We are back—we being me and the panel of writers CrimeReads assembled to monitor the state of the state of California crime fiction: Steph Cha (Your House Will Pay), Elizabeth Little (Pretty as a Picture), Tyler Dilts (Long Beach Homicide series), Gary Phillips (writer/editor of many crime novels and comics from Hollis PI to the Guns & Tacos series), Michael Nava (Henry Rios mysteries), and Lisa Brackmann (Go-Between). In this second installment we get into it, talking crime writing and COVID, other pandemic literature, the Four Seasons Total Landscape Center, more on police, and the threat of a California-themed tattoo.
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“COVID is still too close for me to see the narrative possibility in it.”
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Elizabeth: There were some rough times this summer, and we didn’t even have to worry about evacuation.
Tyler: Yes, Elizabeth
Steph: I stopped myself from weaving the wildfires into my book. Actually, I believe I went to Liz and said, “This is a bad idea, right?” And she said, “Yeah, this stew doesn’t need another protein.”
Lisa B: I’m so tired of our state being used as a political whipping boy for reactionaries.
Lisa L: I think a lot of people feel separate from the rest of the country. Or want to be.
Lisa B: Lisa, for sure. That’s part of what’s so complicated about the deepening divisions in this country — yes they are geographic but they are also urban/rural.
Tyler: I love that, Steph
Lisa B: Yeah.
Tyler: That needs to be my mantra
Lisa L: I love that. I say gilding the lily and have to explain it.
Elizabeth: There’s a lot of 2020 that I would have called out in an editorial letter, tbh
Gary: Well, are you all putting the pandemic in your stories?
Lisa B: YES
Lisa L: Have you developed any weird pandemic habits or obsessions?
Tyler: Yep, Gary
Lisa B: The Four Seasons Total Landscape Center??? You could not write that as fiction.
Steph: My favorite thing.
Lisa B: I will never stop laughing about that. At least the Trump administration gave us one gift.
Elizabeth: I would contribute to a Four Seasons Total Landscape Center mystery anthology in a heartbeat.
Lisa B: In answer to your question about the pandemic, yes, I plan to.
Steph: I’ve written a short story that takes place during the pandemic, but I don’t know that I could write a novel in this time period. There’s just so much going on outside, and so little room to maneuver inside.
Gary: I referenced COVID in a past tense way for a recent short story. But then did a Twilight Zone sort of short story all about a future pandemic.
Lisa: Maybe you should edit one, Elizabeth.
Lisa B: I’m going to do it After. Assuming there is an After.
Elizabeth: COVID is still too close for me to see the narrative possibility in it.
Steph: I will probably write a post-COVID novel, though, since that will be our reality.
Lisa B: Same same.
Lisa L: What will that reality be like?
Tyler: One of the few things I remember from grad school is a professor telling us that the difference between fiction and nonfiction is that fiction has to be believable.
Lisa B: The one I’m planning involves someone dislocated by the pandemic.
Lisa L: True, Tyler.
Gary Phillips: For sure post-COVID novel being written. Kind of like post Trump, the other plague.
Tyler: The protagonist of my series gets COVID.
Lisa B: I have in mind a sorta weird, not really crime fiction project that will engage with it directly, but I’m not ready to write that yet.
Gary: Tyler, that’s great.
Michael: I was wondering about what great literature has been written about pandemics and all I could think of was Katherine Anne Porter’s novella Pale Horse, Pale Rider, I think it’s called. I think it would be hard to write about the pandemic per se.
Lisa L: DH Lawrence, The Magic Mountain, The Awakening
Steph: God I just saw this report about the COVID death rates in a Texas prison. It is absolutely appalling, and I hope heads roll for it.
Elizabeth: The novel I’m writing right now is alternate history, because I need to deal with all my feelings about the current moment, but I do not have the distance to write about the specifics
Michael: Yes, Elizabeth! I’m currently working on a novel set in 1912 on the Mexican-Arizona border because the past gives me some detachment though the issues are the same.
Steph: There are so many stories in just that story.
Lisa B: Honestly, Trump needs to be prosecuted for homicide. Manslaughter? Depraved indifference.
Lisa L: There is great pandemic lit—look at TB to start.
Gary: Damn..on Tyler’s protagonist.
Elizabeth: Oh, Tyler, can you tell us more??
Lisa L: This is a time when history is getting revised.
Lisa B: That’s a super-interesting point, Lisa.
Tyler: Elizabeth, about my novel?
Elizabeth: Oh fascinating—I wonder if we’re all searching for new lenses to help us figure this out
Lisa L: I think we are going to see a lot of historical fiction.
Steph: I think it’s also a moment when existing trends will only get worse unless we DO something.
Elizabeth: I just want to know everything about it, lol, it sounds great—thinking about how COVID would impact a character’s agency, etc.
Gary: Of course if you actually had pitched any of the insane scenarios that are true about the Trump years, any editor would have told you that’s too over the top.
Lisa B: THE FOUR SEASONS TOTAL LANDSCAPE CENTER!
Lisa B: You couldn’t even do that on VEEP!
Lisa L: There are so many lenses opening up now. We are going to rewrite the 20th century by the end of this decade, which is the beginning of the 21st.
Michael: Yes, that’s true, too. We are rewriting American history to tell the stories that have been suppressed or ignored.
Lisa B: “Both unbelievable and too on the nose.”
Elizabeth: (excited for CrimeReads readers to see how I use “lol” in casual conversation)
Gary: Best news conference EVER!
Lisa B: Gary, did you see how a Furry made a VR background out of it? 🙂
Gary: Hilarious
Steph: Just imagine the impact of a huge wave of evictions in a place already dealing with enormous income inequality and rampant homelessness.
Lisa B: LA looked very apocalyptic the last time I was there.
Lisa L: And a virus, Steph.
Lisa B: Lisa, not sure if you know but I lived in LA for over 25 years, in Venice.
Michael: Absolutely Steph, the economic dislocations will have impacts for years to come.
Tyler: It’s about an investigation of police shooting in which the protagonist is trying to make a case about the cop who shot an unarmed civilian but is taken off the investigation when he contracts COVID then returns to work two months later to find everything he’d done on the case has disappeared and the guilty is going to be cleared.
Lisa L: A virus which is disproportionately affecting people who are already downtrodden, economically, politically, etc.
“We all write dystopian novels for the next 100 years until climate change wipes us out?”
Lisa B: Over the last year or so (pre-pandemic) I was really pretty shocked by seeing how homelessness seemed to have spread.
Tyler: I can’t type fast enough to keep up :slightly_smiling_face:
Michael: Tyler that sounds fantastic!
Lisa B: Wow, Tyler. Looking forward to that one.
Steph: Yea, Tyler, that’s a great premise.
Tyler: I hope I can pull it off.
Gary: Not to forget how robotics will further displace workers. Not just Amazon warehouses, but long-haul trucking.
Lisa B: I’ve published six books, all of which were explicitly political. I don’t know if this next one will be, and that’s a real departure for me.
Michael: Is there any hope? Or will we all write dystopian novels for the next 100 years until climate change wipes us out?
Lisa B: Hard to say, Michael.
Lisa L: Well, historically dystopian times birth utopian ones.
Elizabeth: Oh no Michael you have verbalized my deepest fear (except make it 50 years)
Lisa L: See: the French Revolution, and the Paris Commune.
Michael: I like that Lisa L.
Tyler: Michael, if my students are any indication, there is hope
Lisa B: Me too!
Elizabeth: Tell me more about this “hope” please
Lisa B: My agent jokes that I’m kind of psychic and asked me not to write about WW3. I told her I would write something in which communities come together and find healing.
Lisa L: If this leads to any kind of sustained social change, we will think about it very differently down the line.
Gary: I know you “kids” are too young but there used to be a comic book character called Magnus, Robot Fighter. Cat ran around in a chainmail miniskirt and go-go boots karate chopp-ng evil robots. Just saying I’d like to revive him.
Michael: Maybe it’s just in the way that in the darkest times people form community and find ways to help each through them.
Lisa B: I remember Magnus Robot Fighter, but then I too am an Old
Lisa L: That’s how NYC was post-9/11, Michael.
Gary: Ha, right on, Lisa B
Lisa B: Comics, I haz ’em
Lisa L: It wasn’t bullshit. People really were scared, and fear makes you open.
I want a chainmail miniskirt!
Lisa B: I have to say…my neighborhood here in San Diego has turned out to be a really pleasant surprise through all of this. It’s very very burb-y. Gentrified to some extent from when my folks bought their little track house. And all these neighbors expressed progressive political sentiments I wasn’t expecting, not to mention [they] created inspirational chalk art.
Michael: Also Lisa L., I have the example of living through the AIDS epidemic in LA. Amazing despair and amazing heroism.
Gary: Okay, see Magnus now exists in post Covid-22 times. We had to use more robots to keep the social distancing. Only now them robots are taking over…
Lisa L: Can’t someone write a robot thing where they stay put? Why are robots so ambitious?
Lisa B: Hah
Lisa B: “I Robot Am A Slacker”
Lisa L: This song goes out to all the lazy robots…
Gary: Ha
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“I’m gonna get a damn golden poppy tattooed on my forearm.”
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Lisa L: We should wrap up soon. Final thoughts?
Lisa B: I want to do something on a smaller scale that’s about personal/community healing. Plus I want to test my psychic powers and hope that’s the future.
Gary: Sounds right, Lisa.
Elizabeth: I found out on social media today that a friend of mine in LA had moved to Virginia—and she mentioned in a comment that there’s a whole LA exodus. I guess I’m wondering if anyone here is feeling like they want to be anywhere but this messed up, beautiful place?
Lisa B: I’m likely moving up to Humboldt, but I’m not leaving California.
Michael: I can’t imagine living anywhere than here.
Lisa B: Same. I’m flexible as to where but…
Lisa L: No, you are going to the other California, Lisa B
Elizabeth: Humboldt sounds perfect for you, Lisa
Lisa B: My sister moved there.
Tyler: My wife and I were considering leaving the states before the election
Gary: L.A., ride or die…
Lisa L: I love your Humboldt book, Lisa.
Lisa B: And I think I am at a point where I wouldn’t mind downshifting and being around nature more.
Lisa B: Thank you!
Steph: I can’t wait to get back to L.A. I fantasize about seeing people and places I could see in five minutes under normal circumstances.
Lisa B: I love San Diego though. I love being on the border.
Lisa L: Having already moved I hope to feel more at home [in Canada]. I feel very New York a lot of the time.
Steph: One thought I had during the election when people were talking about moving to Canada…I feel a little like I’m already in Canada.
Michael: Cali has mythical dimensions you don’t find in many other places. Like in LA you’re both in the real, physical city and the city of movie images.
Lisa B: Steph, where are you?
Lisa Levy: Is everything in French also? That’s Canada.
Lisa B: YES, Michael!
Steph: California is never going to have an abortion ban, we’re always going to be more progressive than the rest of the country.
Lisa B: I feel like the whole state is my home.
Tyler: True, Michael
Lisa B: I feel somewhat protected here for those reasons. Healthcare.
Elizabeth: I’m a Canadian citizen, so going there is always theoretically on the table—and I had a whole panic this summer when a bunch of Canadian friends relocated, and I thought I was being stubborn or resistant or naive by staying
Steph: I’m in L.A., I just mean I miss the city outside my house.
Lisa B: OH! Yes.
Gary: For sure what Michael said about Cali.
Tyler: I’m worried that I don’t miss the city outside my house enough
Lisa B: I’ve traveled all over the world, and this is my home.
Lisa L: I envy you that, Lisa.
Steph: When Trump won in 2016, our whole law school group in L.A. toasted to states’ rights.
Lisa B: I’m gonna get a damn golden poppy tattooed on my forearm.
Steph: I am more concerned about the rest of the country than I am for myself or my loved ones in CA.
Lisa B: Same.
Michael: The California Bear Republic lives!
Lisa B: We have so many huge problems here. The difference is, I feel like there’s still some willingness and desire to fix them.
Lisa L: Oh, this is great. Let’s go out on a triumphant note!
Elizabeth: Oh, then I will not add my bummer of a climate change comment
Gary: Hey, the Million MAGA march is happening so yeah, we are one big divided country.
Steph: Haha
Elizabeth: Keeping it Positive, with Liz Little!
Lisa B: 🙂 And we’ve got plenty o’ MAGAs here too. But at least they are outnumbered.
Michael: (if not outgunned)
Lisa B: Oh my gosh I miss all of you!!!!
Steph: And feel censored and bullied lol
Lisa B: Yeah! Snowflakes 🙂
Lisa L: Thank you all for coming.
Gary Phillips: Silas my grandson has a toe injury for me to tend to. This always means a band-aid even if one is not called for.
Michael: What a pleasure! Thank you!
Lisa L: I smell a metaphor, Gary…
Gary: Thanks for having us, Lisa.
Lisa Br: Really wonderful chatting with you all!
Elizabeth: Thank you so much for having us!
Tyler: The one MAGA house in our neighborhood was the preferred pooping ground for every dog walker with a three-block radius.
Lisa B: LOLLLLLLLLL
Steph: Aw feel better, Silas!
Tyler: Yes, thank you!
Elizabeth: Hope Silas’s toe heals up fast!
Lisa B: The inspirational chalk art teens wrote “Trump is stupid and so is your sign” in front of one of the few places with a trump flag. 🙂
Tyler: I love the chalk art!
Lisa B: I have all kinds of photos of it.
Gary Phillips: Thanks, everyone. See y’all son if only via the cyberways.
Lisa B: See you all soon for real SOON I HOPE!!!!!!
Steph: Nice talking to you all!
Elizabeth: Stay safe, everyone—and keep writing your amazing books, I want to read them all.
Lisa B: Seconded!
Lisa L: Well said, Liz.
Tyler: Thanks everyone!
Lisa L: This has been great.
Lisa B: Awesome—thanks so much, Lisa!
