Speaking of the Canon

The canon is what one must have read to be considered well-educated. There is the canon for Western civilization which is largely books that are non-fiction. There is the canon of English literature (the books you'd see in an English Lit survey class in college.) There is the canon for literature of the American West.

And of course there is the canon for whatever category you write (or in my case read) in. I mentioned the canon a few days back as something you'd need to know if you wanted to write something fresh and new in a well-trod category.

I hadn't heard the term "the canon" till I got to grad school when it was the subject of fierce debate. I mean fistfight debate. Of course that was just about the time a lot of people realized the literary canon should include people like Alice Walker, Margaret Atwood, Tillie Olson, and all those other people who didn't have the balls to be old white men.

But enough of my misspent youth.

Recently, I was reading my requested fulls. One was a fresh take on the old familiar country house murder trope. I had LOVED those books as a kid. Not just for the murder but for the world they created. No surprise I grew up to love Upstairs, Downstairs, Downton Abbey, and my beloved Gosford Park.

Which brings us to The Secret of Chimneys which is an Agatha Christie novel. You might not have heard of it because the main character is Superintendent Battle not the world famous Hercule Poirot or Miss Jane Marple (who I think is the best character ever, and to hell with that walking Belgian mustache.)

But I digress.

I realized as I was reading the manuscript that it had been quite some time since I'd read one of the original country house mysteries. I popped online and sure enough, The Secret of Chimneys was right there in paperback and ebook. I bought the paperback (somehow I had the idea if I did, I'd also get the ebook, but that was my stupidity.)

I started reading the ebook only to discover it stopped about 20 pages in and I'd have to buy it to keep reading.

Now, writer fiends, here's the point of this blog post: I didn't wait till Tuesday, a mere 48 hours from that exact moment, when the paperback would arrive. I didn't wait till Tuesday to finish reading a book I've read at least five times before (admittedly some years back, but I knew whodunit, and I knew the ending.)

I bought the ebook so I could finish the book then and there. And I did. And it was as good, if not better than I remembered (although the racism and classism is just really hard to ignore.)

And that is the pudding proof of damn fine writing.

Thus my suggestion to you: list five go-to books for the canon in your category. Go read them again. See if they hold up. If they do, you know you've got an author to study closely. What they're doing has stood the test of time, changing fashion, changing tastes.

You might not be able to read 100 books in your category but you surely can read five.

If I were to pick five they would be:

The Mirror Crack'd by Agatha Christie
The Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan
The Key to Rebecca by Ken Follett
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
When the Sacred Ginmill Closes by Lawrence Block

And even as I look at this list I think of all my faves who are not here: Lee Child, Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly, Catriona McPherson, all my clients!!!, Nick Petrie, Lou Berney, and a dozen others I'll think of in another minute.

But my point here is not to choose only five, it's to figure out what works in a novel that appeals to you for YEARS. A novel that you'd use to illustrate essential elements of a novel (I use Key to Rebecca on shifting POV all the time.) A novel that can be YOUR signpost for moving ahead.

When I go to the Met, I often see students painting copies of the great masters. By copying they are learning. It's not plagiarism to copy. It's plagiarism to copy something and pass it off as your original work.  Thus, I suggest using these authors as guideposts, but don't just change the names in The Secret of Chimneys and expect to have a bestseller.  Superintendent Battle and his sharkly fan will not be happy if you do.

Do you have some classics that have stood the test of time?

PS writer fiends is not a typo

Powerful writing: an example

"Learning to love is a task for a lifetime. We get to spend our whole lives learning to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and learning to love our neighbors as ourselves."

That quote is from an article in the Huffington Post by Linda Robertson titled  While Your Child Is Still Alive: A Letter to Parents Who Aren't Ready to March in the Pride Parade.



I'm linking to it here not to persuade you of her position but because it's an excellent example of powerful persuasive writing.

The very first sentence sets up the contrasts she'll use throughout the piece: I was once one of these parents, now I am not.

Then she gets to the heart of her piece, right there in the second paragraph: it's a luxury to have something to complain about.  The very simplicity of that statement makes it powerful.  And it applies to many more situations than her piece covers.  That's what makes this essay work so well: it's about more than what she's writing about.  


In  the next paragraphs, she unfolds her story, making the point that she was once this, and now is not.

And then the glorious call and response rhythm of  the eleven paragraphs that start "while your child is still alive."  No one reading that could fail to imagine the unspoken, implicit message: your child could not be alive.


This essay is powerful because it makes the reader do the work.  She lets us imagine ourselves in her shoes, and think about how we would feel. 

I found myself cutting and pasting sentence after sentence into the list I keep of things I want to remember.   The first two were the sentences I started this blog post with.

Did this piece resonate with you too?

If you are a writer, read this

I want to understand how it is that being by myself
with my keyboard is when I feel least alone.

That's from Betsy Lerner's blog. As is this:

I think one of the worst parts of being a writer is trying to appear normal. .... We are among you. Observing, sizing up, spying. Listening in on your conversation and writing down your best lines. We are having an affair with the grad student at the Blue State Cafe, telepathically of course.

I know Betsy is a fabulous agent because she represents two books that knocked my socks off: COLUMBINE by Dave Cullen and JUST KIDS by Patti Smith.

Are you on the right side of the bars?

photo credit and caption here

We remember Martin Luther King as a great orator, and a brave leader.
Sometimes overlooked is the fact that man could really wield a pen.

Text of Letter from a Birmingham jail

word hooligans

I looked at those daunting stats for 2009 and realized I read a LOT of mss, maybe too many. Then I see Jennifer Jackson's (a fiercely talented agent and one of the Maass-keteers) blog post about her 2009 stats.

She read a LOT fewer than I did, and signed MORE clients. Harrumph!

Ok, I'm resolved: I'm holding firm; I'm toeing the line; I'm resolute. By GODIVA I will request LESS!

I brace myself at the e-query mailbox. I drape myself in righteousness. I hum a martial tune. I gird my - whatever you gird these days - for battle. I am READY.

I read a query. I read another. I say no with diligence. I march on, certain of my resolution, noble in my intent.

And then, from the tall grass, you pounce. You POUNCE! On ME!

Whatever girding there was falls to the wayside.

The martial tune breaks off.

My resolve isn't so much resolved as dissolved.

How am I supposed to resist good pages?? I ask you, how am I to fend off your siren song of prose.

I drape myself across the keyboard and feebly tap out: SEND FULL.

You pouncing prosers are word hooligans of the worst sort. You lie in wait for us unsuspecting readers. You disarm us with your stories, arrest us with your similes, defeat us with your diction.

You take no prisoners, you vanquish us with your verbiage.

I surrender.

It was a good resolution while it lasted-- about as long as it took to read this blog post.
I slink off to read.








You can buy the octopus I shamelessly stole.

What to get a shark for Christmas

The year I was ten, I got a horse for Christmas.
Mum could have made Legume Surprise on Toast for dinner every night for the rest of my life and I still would have been a very happy cowgirl: I had my very own horse!

Some years later, I got a sister for Christmas.
Not quite as immediately fun as the horse, but she gradually improved (walking and talking were a big bonus there.) She recently demonstrated long term utility by deftly producing the Most Amazing Niece Born In This Millennium*** so I've decided to renew her sibling license again this year.

For years I enjoyed tormenting her by airily mentioning she was my second favorite Christmas present of all time.


This year I got Dan Krokos' second novel for Christmas. Here's the first line: I’m digging up a grave in the Everglades.


How am I going to break the news to my sister that she's slipped to third?



***and I'm totally objective about this so you can take my word for it, but I do have pictures which I will come show you right now in case you need verification.