Dot Dead Diary

Crying Over What Happened 40 Years Ago

I was driving to a school meeting tonight listening to Fresh Air on NPR.  Speakers on the show were reminiscing about Bobby Kennedy who was killed on June 5, 1968.  His son Max told the story of how in April of that year, his father went into the poorest area of Indianapolis and broke the news of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.  The police had refused to follow him.  He stood up and spoke with no notes.  In over a hundred cities across the country, riots broke out that night.  Not in Indianapolis.  Take a look and see why they didn't and what we lost those four decades ago.

Two Interviews That Get You Thinking

I read two articles this week that made me think some about this writing biz.

Lee Child is interviewed in The (London) Times.  Unlike most author interviews, this one seems to focus on material matters, and I am happy to report that Lee, whom I met at Bouchercon in 2006, seems to be doing okay with his Jack Reacher series.  Well, "okay," if two apartments on Manhattan and two near St. Tropez along with such trinkets as a Faberge watch and a Jag allow one to reach the okay benchmark.  So success and wealth have prompted to Lee to turn philosophical.  He says:

"When you have plenty it is really liberating but you reach a point where you realise, 'Wow. I can have anything I want.' This just prompts the question, 'Well, what is it that you want?' and I have found that actually I don’t want very much."

Easy for him to say. 

In an interview in our Times (the New York one, I mean) this week, Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, known as Professor Happiness, says:

"We know that the best predictor of human happiness is human relationships and the amount of time that people spend with family and friends.

"We know that it’s significantly more important than money and somewhat more important than health. That’s what the data shows. The interesting thing is that people will sacrifice social relationships to get other things that won’t make them as happy — money."

Writing is, of course, a solitary pursuit.  Does that mean that we writers all have a tendency for melancholia?  We all know how important friends and family are.  But maybe the social relationships with fellow scriveners we foster at conferences, writing groups, in drinking establishments, and on Facebook help keep us sane and make us a little happier, too.

Dream Job

Newsweek reports that London's new Andaz Liverpool Street Hotel has hired a reader-in-residence.  He's journalist Damian Barr of The Times, who recently had a manicure with Paris Hilton's mom.  What does a reader-in-residence do?  He recommends books, joins guests for meals to discuss books, and is even available for in-room reading sessions.

Hey, what about me?   I love reading.  I get great satisfaction out of someone enjoying a book I've recommended. 

I live only a few blocks from a Four Seasons Hotel.  I might check with the hotel manager and see if a job posting is imminent.

Feds Target Writers Who Use Performance-Enhancing Drugs

Passing along a story from the front page of today's Palo Alto Times.

Justice Department Sniffs Out Performance-Enhancing Drugs in Writing Industry

Palo Alto – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Midpeninsula District of California today announced that it is launching an investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) by well-known authors around the country.

“We have convened a grand jury that is taking in camera testimony from authors, editors, and agents,” said Hamilton Wiener, U.S. Attorney. “It appears that some authors have been resorting to PEDs which give them an unfair advantage over their colleagues who play by the rules.”

According to grand jury transcripts obtained by The Palo Alto Times, many authors, especially of mysteries and thrillers, do their writing under the influence of a pharmacopeia of stimulants, opiates, and such. Moreover, Times sources expect a perjury indictment this week of one prolific author who has set sales records for his books and denied using any PED while writing them.

“We’ve got this guy, whose latest book was about to be named an Oprah’s Book Club choice, dead to rights,” boasted Michael Jovert of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General. “He relaxes at night by smoking marijuana according to his mistress. He denies it but she has phone tapes. He’s going down. Oprah’s so grateful that we saved her from the embarrassment.”

"The results of this investigation show our commitment to protect the integrity of America’s reading pastime from deceptive and fraudulent practices," said Inspector Jovert. "We have an obligation to pursue and bring to justice those who prey on vulnerable readers and place profits before public health.”

Bud Taper, commissioner of the Major League of Writers (MLW), said that PED use is unfair to those authors who have been writing while “clean.” He promises to rule shortly on requests to strike the books of an authors found using PEDs from bestseller lists. With the focus of the investigation on crime fiction, such lists may be drastically altered. The New York Times list of the top 15 hardcover fiction books for the week of April 6 contains nine instances of crime fiction.

Industry observers are wondering if Taper will lend his presence to the Edgar® Awards ceremony, crime fiction’s “Oscars,” on May 1.

“He can’t win either way,” said 2007 Edgar Award nominee Cornelia Read. “If he does show, it will look like he doesn’t care which of the nominees have been smoking dope or whatever. If he doesn’t, it will be disrespecting the game of crime fiction.”

In addition to its grand jury investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice is asking for reciprocity from its English counterparts. The Times has learned that descendants of Thomas de Quincey, author of Confessions of an English Opium Eater, will be asked to forfeit the royalties the book has earned over the last century and a half.

Comments from writers have been mixed.

Jeff Shelby, the best-selling mystery author, said, “Late at night, I’ve seen my colleagues take amphetamines to stay up and hit their deadlines. It’s not fair to those of us who scrupulously follow the law and still write great mysteries. I’m sure Wicked Break would have hit the top spot on the Denver bestseller list if only my fellow writers had played fair.”

Author of the hot new mystery Thugs and Kisses, Sue Ann Jaffarian, said, “Dude. I live in LaLa Land, where we do what it takes to get the muse up off her lazy ass. Sometimes that means more than sugar and chocolate. Readers benefit. Where's the harm?”

Keith Raffel, the Silicon Valley mystery and thriller writer, has concerns about the investigation turning into a witch-hunt. “I have been questioned by the grand jury,” he told The Times in an exclusive interview. “What I don’t understand is if only illegal PEDs are being looked at or if any foreign substance that enhances your writing is taboo.”

Raffel estimates that he drinks up to 15 cups of green tea each day he writes. “If that’s outlawed, I’ll be driven back to the software industry where the rules are far laxer.”

Closed Borders?

Yes, we writers love independent bookstores.  I myself have sold a ton of books at the independent bookstores listed below in the right hand column of this blog, but I also have done signings at Borders and Barnes & Noble.  A manager at the Borders in downtown Palo Alto was impressed with how many Dot Deads they were selling and sent an email to the managers of all the Bay Area Borders stories.  Thanks to him, I did about ten signings of up to 70 books a session at local Borders stores.

So, what's my point?  No matter how much we love the independents, it cannot be good news that Borders is in financial trouble.  Its stock is down 75% in the last year.  A story in the Times this morning cites competition from Wal-Mart and Amazon.com as a reason for Borders' difficulties.  The company took out an emergency loan at 12.5% interest to avoid "liquidity problems."

According to the news stories, Barnes & Noble, the country's largest bookseller, is the obvious candidate to take Borders over.  Such a merger/takeover would mean less competition and shuttering hundreds of bookstores, a scary prospect indeed to anyone who wants to sell lots of their books and to anyone who wants to buy them.

American Idol: Presidential Edition

The TV writers have been on strike, but I haven't missed them.  That's because the most compelling reality show ever is playing itself out in a long-running series.  It's called "Presidential Primaries" where in American elections an African-American has pulled ahead of a crown princess and a war hero has risen from the dead to beat the rich, famous, and evangelistic. 

When I was a boy, I read Convention by Knebel and Bailey and The 480 by Eugene Burdick, both about presidential contests.  Although I almost always prefer the written word to what I see on the screen, the current, ongoing reality show surpasses even my memories (from an impressionable age) of those two books in drama, pathos, arrogance, earnestness, and human failings. 

Several years ago, NBC used the slogan "must see TV."  Now watching CNN on primary and caucus Tuesday nights is must see for me.  I cannot wait till March 4 for the probable climax of the show.

I wonder if the sequel, called "General Election" and coming this fall, will be as compelling.

Let's Get Physical

The action in the book my agent is now shopping, Two Graves, takes place far away from the Palo Alto and Silicon Valley I know so well.  I had -- the horror, the horror -- to do research.  Thus, it was a relief to start working on a sequel to Dot Dead.

But as Robert Burns wrote in "To A Mouse," "The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, gang aft agley."  It turns out that the action in the sequel occurs not only amidst intrigue in high-tech companies, but also at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC).  Alas!  Research.  As I've mentioned before, I've been reading books on particle physics, but yesterday I took a tour of SLAC, where I'd never been even though it's about five miles from where I'm writing this posting.

When I was in high school, we learned that the nucleus of an atom is made of spheres known as neutrons and protons.  Wrong!  Quarks were discovered by three scientists at SLAC who won the Nobel Prize for their work.  A neutron or proton is made up of three quarks, of two different types, and is mostly empty space.  Few people seem to know this.  When I asked #1 if she'd learned about quarks in high school physics, she said no.  Her class focused on electromagnetism, acceleration, etc.  Newton probably could have done a fair job teaching the syllabus.

Why don't we care about the mysteries of "inner space?"  Breakthroughs are coming to explain more about what makes up the universe, but chances are slim that Americans will be the discoverers.  The world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator is about to become operational outside Geneva, not here.  The SLAC budget is being cut by 20% next year and the mission is being redefined to focus on medical uses of high energy particles.

In a time where natural selection has become debatable, we Americans seem to be moving away from pure science -- knowledge for knowledge's sake. During a 1969 colloquy, Senator John Pastore tried to get physicist Robert Rathbun Wilson to say that reason to fund physics research was for our national security.  Pastore was just looking for a hook to hang his hat on, but Wilson would not give it to him:

Pastore:  Is there anything connected with the hopes of this accelerator that in any way involves the security  of the country?

Robert Wilson: No sir, I don’t believe so.

Pastore: Nothing at all?

Wilson: Nothing at all.

Pastore: It has no value in that respect?

Wilson: It has only to do with the respect with which we regard one another, the dignity of men, our love of culture. It has to do with are we good painters, good sculptors, great poets? I mean all the things we really venerate in our country and are patriotic about. It has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to make it worth defending

During my tour, I stood in the hills above Stanford in the exact spot where a murky view of what makes up our universe came into clearer focus.  I stood at one end of a room that was two miles long. (See picture above).  I got chills.  There are only two tours left of SLAC.  (Sign up here.)  Budget cuts are ending them even though our wonderful and passionate tour guide has offered to give them for free.  Sigh.

Breakfast with Barack

This morning I had breakfast with Barack Obama.  I'd met him last June and came away with a favorable impression-- enough to want to hear him again.  Today, in speaking to me and a couple hundred others, the Senator was inspirational, insightful, optimistic, funny, and approachable.  He'd been good in June, but he was great today.  He dazzled me.

I don't use the term "dazzled" lightly.  I spent four years on Capitol Hill and have worked with and heard from many members of the "world's greatest deliberative body."  I haven't ever been present where a politician spoke better.

What I care most about in a president is not what he or she will do to make my life easier or better.  What I want is a president who will help make this country the best possible inheritance for my children. The Senator spoke eloquently about how to fix our "disease care system," to achieve better education for the young, and how to make the United States stand for the right thing in the world.  My wife, too, was impressed.  "There's so much more there than you hear in sound bites on TV," said she.

In the breakfast crowd were a fair number of venture capitalists, my brother among them.  The Senator asked for our support in terms familiar to those VC's.  Supporting him, he said, was a moderate risk investment with a very large potential payoff.  Exactly.

Terrible Reality

I write mysteries and thrillers. When writing them, I live in an alternative reality where deaths occur. It turns out though that alternative reality is not as real as the one I live in when not writing.

I met Benazir Bhutto in college where she kept the name Benazir to herself and introduced herself as “Pinkie.” One night at a bull session in my dorm room, she and I had a screaming match over what should be done in the Arab-Israel conflict. One of her friends ran from the room crying because she could not handle our disagreement. For me politics discussed at high volume was situation normal. Evidently for Pinkie, too, and our argument made no difference to our casual friendship. Someone told me that newspapers in Pakistan opposed to her ex-foreign minister father alleged that his daughter was hanging out with Jews and left-wingers. Maybe so. I myself did not spend a lot of time with her, but I did fit both categories.

Pinkie and I overlapped at Oxford, too. I remember going by her room at Lady Margaret Hall, which in those days was women-only. She seemed overly appreciative of the visit and insisted I take an oversized tea tin – which I still have somewhere – as a gift.

I did not see Pinkie after Oxford, but when she was assassinated two days after Christmas, I felt it. My college friend had been murdered. Bullets had torn through her. That's reality and it is terrible.             

               

Pinkie as an undergrad.

Cross-posted at the Inkspot blog.

Fiction from a Real-Life M

Way back when, I was counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee.  I drew on my four years in D.C. dealing with terrorism, ambition, and the White House while writing the manuscript of Two Graves.  So when I recently came across At Risk, the 2004 thriller by Stella Rimington, the former head of Britain's MI5 (that's the job M had in the James Bond books), I couldn't resist seeing what she could spin out of her 27-year career.  I was rooting for her as someone who was publishing her first novel at age 59, but I had no great expectations.  Surprise.  It's riveting -- at least so long as she sticks to the main story of tracking down two would-be terrorists and not the clichéd details of the hero's home and love life.  I read it in an evening (the first one of the year) and stayed up past midnight to finish.  Bravo.  Dame Stella has written two more thrillers which I'll check out.