Bible (or Quran or Torah . . .) and the Complete Works of Shakespeare. Then you get to choose one more book. I'd choose another Complete Works of Shakespeare, in a little-studied foreign tongue. Then, using both, I'd try to write a grammar for the obscure language. By the time I was rescued, I'd be the world expert. 

For trips rather than shipwrecks, I've got a different formula. Every beach trip and every Christmas I curate a pile of reading that always goes pretty much the same way:

1. Stephen King

It's not easy but even though I buy the new Stephen King on publication day, I always keep it for the next seasonal shut-down or summer break or coast-to-coast road trip. I love him. I love that they're all so long. I love how he doesn't ahem go to town on the endings. I love every tic and quirk and unspeakable psychological deficit he rains down on his characters.

 

2.  Poetry

One slim volume of poetry (cannot stand collected works (and as for themed anthologies?)) is perfect for a trip. I can reread the twenty or however many poems, until they are forever associated with the place I'm staying, so that picking the book up years later will take me back there.

All the fat ones were presents

3. Some food-related non-fiction 

Or as we call it in my house "Kitchen FRM". This stems from moving to the country in 1996 and no longer being able to have a daily newspaper delivered, in a time before the internet was worth much. One day, Neil tossed a novel onto the brekafast table and said, "Stories are the stuff of livingrooms and bedrooms.You need factual reading matter, for the kitchen." I've been seeking out not-quite-cookbooks ever since. Not quite = there might be some recipes but there's a lot of life and food philosopy in there too. I rarely use recipes when I cook but I adore reading about food. It's even better on a trip when all you have to do is choose from a menu every day and someone brings delciousness to you.

two of the best

 

4. a childhood favourite

Just in case of woe, I always like to have an old friend with me. Who wants to be reading the latest NYT bestseller when you're in hospital, or you've been kidnapped, or it's hour eleven of a flight delay, or . . . None of these things had ever happened but if they did, I'd be all set. Enid Blyton's The Treasure Seekers, Noel Streatfield's Ballet Shoes, Josephine Pullein-Thompson's Prince Among Ponies, or Jean Estoril's Drina series. Sometimes nothing else will do. And it's nice for them to get out and see a bit of the world, you know?

My friend Catherine grew up and ditched these.
I swooped in.

   

5. a wildcard 

Undercutting my whole argument so far is the fact that I always take an unknown and untried newbie along, and more often than not I fall in love with them. If I don't, I donate them and free up space in my suitcase for one of the books I'm inevitably going to buy while travelling.When I took N.K. Jemison's The City We Became, I didn't have high hopes. I don't really read science fiction, as a rule. What happened? I devoured it and bought the sequel. Now, she's one of my go-tos.

Although I read that love letter to NYC (and Jersey) while on the other coast, I don't particularly try to read books set wherever I'm headed. And I definitely don't do that other thing people seem to - use the summer or whatever to "finally get to grips with" something I've been planning to pretending to read for a while. My days of aspirationl book-buying are over, thank God. I won't be found on a beach with Finnegans Wake or The Life of Lord Nelson lying facedown beside me on the sand while I watch kitten videos on my phone. 

Vive les Philistines!

Cx

Pack well, Read well by Eric Beetner

 You get to go on a trip of a lifetime. What books do you bring along?

I go back and forth about whether bringing books on a vacation is a good idea or not. I really does come down to the trip. I took my daughter to Iceland in 2024 and I brought no books because I knew we would be busy doing things every day. 

If I’m going back to visit family for a holiday, I always bring a book. More downtime and more moment when you need the respite of some quiet reading time.

I relish the time trapped in a plane for reading. I so seldom get uninterrupted time like that to read and there have been times when I’ve finished an entire book on a single journey. In one instance it was a terribly frightening book, Come Closer by Sara Gran, and I was grateful to be on a plane so I wouldn’t be alone in my house feeling terrified. 

When I do bring a book with me I go for something shorter, and smaller in size overall makes for good packing. For me, that means a Hard Case Crime book from back when they released in mass-market paperback size. I have the first 70 or so HCC books, and many more that came after when they moved to a trade paperback size. Vintage novels like Say It With Bullets by Richard Powell, more contemporary novels like Kiss Her Goodbye by Allan Guthrie or the Max & Angela series by Jason Starr and Ken Bruen are favorites. I still remember being on a work trip in Florida and sitting reading my HCC copy of 361 by Donald Westlake getting a respectful upnod from a passing gentleman. We shared an unspoken moment for our mutual love of gritty crime novels and of reading in public. It’s been 15 years and I still remember that dude. 

Generally, I’ve never been a huge Mass Market PB reader. The smaller size only works for sticking in a backpack or carry-on. I like a larger book in my hands. But I also do lament the passing of the mass market size.

If you haven’t heard, the entire publishing industry decided to no longer produce the smaller size paperbacks. Once a staple of drug store spinner racks and dusty shelves of devoted readers, they had fallen out of favor in recent years and breathed their last in 2025.

Most of the vintage books I own, several hundred in number, are these smaller size pulp paperbacks, often one indelicate fold away from falling apart. These make ideal travel books for me. Titles by Lionel White, Harry Whittington, Day Keene and William Ard are among my favorites to catch up on while on a flight. The one caveat is that they make me nervous that I will tear them or otherwise lose the fragile binding and end up with a handful of loose pages. For this reason, the good folks at Stark House books are my heroes for re-releasing so many of these vintage classics. Favorites like The Red Scarf by Gil Brewer, The Long Ride by James McKimmey, Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliot Chaze, and any number of Charles Williams titles have all been with me on trips. 

A long trip is a great time to catch up on a series. I’ll pull out one of the Hap & Leonard series by Joe R. Lansdale and happily revisit the hijinks of those two. I feel no pressure to keep up to date on that series because I like have a few in reserve like a little treat for myself. 

A more controversial choice might be to dig into the pile of books I’ve gotten for free at conferences. These are books that intrigued me enough to pick them up, but they didn’t rocket to the top of my TBR list. The reason they do well on a vacation is that if I end up not liking the book, I can leave it behind. Maybe the next person at this AirBnB will like it better.

But more often than not, I start with my vintage shelf, whether an original or a re-release. If I’m going to get on a plane and be literally transported somewhere, I might as well do the same with my reading and allow myself to be taken back in time to a world very different from my own.

I have a trip across the Pacific coming up this summer where I will have a whole lot of time to read in my coach seat for 18 hours to Japan. I already bought a book specifically for that trip – Tokyo Express by Seicho Matsumoto. Leading up to that trip I may re-read my favorite Japanese novels (of which I am no expert at all) Shield Of Straw and A Dog In Water by Kauzhiro Kiuchi. 

Just know that if I see you reading poolside, by your airport gate, at an outdoor cafe or on the subway I will absolutely give you a nod and a smile. Readers need to stick together now more than ever, at home or abroad.

The Books I’d Pack for the Trip of a Lifetime

  

What books I’d bring on the trip of a lifetime?

 

It’s a charming question, though it carries the faint smell of that old parlor game: You’re stranded on a desert island. What ten books do you bring?

 

Someone always answers The Complete Shakespeare. I admire the optimism. Apparently, while the rest of us are trying to figure out how to open coconuts without losing a finger, this person plans to stage Hamlet with a cast of hermit crabs.

 

My approach is different. If I’m going to be away from civilization for a while—whether that means an island, a remote cabin, or an airport lounge during a weather delay—I want books that keep the machinery of the soul running.

 

Hope. Humor. Style. Appetite. A few sparks of beauty.

 

And maybe one or two that remind me the world is larger than whatever beach I’ve landed on.

 

First, something to keep the lights on internally.

 

I’d bring Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl’s book is one of those rare works that quietly rearranges the furniture in your mind. If a man can find purpose under the worst circumstances imaginable, then surely I can manage a little isolation and a questionable fruit diet.

 

It’s not exactly a pina-colada-on-the-beach kind of book, but it does wonders for perspective.

 

Next, humor. Mandatory equipment.

 

Here I’m packing P. G. Wodehouse, preferably a thick collection of Jeeves and Wooster stories. Bertie Wooster stumbling through upper-class disasters while Jeeves calmly restores order is one of civilization’s great achievements. If morale dips, Jeeves will fix things—even if the only thing he can fix is my mood.

 

Alongside Wodehouse I’d throw in Groucho Marx, because every library should contain at least one book written by a man who understood that a raised eyebrow is a philosophical position.

 

And perhaps George Carlin, for those moments when the coconut trees begin to resemble politicians.

 

Of course, since I write crime fiction, I’d also want Raymond Chandler along for the ride. Ideally the Modern Library edition with the Philip Marlowe novels gathered in one place like suspects in a lineup.

 

Chandler reminds you that sentences should have style. His prose doesn’t walk onto the page—it strolls in wearing a fedora and leaves with your wallet.

 

Also, Marlowe is good company. Cynical, yes, but guided by a battered moral compass. If you’re stuck somewhere bleak, that’s the sort of companion you want leaning against the palm tree.

 

Then comes poetry.

 

When you’re traveling—or stranded—poetry is perfect because it doesn’t demand long stretches of attention. You can read a page and sit with it for hours. I’d bring Pablo Neruda, perhaps a bit of Arthur Rimbaud, and definitely Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet.

 

Rilke is the literary equivalent of a wise friend who pours you a glass of wine and says, Relax. The confusion is part of the process.

 

Which is comforting advice if you’re trying to start a fire with two damp sticks and a paperback.

 

Now we arrive at a category that many desert-island lists neglect: food.

 

Even if the island cuisine is mostly coconut-forward, I’d bring M. F. K. Fisher. Fisher didn’t just write about meals; she wrote about hunger, pleasure, loneliness, love—everything that sits down at the table with us.

 

A good food writer can make you taste butter in a place where butter never existed.

 

For a slightly darker but important reminder of the wider world, I might tuck in Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America. It’s not cheerful reading, but it does remind you that history is complicated and the planet is bigger—and stranger—than whatever patch of sand you’re currently occupying.

 

Finally, I’d add a surprise guest: a book of letters from an artist or musician.

 

Filmmakers can be good company too. Someone like Howard Suber, who writes about storytelling and the visual medium with the calm authority of someone who has spent a lifetime studying the craft of light and celluloid across cultures. Which, if you’re stranded somewhere remote, suddenly becomes research.

 

The creative life, after all, is a long conversation with uncertainty.

 

And if you’re alone long enough, uncertainty starts talking back.

 

And since I’m apparently packing a slightly eccentric suitcase, I might add one more unexpected companion: Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus. Not as a cookbook—because after reading Montgomery, eating an octopus would feel wrong. They are soulful and intelligent creatures. Maybe our alien overlords.

 

Besides, if you’re living on an island long enough, it’s comforting to imagine that somewhere just offshore there’s a creature with eight arms, three hearts, and possibly better conversation than most people you’ve met.

 

So no, I wouldn’t bring The Complete Shakespeare.

 

Instead I’d bring books that nourish different parts of being human: courage, laughter, beauty, appetite, curiosity, and a little hard-boiled wisdom for when the weather turns bad.

 

You’ll want companions who can keep you happy—and occasionally laughing out loud.

Preferably loud enough to scare the hermit crabs.

The Author is Dead | Long Live the Reader by Faye Snowden

During the Left Coast Crime mystery convention in San Francisco last week, I had a fascinating conversation with Claire Johnson about her new book, For Thee, (coming, June 23, 2026). It is a fictionalized memoir of Pauline Pfeiffer’s marriage to Ernest Hemingway. Pfeiffer was a fashion journalist from a wealthy, well-respected family who wrote for Vogue and Vanity Fair. Since I already know that Claire is the award-winning author of the Fog City noir series, I wasn’t at all surprised to hear that For Thee won gold in the Florida Writers Association’s Royal Palm Literary Awards.

What did surprise me, however, were the things she told me about Hemingway. I’ve always loved his books; I’m just unfashionable enough to say that he’s still one of my favorite writers. (Don’t judge me.) How can anyone not like Ernest Hemingway’s work? The Old Man and the Sea? I love the part when Santiago asks the boy Manolin, “Sit down. Tell me about the baseball.” For some reason, that line rocked me. (Okay, fine. Didn’t rock you? That’s because you have to do the voice. It’s better with the voice.) Maybe I was so struck by the baseball reference because in the same narrative space as this simple line is an old man who catches a huge marlin only to see his prize devoured by sharks. I don’t care what you say. No one could have seen a twist like that coming.

But the cruelty Hemingway inflicted on his wives, his friends, author colleagues and acquaintances? That floored me. Claire put it this way on her website, “A devout Catholic when she meets Ernest, Pauline rejects the moral tenets of her childhood and faith for a man who ten years later will edit her out of his life with the same casual disdain as he would a badly written sentence.” I can imagine what Floyd Burns, the serial killer character in my southern gothic Killing series would say about someone like Hemingway. He’d call him a scallywag. Billy Ray, the ex-homicide detective turned proud owner of a Creole restaurant would say, “That man ain’t worth the powder it’d take to blow him to hell.” They would both be right.

 

Pfeiffer cutting Hemingway's hair.
Those scissors are sharp, right?
All she'd have to do is...never mind.

Hemingway’s behavior was new to me because I’m the type of reader who doesn’t care to know about the lives of my authors. I’ve been this way since I was a teenager. In grad school, when I read literary critic Roland Barthes’ essay, “Death of the Author”, I realized that I had found my people. Here’s Barthes’ hot take: Interpretation should never be based on the author’s intent or her biography or who she is as a person. And the ‘correct’ interpretation of the book can’t be discovered like a treasure hidden inside the author's skull.

Instead, interpretation is the purview of the reader. It’s in the reader’s hands that the work mutates into new life the author perhaps never intended. I’m not talking about one interpretation here, but the varied and many, driven by the experiences and perceptions each reader brings to the text. Once a book is published, the story enters into a conversation the author cannot control. It’s the same as I tell my kids when they try to discipline my grandkids in my house, “This is Ma’dear’s house. You have no power here.”

 

 

All of this brings me to the question of the week, Have readers ever interpreted your message differently than you expected? I can't  answer this question because I don’t read reviews, argue, even in a friendly way, with readers who interpret my books differently than I do. I do believe, however, and this is my hot take, that traces of the writer’s character seep into the text. When Claire spilled the tea on Hemingway, I was surprised. But never once did I think, “Oh, he couldn’t have done that.”  Although I love the powerful simplicity of his work, this reader detects in his books and short stories a stunning lack of empathy. 

In conclusion, Readers, go forth and read, and then tell us authors what we meant. Authors, let go. If this disturbs you, you may comfort yourself by having ice cream for dinner. Ice cream makes everything better. Don’t go as far as Umberto Eco suggests. Just the ice cream. Trust me.

Do You See What I See? From James W. Ziskin

Have readers ever interpreted your message differently than you expected? 

Of course they have. 

 

You might as well ask me if I see what others see when I look at myself in the mirror. I doubt it. I’m used to my mug. After—mumbles—years, I’ve grown accustomed to it. But strangers might not feel the same way. And while I don’t see the reflection of a suave matinee idol in an ascot gazing back at me, neither do I see Quasimodo. I’ll take that as a win.

No, I don’t expect people to share my opinions on anything I see in the mirror or in the world. And the same is true for Ellie Stone. When my first book, Styx & Stone, came out, I thought people would love my plucky, damaged, twenty-three-year-old heroine the same way I did. Despite her flaws and occasional bad decisions, I was sure readers would see her as an immensely likable and principled person, the smartest one in any room. She has great charm and wit, after all, exhibits tremendous bravery in the face of horrible, bullying men—especially when considered against the period she lives in (early 1960s)—and she truly feels empathy for the victims whose murders she investigates. She’s a small, unimposing woman with great courage, conviction, and a head of unruly hair.

And yet, to my chagrin, not everyone saw her that way. Many readers didn’t warm to her. Some found her unlikable because of her wicked sense of humor. (She once removed a hated colleague’s IBM Selectric type ball and dropped it out the fifth floor window to the street below just to see how high it would bounce.) Other readers disapproved of her “congress” with males of the species, stating that, of course, it was obvious a man had written her. Hmm. Perhaps my name on the cover of the book was the first clue… And more still expressed horror that she drank and smoked like a man. But here’s the thing: that was my intention from the start. 

Right or wrong—naively perhaps—I had set out to write a female character who challenged the tropes of the genre. I wanted readers to reflect on why it’s perfectly fine for a male protagonist to smoke, drink, and sleep around, refusing to grow up or settle down, but a woman? Heaven forfend. No woman ever slept around before the sexual revolution. Read Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex and the Single Girl (1962) if you believe that.

With time, readers—at least those who stuck around—embraced Ellie more willingly as a character they liked and cared about. Or maybe my books got a little better with each new installment. Who knows? At any rate, some readers now said they worried about her drinking or her future, just as we all might do for a loved one who struggles with addiction and suffers from bad choices. Fans wondered when Ellie might tame some of her more reckless impulses. And I believe she has. Some of them anyway.

Later, in Bombay Monsoon, I encountered similar reactions from readers. Maybe they were expecting a more traditional hero. I thought my protagonist, Danny Jacobs, was endearing in his naïveté and lack of good sense. Many readers liked him too, but others wanted something more along the lines of James Bond or Jack Reacher instead. Danny, on the other hand, trusts the wrong people and falls for the wrong girl. I wanted him to be that way. I wanted to write a character I saw as a fairly regular guy caught up in events bigger than he is. It was fun watching how he managed to get out of dangerous scrapes with his neck and principles intact. That’s how I saw him.

Of course, readers have their own ideas, their own preferences. That’s what makes a horse race, as I’m fond of saying. And yet every time I write new characters, I hope the public will love them as much as I do. I hope they’ll see the same face I see in the glass. But of course they won’t. And I’ve accepted that. I’ve had to. No choice, really. 

So I’ll soldier on, writing the kind of stories and heroes I want to read about. If readers love them, I’m thrilled and flattered. But if they don’t, well, any mirror will tell you that you can’t please all the people all the time. (By the way, I’m the guy in the mirror wearing the ascot, not the other one.)

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A beautiful thing

Have readers ever interpreted your message differently than you expected?

by Dietrich

I’m aware of readers occasionally interpreting elements of my stories in ways that I hadn’t intended—sometimes funny, sometimes thoughtful, and always as a reminder that once a book is out there, it belongs to the reader as much as to the writer. It’s all good. It means somebody’s reading my books.

One thing that’s come up is how some readers end up rooting for the lowlifes, the schemers, the outright criminals who drive much of the action in my books. I don’t set out to make them heroes, but I do aim to give them depth, flaws, motivations, and even a twisted kind of charm. When a reader cheers for the marginal who’s the worst person in the room, or feels a pang of disappointment when justice finally catches up, it’s both satisfying and a little unsettling. It shows the characters have come alive on the page in ways that go beyond simple good-vs-evil lines. It reminds me how fiction can blur those moral boundaries, pulling readers into perspectives they wouldn’t embrace in real life. In the end, if someone’s invested enough to care—whether they’re hoping the character gets away with it or secretly wants them to crash and burn—then I’ve done my job.

One memorable moment came at a reading event where two audience members ended up in a friendly but animated disagreement about tone. One found the work I was reading from dark and bordering on grim. The other defended it as empathetic and funny. I just stood and listened, realizing both were right—depending on where you enter the story. The same scenes had one reader feel the weight of the characters’ bad choices, while the other cracked up at the sheer ridiculousness of how those choices played out. I hadn’t set out to split the room, but it showed how the mix of noir grit and wry humor can land differently person-to-person.

Under an Outlaw Moon was inspired by the real-life story of Bennie and Stella Mae Dickson, a couple pulling heists in the 1930s. Some readers focused on the romance and the thrill of the outlaw life, rooting for the protagonists as events spiraled. Others zeroed in on the historical desperation, the Hoover-era pursuit, and saw it as more tragic than adventurous. I intended both—the excitement of the road and the inevitable crash. Hearing how some saw it as a doomed love story while others read it as a cautionary tale about chasing quick scores made me appreciate how personal experience shapes what jumps off the page.

With Vancouver-set books, Ride the Lightning and Triggerfish, the city’s rain-soaked, laid-back-but-edgy atmosphere is a big part of the vibe. A reader unfamiliar with the city told me she pictured the settings so vividly she felt like she’d walked those streets—only to be surprised when I mentioned that certain details were composites or inventions. One reader from Germany wrote about the translated version of The Deadbeat Club, convinced a particular dive bar in Whistler was real and wanted to know its address so they could visit on an upcoming trip to the West Coast. I had to admit it was stitched together from a few places I’d known over the years. That kind of immersion is flattering, but it also shows how readers fill in the blanks with their own imaginations, sometimes more literally than I expected.

In The Get, where the criminal schemes are elaborate and the humor leans sharper, I got feedback from a reader who latched onto a side character’s motivations in ways I hadn’t anticipated. The reader read a certain betrayal as pure self-preservation; while I meant it as pure greed. Either interpretation worked within the story. That’s the beauty, and occasional surprise, of fiction: subtext and nuance invite multiple interpretations.

The takeaway for me has been that no two readers bring the same lens. What I write with a wink might hit someone as dead serious. What I layer with irony can come across as straight commentary. While I’ve never had anyone complain about a massive misreading that derailed the core message, the variations in emphasis keep things interesting. I love hearing those kinds of comments from readers at events, in emails, or reviews. It’s nice when the conversation doesn’t end when the book does.

Message Clear or Fuzzy?

 

Terry here with our question of the week: Have readers ever interpreted your message differently than you expected? 

 For readers to interpret a “message” means I have to have an intended message. I usually have some kind of social issue at the heart of my novels. In the past that’s included corrupt or incompetent cops, treatment of veterans in the U.S., family abuse, gambling addiction, dog fighting, women’s reproductive rights, ecological carelessness, guns rights, and the desperation that comes from financial insecurity. 

I don’t always have a message to impart. It’s more an exploration of the issues and how people deal with them. But that exploration can sometimes lead readers to think I’m leaning heavily one way or another. 

For example, in my novel The Troubling Death of Maddy Benson, reproductive rights were at the heart of the novel. I went to great pains to present positions other than my own and to not make anyone the “bad guy.” And yet, I had a couple of readers who were huffy in their reviews. One said that in the novel all the people in favor of abortion were good people and those in opposition were bad people. Yet other readers praised the novel for being fair to those with differing opinions. I suppose the answer is more in the mind of the reader than in the book I wrote. 

 My novel A Reckoning in the Back Country dealt with the difficult and horrendous subject of dog fighting. I knew early in writing the series that eventually I’d have to tackle the subject because you can’t write about rural Texas and pretend illegal dog fighting doesn’t exist. I did a lot of research, and found some interesting attitudes that I didn’t expect. In particular, that some people who were engaged in what is loosely called the “sport” loved their dogs and would pull them out of a fight if they felt the dogs were being too injured. Not that it made the fighting any more palatable to me, but it was interesting. I also found that the biggest reason law enforcement shies away from pursuing legal recourse against those who participate is that dog fighting advocates don’t hesitate to kill law officers. I read about two officers who risked their lives by going undercover to investigate a dog-fighting ring. 

 These were matters that made the book more important to me. Yet I had some readers who simply refused to read the book because of the subject matter. I can’t fault anyone for not wanting to plunge into that world, but I find it interesting that readers don’t have a problem reading about pretty much any other subject concerning murder, but they draw the line at dog fighting. 

My last example is an odd one from my latest book, The Curious Poisoning of Jewel Barnes. Two things stand out. In a couple of professional reviews, the reviewers complained that there were too many characters. The idea from my point of view was to present a big family that had a lot of issues among them (based on my extended family). I thought I had done a decent job of highlighting the important characters and using the others as background. The reviewers were not happy. Except that many of my readers told me they loved reading about the extended family. When I asked if they thought there were too many characters introduced, they were puzzled and said they had no trouble keeping them straight. So. Go figure. 

But there was another aspect of this book that was either skipped over by readers, or I didn’t do a good job of presenting. I wanted to present a real and serious dilemma, in which Craddock has to decide between making sure justice is done on the one hand, and saving the lives of people who are threatened if he does so on the other. Not one reader has mentioned that pivotal moment to me. I expected it to be an important part of what readers took away. The book is published and there’s nothing to be done about it, but I’m curious why the message seems not to have resonated. 

Other than those few examples, I think most readers “get” what I’m writing. At least I hope so.

The Perfect Murder by Poppy Gee

There are a limited number of ways to kill someone. How do you keep from repeating them? Or do you not worry about that at all? 

"It's harder to kill a snake than it is a person."

That's a line from my 2013 debut novel, Bay of Fires. The guy who says it is an odd, reclusive man who lives in a remote and rundown house with his cats. I actually stole the line from an interview I saw with the brother of one of Australia's most infamous murderers, the Bangalow State Forest killer. 

I imagine the logistics of killing a person are, in fact, easier than killing a poisonous snake. The challenge is, how to get away with it. Mistakes killers often make include: Googling information relating to their plans; lying unconvincingly to police, friends and family; or simply buying a mushroom dehydrator and then throwing it out days after their family members die from poisoned mushrooms. 

A police officer told me that most murders happen inadvertently, for example, a fight that gets out of hand. He said usually murderers don't mean to kill. When a person hasn't planned to commit the crime, they leave a trail of evidence, which often includes CCTV footage or phone records. This is helpful for homicide detectives.   

It can be boring in a book though, if the murder mystery is clear cut. 

Premeditation is a luxury for a writer. You have a really good opportunity to commit the perfect crime.

I think the type of murder should reveal something about the people and the place. Agatha Christie used her knowledge of pharmacy to kill her characters in a wide range of interesting ways that were relevant and revealing to the era. Tana French leans into Irish countryside and cultural traditions to create fascinating environments for her murders. 

In my last book, Vanishing Falls, one of the murder weapons was a poisonous substance used by farmers in the area. I won't do that again. Chemistry is not my strength, and it required so much research, tweaking of the crime scene, the clues, the investigation, to make it plausible. It wasn't much fun - locking down those factual details drove me crazy. A gun would have been easier, although no one has guns in Australia except farmers, organised crime gangs and police officers. 

I have a great idea in my current WIP where a character disposes of a body. I can't reveal it yet, in case someone steals the idea before I manage to get it published. It involves a boat. That's all I'm going to say. My character has been planning the murder for months, if not years. It's the perfect murder... as long as no one sees him returning to dry land. 

Pick your Poison, by Catriona

There are a limited number of ways to kill someone. How do you keep from repeating them? Or do you not worry about that at all?

Well, I didn't worry about it. I will now. Seriously, it's not something I've ever considered, but for this blog I thought I'd review murder methods in the books I've written. I'm not goin to illustrate this post with book jackets, for obvious reasons. I went with cats.

Rachel doesn't really read crime fiction

Okay then, in joint fifth place with one entry each, there's:

• burned to death in a fire
• clumped over the head with a blunt instrument
• aspirated emesis (it's maybe murder, if you roll a drunk onto their back and leave them)
• shot 
• boiled 

She makes exceptions

In joint fourth place, turning up twice, there's:

• pushed from a height
• dismembered
• poisoned

In third place, having been used three times, quite surprisngly because it's slow and horrible, we have:

• starvation 

She hates mystery conventions

Runners up, with four outings in my oeuvre, are:

• stabbed
• drowned

What can I say? I like kitchen equipment and I come from a small island with a lot of sea. 

But I think I also like people not getting murdered, because a whopping eight times, making it the outright winner,  is:

• no murder at all!

Someone might have died but maybe no one got offed. Or maybe no one even died. Cool. Fine by me.  Although one of the books this happened in is the one my husband calls "the concept album", what a bookseller called "the one where nothin happened", of which a reviewer said "if nothing's going to happen, you should find that out sooner than p.160". (I still like it.) 

It's a miracle I ever write anything

Anyway, none of that is necessarily true because as I was writing out book titles and jotting down causes of death, another category emerged. There were eight instances of:

• can't remember

Maybe twelve people have drowned in my books (small island). Maybe there have been eleven gun deaths (not likely). Pretty sure there's ony been one boiling, but I wouldn't swear to it.

Cx