Interview with Priscilla Paton, author of Should Grace Fail
Today it gives the Indie Crime Scene great pleasure to interview Priscilla Paton, author of Should Grace Fail.
Should Grace Fail, your latest novel, comes out on December 1 from Coffeetown Press. This is the second in the Twin Cities Mystery series, which began with Where Privacy Dies, a finalist for a 2018 Foreword Indies Book Award. To begin with, can you tell us something about the series and the Twin Cities from which it takes its name?
The series, set in the greater Minneapolis/St. Paul area, is Midwest Noir with a twist. My aim is witty, thrilling entertainment that has a soul. I invented a public investigative agency, Greater Metro, aka G-Met, the “bastard offspring” of Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (forgive me, BCA). The Twin Cities offers the usual urban stuff—Fortune 500 companies, congested highways, major sports teams that lose at the worst time, the Mall of America. The cities are notorious now for deadly racism, and there is despair. At the same time, there is great idealism. The art/culture scene is strong. Nature is ever present in the wetlands, rivers, and weather. It’s the home of Target and the rusty patched bumblebee. I believe I write about Minnesota-Nice and Minnesota-Bad with an insider/outsider eye. I was raised in Maine, then married a Minnesota-Wisconsin boy whose family roots go back to Norway. I betray my New England heritage by preferring lobster to lutefisk. We come together on the importance of pie.
This is the second book featuring Detectives Erik Jansson and Deb Metzger. How would you describe them to readers picking up your books for the first time?
With Erik I’m playing with the damaged detective stereotype of Scandinavian noir. He is moody but has damn healthy habits and a decent unmurdered family back in Iowa. Smart and good-looking, Erik inspires high expectations, only to meet those expectations in devious ways. He and Deb are stuck together like gum to a shoe. She introduces herself as 6’2” (in boots) and lesbian—what could be scarier. She’s outspoken in defence of women and children, outspoken in general, and has great physical moves. She has to draw Erik out, whether he likes it or not, and he has to help her “channel” her impulses, which she definitely Does Not Like. They keep each other on edge.
To continue with that chain of thought, character and psychology are clearly important to you as a writer. How do you combine that with more traditional thriller elements?
Elizabeth George of the Inspector Lynley series has written about using characters’ desires and fears to set events in motion. In Should Grace Fail, the young biracial pianist, Jaylyn, is anxious about her future and also empathetic to friends surviving addictions and abuse. Her anxiety impacts her self-confidence; her sexual attraction to a cute at-risk guy makes her vulnerable; and her desire to help exposes her to danger. When different characters’ desires come into conflict, there’s action. Then I visualize the resulting movement. Should Grace Fail includes car chases, a stampede in a tunnel, fist fights, high-drama music performances, and a shove into the Mississippi River.
Should Grace Fail explores some dark themes - trafficking of teenagers, police corruption, and drug and alcohol abuse. How did you research these topics?
The core information I pick up through my association with community nonprofits, I’ve reviewed grant applications from organizations like “The Resource” in the novel and have attended presentations on trafficking, abuse, and the use of Narcan in case of an overdose (follow package instructions). I read nonfiction on addiction, alcoholism, and the police code of silence. I was also intrigued by a newspaper series on the difficulty of rescuing addicted teens with developmental disorders. This group is often rejected by mainstream society and has little trust in authority, and they are preyed upon by dealers and traffickers.
Was it difficult for you to read about and research the psychology of these subjects?
It’s much harder for me to absorb TV news—it is so easy to be overwhelmed by anger and hopelessness. The research helps me manage that generalized angst. If I have a purpose—even if it’s to write a comic novel—that enables me to dig deeper into issues like the opioid crisis. Also, I see not only the needs but the successes through local nonprofits. Should Grace Fail was completed before the coronavirus pandemic and before the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, but that shocked atmosphere will be the backdrop for the next mystery in the series.
You mention further in-depth research into the career of a classical pianist, and also into various cafes and restaurants important to the plot. How important were these in finding out about character and the atmosphere of a place?
Discovery through research takes me beyond my limits and can be great fun—eating out justified as work. I observed a piano masterclass which gave insight into the repertoire and the pressure on rising musicians; it also suggested some characters and the vibe of an academy with lots of young people making noise. I’ve been in an apartment filled with rugs and artful memorabilia that was a model for the music teacher’s place in the book. The detectives’ traits come out in their responses to a setting—Deb awkward at a posh event and later on a private golf course, Erik bored in a vending machine room, both struggling to calm a panicked girl in the confines of a car caught in a thunderstorm.
Clearly in-depth research is very important to you as a writer. Please can you tell us more about this?
I was an academic and already had introverted habits. I can procrastinate—I mean do thorough research—by searching out articles. I’m nervous with journalistic approach of making cold calls and interviewing, but interviews provide not just data but insights into the people who work with cadaver dogs, abuse victims, or computer security—their concerns, their phrasing, their clothes. Research throws up surprises, too—what are the contaminants on currency? You’ll have to read to find out.
When you finished your first book, was the story of the second already in process, or did you develop it afterwards?
Several crimes against women stayed on my mind, crimes that followed the pattern of a woman helping someone only to have that person turn violently against her. There was a spill-over from my research on con artists for Where Privacy Dies. Also, the character Jaylyn got in my head and wouldn’t budge. She may have been suggested by a sweet-looking musician whose hairstyle struck me. I’m fascinated by characters like Jaylyn who are in between phases and cultures, in between disappointment and accomplishment. She’s mixed race, and my own family has become multi-colored. Another character came to mind, generous Gordy. I’ve known several Gordies.
Who is your target audience and what sort of reader will enjoy your work?
Readers who like character-driven mysteries and a quirky style, who prefer intrigue over visceral horror and macho gunplay. I take as role models Donna Leon, Louise Penny, Deborah Crombie, and I much admire Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.
You have talked about the importance of the sense of place to your writing. How does a specific location play a part in the making of a story?
Setting creates possibilities—in Where Privacy Dies, a killer believes that a corpse will never be found in a wetland. In Should Grace Fail, the winding paths through a zoo make running away difficult. There can be a contrast between what should happen in a place and what does happen. For example, there’s a takedown in a coffeeshop. Setting can reflect worth and status—the novel moves from a dumpster to a mansion. Setting can reveal character—Erik’s at ease outdoors where he can freely move.
How easy did you find it to start on your second novel - so often called “the difficult second novel”?
I was struck with terror. Then I saw an online interview with a Famous Writer who admitted seeking out therapy in order to start book two. My editor at Coffeetown pushed me through significant revisions because I felt not exactly lost but unsure of how to write the same type of book while being completely fresh.
What does it take to imagine and plot a (literary) murder, and its solution?
Time. So far, I’ve started the books knowing who did it, though the how and why changes as the characters grow deeper through revision. It helps for me to wander around the cities and see what might happen where, to read about real crimes with strange twists. I listen to what other writers say about plot—what matters is not so much the complexity as the intensity of the emotional stakes. In terms of resolutions, I think and feel through where Erik and Deb’s investment in the case and their skills lead them.
In developing structure, I’m not keen on the term “pantser”; I prefer “builder” and keep a running outline that I update. I try out characters in scenes, ideas coming as I write. After thirty-forty pages, I revise the outline and move ahead again. I tend to overwrite and then have to edit down. I’d love to write more efficiently, but my imagination is not linear.
Is there a uniquely American form of the contemporary crime novel and what does it mean to you?
Crucial now are novels by people of color, indigenous people, and immigrants. That is the American experience. Their books broaden empathy and, simply put, are great reads. I enjoy mysteries by Rachel Howzell Hall, Tracy Clark, Marci Rendon, S.A. Crosby, Kellye Garrett, and more. It’s hard to pinpoint “uniquely American,” but social mobility is a core topic. That mobility is attached to realizing one’s potential, one’s individuality. You can be fully and freely “you.” The American dream is that all can rise, yet too many remain excluded—a tension explored in American literature from its beginnings.
I admire literary authors Richard Russo and Louise Erdrich as “American” in their attention to social class, the sins of history, and to the intermixing of peoples—more prominent in Erdrich’s writing with her Native American focus. I aspire to their vision which sees the worst yet remains compassionate, spiritual, healing, and very funny.
When you read, what novels do you enjoy, and what else do you do for recreation?
I may as well confess that I birdwatch and that I miss the farm animals of my youth—a reason animals show up in my mysteries. I eat my husband’s adventurous cooking, and we travel—missing that right now. Besides writers mentioned above, I read Frederik Backman’s novels and am about to start his Anxious People.
Do you have any plans for another novel in this series? How do you see it developing?
Yes. I’m in the panic, i.e., the developmental stage. The next one has to include the changed atmosphere in the Twin Cities after social unrest and destruction, though the cases will be fictional. Erik begins depressed and angry over crimes of other police officers, while Deb is suffering on committees to bring about structural changes—who hasn’t wanted to murder a fellow committee member? There’s a housing crisis. To lighten it up, I’m planning on more sex—for the characters, that is.
About Priscilla Paton:
Priscilla grew up on a dairy farm in Maine, a state of woods, lakes, and rivers. She now lives in Minnesota, another state of woods, lakes, and rivers, not far from urban Minneapolis and St. Paul. She received a B.A. from Bowdoin College, a Ph.D. in English Literature from Boston College, and was a college professor. She has previously published a children’s book, Howard and the Sitter Surprise, and a book on Robert Frost and Andrew Wyeth, Abandoned New England. She participates in community advocacy and literacy programs, takes photos of birds, and contemplates (fictional) murder.
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