I posted this piece today on:
http//:crimewriters.blogspot.com
It's a fascinating blog penned by a lot of terrific mystery writers. Check it out. Here's my post:
I’m reading a really great mystery novel by Paul
Levine at the moment called Illegal. But what first struck me about the book,
before I ever got to the story, was the dedication:
To the
woman carrying a rucksack, clutching her child’s hand and kicking up dust as
she scrambled along a desert trail near Calexico, California.
I love that dedication because it reminds
me that sometimes an inspiration for a story is nothing more than an image you
can’t shake. The only way to make sense of it is to write about it.
My first three mysteries were set in the
FDNY where my husband is a chief. Yet ironically, the image I couldn’t shake
didn’t come from him, perhaps because I was too close to the story to see it. It
was the late 1990s. I was working as a writer for Reader’s Digest and my editor asked me to spend three or four
shifts (called “tours”) riding with the FDNY for a day-in-the-life story for
the magazine.
I got clearance to ride with a rescue
company—an elite unit that handles large fires and rescue operations throughout
the five boroughs of New York City. As the only woman in an all-male firehouse,
I got a quick education in how to “blend in:” get in and out of the bathroom
quickly (and don’t put too much faith in the latch on the door). Get
comfortable with being dirty and tired. And make sure you’re not the last one
on the rig when a run comes in.
I did four night tours—6 p.m. to 9
a.m.—over the course of two weeks and developed a reputation for being “a white
cloud.” That’s what they call a firefighter who never seems to catch a job. All
the major fires and emergencies kept happening when I wasn’t there. But this gave me a chance to get to know the men and
hear their stories.
I soon learned that one of the officers in the company had
lost his firefighter brother, a father of three, in a deadly blaze in Queens
two years earlier. On one of those long, sleepless “white cloud” tours, the
officer opened up to me about the night he was yanked from duty, informed of
his brother’s death and then asked to break the news to his brother’s wife. He
showed up at their house in the middle of the night and found the whole place
lit up like a Christmas tree.
She already
knows, he thought. Why else would all
the lights be on at 2 a.m.? And then he realized something worse: his
sister-in-law kept all the lights on every
night his brother wasn’t there.
She couldn’t bear the darkness when he was gone. And here he was,
standing on her doorstep, bringing her a lifetime of darkness.
Even though I was married to a firefighter,
I had never allowed myself to picture such a moment. But that image of the
house lit up like a Christmas tree spoke to me deeply, both as a writer and the
wife of a firefighter. I knew I had to tell that story—not directly perhaps,
but in a way that would capture the uncertainty firefighters and their families
face consciously or (in my case) unconsciously every day.
I ended up writing three mystery novels about
life and death in the FDNY. Now I’m working on a mystery series that concerns
undocumented immigrants in suburban New York. This series also began with a
moment. For several years, I had been working with immigrant outreach
organizations near my home, helping to write the real-life stories of
undocumented Latinos. During this time, I was introduced to a Guatemalan man in
his late 20s who had nearly died of dehydration on two separate border
crossings. I found myself riveted by his description of those harrowing journeys.
Machetes held to his throat. Pistols pointed at his head. Desperate moments in
the desert when he was reduced to drinking his own urine to survive.
But what really struck me were the
circumstances that led to his second border crossing. He and his kid brother
were living in suburban New York at the time. It was winter. Jobs were scarce.
A garment wholesaler offered them temporary work in New England sewing clothes.
After two weeks, with their wages in their pockets, they were ready for the
trip back to New York. To celebrate, the kid brother ordered Chinese takeout—chicken
and broccoli—to be delivered to the motel where they were staying. By the time
the food came, the brother had fallen asleep so the man went downstairs to pay
for the food. Instead of a Chinese delivery clerk, he was met by immigration
agents who arrested him, shipped him off to a detention center and eventually
deported him back to Guatemala. (His brother, by the way, slept blissfully
through the whole ordeal and never got arrested or deported).
Imagine your whole life being upended over an order of
Chinese takeout! Imagine having the courage and determination to undertake that
dangerous, brutal, near-death journey all over again. (Not to mention still
being on speaking terms with your brother afterwards.)
There are writers who could think up these
situations out of thin air. Maybe it’s because I started out as a journalist,
but my inspiration almost always comes from real people. Their stories keep me
honest. And forever indebted.
