Sara Paretsky and Me

I met Sara at either the first Edgars Awards Banquet I attended, in New York City or maybe it was the first Bouchercon I attended in San Diego. Anyway, it was way back in the 1900s sometime. I'd read her first two or three V.I. Warshawski books and since I was trying to write a female private eye novel I was thrilled to meet Sara in person. I probably said something like "I'm so thrilled to meet you, will you autograph my copy of your book?" Except it most likely sounded like "gluoompargoondetoosly."

I am a very out-going person, easily speaking to a stranger or standing up to speak to a crowd, full of known or unknowns but as an aspiring writer with a couple of barely published short stories to my name, I was suddenly tongue-tied. Yet, somehow she forgave me. Perhaps I did manage to say I owned a mystery bookstore in Austin, Texas, so maybe the gobbety-goop,the oh so flustered me, had blurted out, was normal when I mentioned the store.

Sara's V.I.Warshawski was the kind of female PI, that I was trying to write. Smart, tough but with a touch of smartassery and maybe a bit of the romantic thrown in.

I also admired Sara for helping to push women mystery writers forward in the world by founding Sisters In Crime. The first organization to call out the genre's lack of reviews of women's mysteries in major magazines & newspapers. Helping show publishers that women wrote strong best selling, enjoyable books, most as good, if not better than some males. And pushing for women to get paid in line with male mystery writing contemporaries. This was in the 1990s, you understand.

I've learned through the years of our friendship of her wonderful 48 years of marriage to Courtenay Wright. He was a  Canadian born man with an intriguing life as a physicist and professor at the University of Chicago. The two personalities meshed into one special couple (united as only true love can be.)

Sara came from hardy Jewish ancestors who barely got out Europe ahead of Hitler. Her family eventually landed in Kansas in farm country although her father was a scientist, not a farmer, and her mother was a librarian.  She was the only girl with four brothers and learned quickly that women's voices or opinions didn't count

Sara's first V.I. Warshawski novel, INDEMNITY ONLY, was published in 1982. V.I. always manages to be involved in current social issues which endears her to many female readers who might not otherwise read mysteries.

I always loved that V.I. would fight anyone, male or female in order to save herself or her downstairs neighbor Mr Contreras or the two golden retrievers Mitch and Peppy, who live with her or stay wih Mr. Contreras when she's on a job. Definitely for someone who's hired her services because she's one tough woman Private Eye.

She's also has a funny bone which shows up in each book without fail. However a posting on FB in 2020  really cracked me up.

Sara posted this:

 A few days ago, Alafair Burke raised a question on Twitter about whether knowing a writer has lied on her (his? their?) bio should affect your view of their work. I don't know the answer to that - there are writers whose horrible personality flaws affect my view of their work and maybe that's not fair.

However, as I thought over Alafair's question, I suddenly remembered my mother's obituary. Three weeks before she died in 1998, she asked me to write it for her. She had a funny bone, and also dreams of glory, so I wrote one for her that celebrated her role as an advisor to General de Gaulle during WWII. I said she had worn not only the Order of the Garter but also the Order of the Garter Snake, that she had the Nobel Peace Prize - I can't remember the rest of it now.

One of my brothers had moved in to care for her in her last difficult months (I flew in once a month from Chicago). I typed it on his computer. When she died and he called the funeral home and they asked for an obituary, he saw the file labeled "Mother's Obituary" and sent it to them without reading it. They in turn sent it to all the newspapers in eastern Kansas (1998 - still a lot of local newspapers). The Topeka and Lawrence papers printed it as was, without any questions.

My mother came from a small town in downstate Illinois, and their local paper picked it up from the wires, since I mentioned the town - Roodhouse - by name - it was where she spent the war while my dad was overseas, and it was there that (allegedly) General de Gaulle had visited her. For months after her death, old friends from her childhood wrote, saying, "We always knew Mary Ellen was special, but we never knew how very special she was." When I got the first letter, I wrote back, trying to explain, but after that, I thought - it's making people happy to think they grew up with an unsung heroine, so I let it lie. Hmm - I don't know if that counts as lying about my bio - after all, how many people have ever had a mother who was entitled to wear the Order of the Garter Snake? Only me and my four brothers.

My friend, Sara Paretsky, has a new book coming out, titled BAD COMPANY, due on November 10th starring a new character, an ex CIA agent named Lily. An older or what may truly be called a senior lady.  Wanna bet she has a bit of the smartassery in this one? You can preorder BAD COMPANY now.

— respectfully submitted by Jan Grape