Rick Geary: Class Act.

Last week during our Book Menage I took the liberty of sending a few of our questions to Rick Geary, and what you see below are those questions and Mr. Geary's answers. I would like to thank him for responding to our questions so openly and promptly! I also promised to provide links to his web site and to several of his books, which are listed at the bottom of this post.

Question: Is there an actual "memoir" on which your  book is based? Is it possible for regular readers to access that document in any way?

RG: The "memoir" does not exist, but is merely a fictional framework for presenting the material (as one of your readers suggested*).  I used this method previously in my volume about Jack the Ripper, which is told in the form of a journal by an unnamed English gentleman.  My desire was to make the story more personal and immediate, but my publisher informed me that the approach presented a problem in bookstore placement by falling into a crack between fiction and non- fiction.  The subsequent books in the series have been told from a more objective journalistic point-of-view.

Question: You may not want to give an opinion, but after all your research, do you have a feel for whether or not Lizzie Borden was guilty or not guilty of these crimes?

RG: In treating unsolved cases, or those with a bit of mystery still surrounding them, I'm careful not to offer any personal speculation, but try to give equal weight to all the theories in circulation, no matter how crackpot.  As for Lizzie, all I'll say is that the dynamics within the family certainly point to her having done it, although from a legal standpoint, there is no direct evidence against her.  For me it remains a tantalizing mystery, and I'm happy with that.

So there you have it. Thanks again to Rick Geary! He is the author of numerous graphic novels, including Famous Players: The Mysterious Death of William Desmond Taylor, The Beast of Chicago, The Saga of the Bloody Benders, The Mystery of Mary Rogers, The Murder of Abraham Lincoln, Jack the Ripper, The Lindbergh Child, and Trotsky: A Graphic Biography (along with many others).

*Good call on that one, Jessica! I must confess it never even ocurred to me that there WAS no such memoir. I'll never understand my own personal combination of total cynicism and total gullibility.

Comments

[Care]

Thank you Rick Geary! Thank you CR! I look forward to reading many more Geary graphic novels. and love the website - I especially liked the postcard of the Victorian slug reading a book...

[Citizen Reader]

Care,
I couldn't agree more: big thanks to Rick Geary. Glad you enjoyed his website, too!

[Beth]

Haha, well, it's funny because I too tend to be super cynical and very gullible.

Thank you so much for sending Mr. Geary those questions, can't wait for tomorrow's batch from Ms. Horn :)

Thanks Rick Geary for totally rocking the casbah.

[bybee]

I became a fan of Geary's after I read Cravan, and I've been a fan ever since. He rocked my bookshelf more than once this year, and I'm hoping for more of the same in 2010.

[Citizen Reader]

Beth, Bybee,
I agree. I'd read his "Jack the Ripper" book, but that was the only one. Now I want to read the rest of his books!

[Jessica]

Rick Geary roolz! I'm definitely reading his other books.

PS Hahahahaha! I can always spot manufactured historical references! I had to wonder why I hadn't seen anything in the news about such a major find, and then why no excerpts were included in the archival supplement in the back. I agree, though, that it was a good way to introduce the story, and less predictable than presenting it as a courtroom drama or a series of newspaper headlines.

[Citizen Reader]

Jessica,
Yup, you were on top of it! Is this your superpower, spotting manufactured references? That actually could prove very handy in today's publishing environment.

I too enjoyed the "memoir," although I don't know, then, if you can really call this bad boy "nonfiction." But I've never been a big purist, so I guess I can live with it.

[Jessica]

Actually my super power is falling asleep right before a storm. I'm like a human barometer. I guess you could say I can always spot a manufactured reference if there is no change in the weather.

[Citizen Reader]

Jessica,
I'd take that as a super power. I've become such a fretter that once the winds pick up all I can think of is losing power and roof shingles coming off--and then I can't get to sleep. So good for you, human barometer!