Citizen Reader

Book Menage: Joanna Kavenna's answers, part 2.

Today I have the rest of author Joanna Kavenna's emailed answers to some of our Book Menage questions.

Question: Did you keep notes during pregnancy and right after labor, or were you just able to dredge up the details of labor (which everyone seemed to concur were accurate) from memory?

Kavenna's answer: "I have always written diaries and copious notes, so I did have lots of writing about my own experiences of labour. However, it was very important to me that Brigid's labour wasn't the same as my experiences of labour.  I didn't think I'd be able to exercise any sort of editorial judgement if I was just writing up what happened to me. Also I felt it wasn't really fair on my children, to use the stories of their birth in my fiction, without asking them if they minded. So I created Brigid's labour from an amalgam of stories friends had told me, stories I had read. Inevitably, though, I drew on my own recollections of that relentless, escalating pain, and also on what I mentioned above, that dreamlike state, the sense that what you are doing in labour is both completely commonplace, billions of women have done it, and yet utterly bizarre at the same time. And how ordinary reality becomes dreamlike." 

Question: How do you pronounce your last name? Kuh-ven-na or like "Cavanaugh"?

 

Answer: "Your first guess is the right one - Kuh-venn-a. It's a Norwegian word, anglicised."

 

Our sincere thanks to Joanna Kavenna, author of the novels The Birth of Love and Inglorious, as well as the nonfiction title The Ice Museum: In Search of the Lost Land of Thule.

Book Menage answers: Joanna Kavenna

Good morning! Does everyone still remember our book menage, where we discussed Sherwin Nuland's The Doctor's Plague and Joanna Kavenna's The Birth of Love? We raised a few questions for Ms. Kavenna, and after I emailed her with those, she was gracious enough to reply. I'll post the answer to one question today, and to the other tomorrow. And our thanks to Joanna Kavenna!

Our Question: Did you purposely contrast the "doctor's intervention" in Semmelweis's time and modern day intervention in the form of Caesarean sections, both of which result(ed) in higher mortality rates? (I think this reader had in mind that c-sections carry an increased risk of danger for the mother.)

The answer: "I was very interested in good medicine and bad medicine, or rather the idea that there are medical procedures and then flawed individuals trying to decide when to apply them. Medicine is very interesting to me because a wrong theory or wrong action can be completely devastating and even lead to the deaths of patients. My own equivocations, and those of most people, are less significant in their effects.  So in the Semmelweis, Brigid Hayes and future narratives I was looking at scientific conviction, and even at times dogmatism. The doctors in the Semmelweis narrative thought they were right, and that Semmelweis was wrong, and yet it turned out the whole thing was inverted, that he was right all along. When I was reading about the professional resistance to his theories, it amazed me that some of his colleagues refused even to contemplate the possibility that he might be right. As with the present day, there's a slender distinction between having convictions, being able to take decisions, and becoming rigid in your certainties, refusing to change. 

 

I wrote The Birth of Love after my own experiences of birth, in hospital.  Towards the end of the birth of my first child, the doctors said I might well have to have a caesarean, made me sign forms, wheeled me off to the operating theatre.  In the end, I didn't need a caesarean after all, but there was an interval when I was lying on an operating table, completely inert, my lower body paralysed by an epidural, with these doctors coming in and out, talking to each other, or sometimes to me. I was lying under a bright light in a sterile room, everyone wearing surgical gowns, myself - my body - the passive centre of it all. Even though I knew the doctors were doing their best to keep me informed, were really being highly professional and kind, there was still something very uncomfortable about the whole thing, losing control of your body, being surrounded by masked figures. It was very strange, like a bad dream.  And later, it made me think about all those women - say, in Semmelweis's hospital in Vienna, who were examined by one doctor after another, and not really told what was happening to them, just that it was 'the best thing', and how, doubtless, those poor women had submitted to it all, because they didn't want to endanger the lives of their babies. And yet, in the end, the doctors were infecting them with childbed fever, unnecessarily, because Semmelweis had already realised how it could be prevented. So much human suffering, so many mothers who died in agony as their babies cried beside them and so many children deprived of their mothers, and all because of a few rigid-minded individuals, who clung to what they regarded as the 'facts', which turned out to be wrong. 

 

I didn't want to say that all medical intervention in birth is intrinsically bad - it can often be life-saving and completely necessary. But I was very interested in that basic dilemma -  that doctors need to be able to act, without being paralysed by a sense of uncertainty, and yet certainty can become dangerous, even fatal, when it becomes dogmatic and unyielding." 

 

Tune in tomorrow for another answer from Joanna Kavenna!

Book Menage Day 5: The wrap-up.

Well, I can't begin to tell you all how much I enjoyed this Menage. I'm going to wait a week and then re-read all the comments; there was so much good stuff here it's almost hard to take in over the space of just five days.

No questions from me today. But if there's anything else you'd like to discuss about Sherwin Nuland's The Doctors' Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis or Joanna Kavenna's The Birth of Love, please feel free to do so in the comments. Any last thoughts you have on either book or the experience of reading both books together are also welcome.

Although, I lied. I do have just a couple more questions. Did you like the fiction/nonfiction Menage or should we go back to two nonfiction titles? Any suggestions for next time?

Thanks, all, and have a wonderful holiday weekend.

Book Menage Day 4: Questions, questions.

And welcome back to our Menage discussion of Sherwin Nuland's NF title The Doctors' Plague and Joanna Kavenna's novel The Birth of Love! I have so, SO enjoyed this discussion so far; in fact, after I write this I have to dive back in to the comments of previous days and make sure I'm catching everything. What a great time--thank you all for participating.

I didn't have much planned for today other than to leave it open for others' questions. Here's the two, both about The Birth of Love, that people have asked:

1. What WAS the switching of the ultimate birth gender in the scifi part trying to suggest?

This question was asked in the comments yesterday, and now I have to go back and re-read TBOL to see if I missed that. This question is from Care--thanks, Care!--but I'm a bit confused. Care, could you tell me where the gender changed? (If you don't have the book anymore, no worries.)

2. The details of the birthing in TBOL seem pretty accurate--do you think the author has given birth? Did she keep journals about the experience, or does she just have a great memory?

If you've got any other questions, don't hesitate to ask--we can discuss any and all questions in addition to these! Thanks again for all the great comments. Have a good Thursday, all.

Book Menage Day 3: The Birth of Love

And welcome to Day 3 of our Menage, in which we'll discuss Joanna Kavenna's 2010 novel The Birth of Love.

Again, in case you haven't read it, I can provide a quick synopsis. Kavenna tells four interrelated stories of childbirth, medicine, and personal choices: that of nineteenth-century doctor Ignasz Semmelweis and his sojourn in a mental asylum; that of a modern-day author publishing a novel about Semmelweis; that of a modern-day woman laboring to give birth to her second child; and that of a woman being questioned for her role in helping a laboring mother escape the oppression of the dystopian society of the year 2153.

These are the main questions I've got for you on this one:

1. Which part of the narrative did you find most interesting, and why?

2. Where did the section headings of "The Moon," "The Empress," "The Hermit," and "The Tower" come from, or what do they mean?

3. There's already been some talk about the title of this one. Do you think it was a good title? If not, what would you have titled it instead?

As always, please feel free to ask your own questions in the comments; if there are any we can cover them tomorrow.

Book Menage Day 2: The Doctors' Plague

Welcome to Day 2 of our Book Menage! I thought today we'd discuss Sherwin Nuland's The Doctor's Plague (nonfiction first--after all, we're primarily about the NF around here), tomorrow we'd handle The Birth of Love, leave Thursday open for any questions you might want to ask of the group (leave them in the comments or send me an email with them at realstory@tds.net), and Friday we'll have a round-up. Sound like a plan?

For anyone who hasn't read it, Nuland's The Doctors' Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis is an entry in the "Great Discoveries" series published by Norton, and it relates the story of Dr. Ignac Semmelweis, a nineteenth-century Hungarian doctor. Dr. Semmelweis is best known for tackling the problem of "childbed fever," which was responsible for the death of hundreds (if not thousands) of women who went to European hospitals in the mid-1800s to give birth. The problem? Most of the doctors in such hospitals were dissecting cadavers and working with other patients with communicable infections directly before they would perform not-always-so-gentle internal exams on laboring mothers, introducing the bacteria that caused the infections that would kill them. The solution that Semmelweis found? Doctors washing their hands better (basically). The problem with Semmelweis's solution? He wouldn't do experiments to prove it, he wouldn't write down his case in article or book form, and he basically alienated everyone around him until his premature and sad end.

So what to ask? Here's the questions I had:

1. Did you enjoy this book? Did you find it interesting? Why or why not?

2. What aspect of this story (if any) did you find most intriguing?

3. Did you find Semmelweis a tragic character? Why or why not? Do you think his "difficult" nature was part of what helped him solve the initial childbed fever riddle?

4. If you had to pick one, how would you categorize this book? Biography, history, or science?

Have at, and have fun!

Book Menage: Day 1

Welcome to our first-in-a-long time Book Menage, featuring the titles The Doctors' Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis by Sherwin Nuland and The Birth of Love, by Joanna Kavenna!

I thought what we'd do is open today with a few general questions about both books, and then cover each book individually in the next few days. On Friday we'll have a wrap-up. As always, feel free to leave a question for the group in the discussion comments, and I'll happily pull those out and post them. So here we go! Thanks for participating, and enjoy the Menage!

1. Which book did you choose to read first, and why?

2. Do you think the order in which you read the books affected your experience of them?*

3. How do you think men and women would react differently to these books? Do you think men would read them, based on their subject matter?

4. Were you more interested in this subject after you read these books, or was that "more than quite enough, thank you"?

As always, feel free to answer any or all of the questions in the comments. I'll wait to participate--I don't want to skew the discussion.

*This question is from Care, who posted her reviews of each of these books last week. If you'd like to post reviews of these books, let me know in the comments or send an email to realstory@tds.net with your links and I'll include links to your reviews in Friday's post.

Sidetracked.

Sorry for the lack of posting this week; I got Anna Dean's Austen-esque mystery novel, A Gentleman of Fortune, or The Suspicions of Miss Dido Kent from the library and I've gotten sucked into that.*

We will return to regularly scheduled nonfiction posting as soon as I finish Dean's delicious little novel. In the meantime, here's a reminder that our Book Menage, wherein we will be discussing Joanna Kavenna's novel The Birth of Love and Sherwin Nuland's The Doctors' Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis, will be starting in a couple of weeks on May 23? I figure, reminders are good. I don't know about the rest of you, but lately when I blink entire days and weeks seem to disappear. Time is a wild beast that will not be tamed, I tell you.

*Although it'd be a lot more fun to read this in the winter, when I could get all cozy inside and read it while drinking hot chocolate. Reading it while springtime temperatures outside boomerang from 50 to 80 and back again, and while fearing hail from scattered thunderstorms, just isn't quite the same.

Book Menage!

Well, it's been ages. Is anyone up for another Book Menage*?

For those of you who have never joined us, our Book Menages are where we pick two books and then discuss them in the comments over the course of a week (2 books + 1 reader=Book Menage!). Everybody who participates is entered in the drawing to win the two books for the next Menage absolutely free! (You don't see this part, but my lovely assistant Mr. CR draws the winning name out of a hat. It's very glamorous.)

Because I'm feeling bossy lately, I'm going to go ahead and pick the two books; next time we'll return to doing things more democratically where we discuss and vote on which books to read. But now? The books:

The Birth of Love, a novel by Joanna Kavenna; and

The Doctors' Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis, by Sherwin Nuland.

Yes, they're both books about childbirth. This is what you get for letting the woman who had a baby a few months ago pick the books. I'll contact the winner of these two books, and what do you think we should do for schedule? Start discussing them toward the end of May, the week of May 23?

*My gosh, it's been a YEAR since we did a Book Menage. High time we got back to it!

Book Menage Day 5: The Wrap-up.

Well, and here it is Friday already. Don't you sometimes wish we could all get together after these Menages, and have some afternoon coffee and cake, and REALLY get into discussing these books? I do. I'm trying to tell myself that's what retirement's going to be like--I don't care how poor I am, when I am old I am instituting an afternoon coffee or tea and cake ritual.

But until such time as my cake or retirement dreams come true, I must say this has been a bang-up Menage. Thank you once again to everyone who participated; your comments, of course, are what make the Menages so fun. Anyone got any ideas for the next one?

Just the one question today, and it's another one you know I like to ask:

1. If you could ask these authors one question about their books, what would you ask?

If and when I get my laptop back from the laptop sleep-away camp that is the repair shop, I will try to contact these authors with some of our questions and see if we can get any replies. Until then, please think good thoughts for my poor beleagured laptop; I know it's small potatoes on the scale of problems but man, it's disruptive (and don't forget expensive) to have your computer gone.

Book Menage Day 4: All together now.

And here we are already at day 4 of what has been, if I may say so myself, a very congenial Travel Book Menage. For these last two days of the week we'll just consider a few last questions and do a brief wrap-up. And please do forgive me for not adding pictures or links (to Horwitz's Blue Latitudes or Bryson's In a Sunburned Country) to this post; that information can all be found on previous menage day postings (and I'm getting increasingly lazy as Friday approaches).

So you know at least one of the questions I have to ask:

1. Which book did you like better? Why? Did you dislike either of the books? Why?

And number 2 is related, sort of:

2. Will you read any other books by these authors?

Number 3 is a bit of a broader question, if you're feeling philosophical today.

3. What do you think is the overall "appeal" of travel books for readers?

Travel Book Menage Day 3: Exclusively Bryson.

Hi! And welcome to Day 3 of our Travel Book Menage. Yesterday we looked exclusively at the Horwitz title, so today we'll consider Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country before we consider the two together again for the rest of the week.

I must say, I really enjoyed the Bryson in a way that I didn't enjoy the Horwitz. I suspect I was just in the mood for something a little lighter while I read the two of them, and the Bryson book better fit that bill. A good reminder that, as always, mood sometimes plays a greater role in reading choice and enjoyment than we realize.

But I digress. Today's questions:

1. What was your favorite part (or region) of this book, or least favorite? Did any of Bryson's stories stand out in particular to you?

2. What do you think makes Bryson so popular as a travel writer?

3. Did you read an edition of this book with or without the appendix of Bryson's articles on the Sydney Olympics? Did you read the appendix, and what did you think about its inclusion?

As always, please feel free to pose questions of your own in the comments.

Travel Book Menage Day 2: Exclusively Horwitz.

And welcome to Day 2 of our Travel Book Menage! Yesterday started off with a bang, with great comments and discussion, so thank you for all of that.

As per usual, I thought we could take a day discussing each of these books separately. Today's book is Tony Horiwtiz's Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before. My questions are below; as always, answer as few or as many as you'd like, or feel free to ask some new questions of your own!

1. If you had to classify this book in one nonfiction "genre," what genre would you pick? Or what new genre would you make up for it?

2. Which geographic area/segment of the book did you most enjoy? Least enjoy?

and

3. Do you think Horwitz did a good job of describing the "real" Captain Cook?

Okay, have at. And thanks again for joining in--the Menage was just what I needed this week.

Travel Book Menage: Day One!

Hi, and welcome to another edition of our Book Menage--this time, a specially themed "Travel Menage"! The two books we were reading for the week, if you'll remember, are Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country and Tony Horwitz's Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before.

You know how this works. Each day I'll ask a couple of questions, and we'll discuss in the comments (you don't have to answer both questions if you don't want to; answering one is always fine). As always, don't be afraid to ask questions of your own--they can always be incorporated into the next day's discussion. Please do remember to invite your friends--everyone who participates in the comments has their names entered into a drawing to win the two books of the next Menage absolutely free!

So, for today:

1. Which of these two books did you read first, and why?

and

2. Are you less interested or more interested in Australia and/or the South Pacific than you were before you read these books?

Menage reminder.

Not much to report today, other than a reminder that our next Book Menage, in which we will read Tony Horwitz's Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before and Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country, starts next Monday, April 5. Is everyone ready? We'll discuss the two books all next week!

In other reading news I picked up Shirley Jackson's horror classic We Have Always Lived in the Castle over the weekend, and am very much looking forward to it. Thanks again to everyone who submitted horror suggestions last week--I plan to refer to that list for my horror reading for a long time to come!

Book Menage Travel Edition: It's a go!

Okay! The votes are in, and the two books for our next Menage discussion are going to be:

1. Tony Horwitz's Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going where Captain Cook Has Gone Before;

and

2. Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country.

Thanks to everyone who voted, and I'll be contacting the winner of the two books (drawn from among the participants of the last Menage) a bit later. Why don't we be optimistic and plan to start the discussion on Monday, April 5? Please do invite your friends or consider posting a link to this page on your blogs--the more the merrier!

In other news this morning I'm very excited to have my article about the Best Business Books of 2009 posted at the Library Journal BookSmack! page. (The print article will appear in the March 15 edition of Library Journal.) We had a little more fun with the list this time around--the titles at the end of the article were particularly fun to write up. Please do check it out; it was a rather lively round of business books this year. Of course, most of them were about the continuing financial crisis, and so were depressing as hell, but they were interesting.

Book Menage: Travel Edition.

First off, let me apologize for the sporadic posting this week. What with one thing and another, it's just been one of those weeks. Nothing's wrong, I'm just, for lack of a better word, dull. I'm not very exciting on the best of days, so be assured when I say dull I mean DULL. But then I thought, what better way to get un-dull than to set a new Book Menage* rolling?

After we discussed a new Menage last time, many of the comments (and thank you for those) seemed to be in favor of a Travel theme, which I thought was a great idea, since I don't read a ton of travel on my own, but I often do like what I read. So here's where I need your help once more. I think our books will be:

1. Tony Horwitz's Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before; and either

2. Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country (which is kind of related to the above, as Cook explored Australia and this book is about Australia); or

2. Bill Bryson's I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away (which I'm only listing because I kind of want to read it).

So! If you'll kindly vote in the comments for your choice between the Bryson books (voting will be open between now and Monday), I'll announce the winners next Monday, get in touch with the reader from the last Menage who has won personal copies of the two books, and we'll be on our way!

I'm eager to start, but will about four weeks be enough? Then we could start the Monday after Easter, April 5th (although if you feel strongly about it, mention that in the comments too and we could always go with Monday April 12th instead). I can't wait!

*If anyone out there is new to Citizen Reader, our Book Menages are where we read two books and then discuss them over the course of a week in our comments. (Two books + 1 reader = a very kinky and very right book discussion.)

Up for another Book Menage?

I'm in the middle of a few books right now, so as I was reading this morning, I thought, hm, what should I post about today? And then I got thinking about having another Book Menage.

I can illustrate exactly how that came about: I'm reading a book called Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, which I am finding interesting. So this morning I looked at it, and thought, "it's good, but it's not rocking my world like John Bowe's Nobodies did." Then of course I started thinking about the Book Menage* where we discussed Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the Global Economy.** Which got me thinking about the Menage, and how I often suggest books I've already read and loved and want to re-read. But this time around, I thought, I don't particularly have any books or subjects which I need to suggest. That's new.

Which throws the gates open: Do you have any subjects or titles you'd like to tackle for our next Menage, which we could set up within the next month or so? Let me know in the comments, and we'll see what we can put together.

In other news, my friend Sarah Nagle has had a spectacular article on collection development (which is really more interesting than it sounds--it's the job whereby librarians and library staff build and maintain their collections of books) in the latest issue of RA News. Do check it out, and nicely done, Sarah!

*For any readers new to Citizen Reader, our Book Menages are where we pick two books, usually nonfiction but sometimes one nonfiction and one fiction, and discuss them singly and in relation to each other in the blog comments over the course of a week. We call it the Menage because it's 1 reader + 2 books; get it? Kinky!

**Which, frankly, I think was my choice for Best Book of the Decade. In terms of sheer new thoughts and insight gained, nothing in the past few years has hit me as hard or stayed with me as long as that book has.

Stacy Horn: Class Act.

Today I'd like to share with you the answers I received back to a few of our questions from Stacy Horn, the author of The Restless Sleep: Inside New York City's Cold Case Squad (as well as the books Waiting for My Cats to Die: A Morbid Memoirand Unbelievable: Investigations Into Ghosts, Poltergeists, Telepathy, and Other Unseen Phenomena from the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory.) Stacy has multiple websites, including the official site for The Restless Sleep and her personal blog. She also notes that she is still in contact with Detective Wendell Stradford, one of the police officers profiled in her book, and has offered to pass along any further questions about his cases or his work to him. I would like to thank Stacy for her answers, and her (and Det. Stradford's) willingness to continue these conversations.

Stacy was very complete in her answers (thank you, Stacy!) so I'm going to let this post ride for a couple of days; don't feel you have to read it all at once.

Question: About how long did it take you to research and write the book, from your idea to completion? Can you provide any insight on why the people you interviewed (both detectives and victims' family members) consented to speak with you?

SH: It took me three years to research and write The Restless Sleep. A few of the cops liked me immediately, but most of them didn't trust me at first and some actively disliked me. Not because of me, but because I represented pretty much everything they hate and distrust, which boils down to: I was from the "media" and I'm a liberal. It really was hard to approach these guys at times, because some of them were so actively hostile. There are some angry people in the police department. This one guy really high up, who was in a position to make my life miserable at times, would do just that. I finally asked him why he was being such a... well, dick. And he answered proudly, "Because I can." You should have seen his face. He was a hero in his own eyes.

However, with few exceptions, most got to like me as they got to know me. I talked to most of the cold case detectives and Wendell, Steve and Tom were the ones who impressed me. Which is not to say there weren't other great detectives in the squad (and some terrible ones), but these three each had an interesting history, interesting or moving cases, and I felt they could represent the squad as a whole. I also just liked them, and knowing I was going to be spending a couple of years with whoever I ended up working with I wanted it to be with guys I liked. There was one more detective  wanted to include, a guy in the Bronx named Mark Tebbins. But someone else was working on a book that would include him so I thought that would be overkill. But he is also a great detective.

I really adore these guys and we're all still friends today.  In fact, I just came back from breakfast with two of them.  I asked Wendell if he would answer questions if you guys had any and he said yes!

The families agreed to talk to me because they hoped that something I did would lead to solving their loved one's murder. Talking to them was really really hard. I don't know how the detectives do it. But even harder was writing about their murdered loved one. I felt an enormous responsibility there. Think about it. Someone has been murdered. Now you have to tell their story knowing that the people who loved them most and suffer their loss every day are going to read every word you write. 

I specifically inserted something I had learned from the book "How We Die," for Christine Diefenbach's father, knowing he was going to read it. I thought it might provide him with just a tiny measure of comfort, to know that his daughter probably did not suffer how he imagined she did.
 
I felt this responsibility about everyone, though. The detectives have families and friends too, who will be reading what I write about them. I had to get it right, to tell the truth with as much compassion and insight as I could summon.

To this day, because of my blog, I still regularly hear from family members who ask for help. And from family members of the murderers and the people who helped the murderers. (So not fun.) It's not easy. 

Question: How did you choose the five cases on which you focused?

SH: I chose the cases I did because I thought between them they'd give a good overview of the kind of work they do. Really old cases, not so old cases, sympathetic victims and less sympathetic victims, mob cases. What's impossible to convey is how many cases they're actively working on. I say the numbers, but unless you witness it, it's hard to imagine. It's insane.

For instance, I had a really hard time keeping all the cases I was writing about straight, who was who, what happened when. I finally literally drew charts and diagrams and timelines and kept them up in front of me the whole time while I was writing. Not a day went by where I didn't think about the fact that I was struggling to follow four cases and each of the detectives were at all times following around 20. Blows my mind still. And they can't walk around with charts and graphs.

Question: How did you decide upon the organization of your book, and was there a reason you chose to divide it by case details and investigations, rather than following a more linear timeline?

SH: I guess I have to accept that the organization wasn't a complete success! But it was extremely carefully purposefully done. The first section was about introducing the history of the squad and the cases. The second section was about the investigations, and the last section was about how everything ended up. Or didn't. I wish I had explained that more and did more hand holding about what was going on. Live and learn.

But I took those charts and timelines and worked and re-worked how to tell the story. I ended up taking a lot out just because there were hundreds of people and thousands of man hours and you saw that it was hard enough following what I left in, never mind all the people and time it took to accomplish what they accomplished. It was a hugh challenge, HUGE. And I guess it wasn't a 100% success. You can't get a home run every time you get up to bat.  But I couldn't have worked harder trying to get it right.

So you've got a great detective who is will to talk to you!  If you have any questions for Det. Wendell Stradford, I will pass them on to him!  For instance, I asked him why he talked to me when so many didn't trust me in the beginning.  And he said it was because I was completely honest about who I was.  Every cop would immediately grill me about myself and I always answered honestly.  "Yes, I'm a liberal.  I'm not just a liberal I am rabid liberal.  I'm as left as you can go."  Etc.  He said because I always told the truth he felt he could trust me.  I wasn't sneaky or cagey.

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.