Pandemic Writing

Southernmost Point, Key West

LUCY BURDETTE: I was interviewed last week about how people are coping with the stay-at-home orders, and at the end the reporter said: “This will all be wonderful fodder for another book in your series!” And I thought, good lord, no, who will want to read about this once we’ve lived through it? I remember there were a spate of books about 9-11 and its aftermath, and I have the impression that most of them sank like stones.

But the reporter persisted a bit, asking how my Key West characters would react to pandemic conditions. So I imagined Hayley Snow buzzing around deserted Key West picking up takeout--though I couldn't picture her reviews getting any traction. And probably her mother, who runs a catering business, would be cooking for people in need. Houseboat Row, I thought, would probably stay much the same. The boats are in close proximity so the neighbors could still sit out on their decks (with masks?) and gab. Hayley would be super-protective of her 80-something roommate, Miss Gloria. But a murder during the epidemic? For what reason? Toilet paper hoarding? Inadequate social distancing? Counterfeit Florida Keys re-entry stickers?

I honestly can’t imagine wanting to write about this situation, nor can I imagine wanting to read about it! What about you Reds, can you picture any of your characters rising to this occasion? 

JENN McKINLAY: This is a very timely question since I’m writing about a character in next summer’s WAIT FOR IT, who is homebound for various reasons. Now that I’m in the thick of the manuscript, I have other characters thinking, Why would you settle for being stuck at home? Didn’t we get enough of that last spring? That is the complete reference I will make to this ver horribilis - to paraphrase Queen Elizabeth’s reference to 1992. I’m hoping it’s just the spring and not the whole year! I most definitely do not want to read about quarantine once we’re done with it. 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Such a deeply fascinating question--and I keep envisioning every writer crafting tales of murder mysteries in quarantine, and rom-coms where the people meet cute in masks and then have a big reveal, how facial recognition will be useless, and meetings missed, and people vanishing and no one notices, and and and and all kinds of plot devices ...but hey. if all goes as we all deeply hope, I’ve got to say I do not want to read that. 

I know of authors who are setting their books-in-progress in 2019, and that’s one solution, I suppose. I love Jenn’s one reference idea, because--we can’t ignore it.

But my upcoming book, THE FIRST TO LIE, which comes out in August, just saying, has no references, of course.

Thinking about this a bit more--the books I’m reading now were “before” and they don’t make me think: oh no, don’t shake hands! It’s the world of the book.

HALLIE EPHRON: I don’t know about my characters rising to the occasion when I’m barely able to do it myself. I keep thinking, “when will it be over?” And that’s not what you want a reader to be thinking while reading your book. 

Funny, what Hank said, because right now I’m reading your new Key West food mystery, THE KEY LIME CRIME, Lucy, and Hayley keeps hopping on and off her motorbike and toodling around town and I keep thinking, Wait, wait, she can’t do that… can she? And I love it that she CAN and I can follow her vicariously when in real life our wings are clipped.

RHYS BOWEN: I’ve already tackled this subject in last year’s book THE VICTORY GARDEN that was set in WWI and then the following flu epidemic. I hadn’t realized until I researched that the flu killed up to a hundred million people worldwide. It was harrowing to write about because the chances of surviving were slim. But my story was about rising to the occasion, how women took over tasks and did jobs they never believed they could do. I like to think that both Molly and Lady Georgie would not shirk from playing their part, going what was required. But as to writing about this…. I’m so glad my books are set in the past!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I am thinking about this, too. My books have always floated fairly loosely in time, except for a couple that have concrete time references (which I now pretty much regret.) The WIP is set just six weeks after the end of A BITTER FEAST, so would that be November, 2019, or November, 2020, or some unplaceable autumn? I'm going for the latter, although by the time the book is finished I may have to rethink that. I can't imagine wanting to write about this time, and I rather like the idea of my characters' lives going forward in an alternate virus-free world.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I have the same reaction to Hank - I can see all sorts of plot possibilities to various aspects of the crisis. After all, there's a whole genre of end-of-the-world books. (They never, however, seem to feature protagonists sitting around endlessly binging Netflix - even the apocalypse in this timeline is the worst.)

I also agree with Lucy - it's going to be a while before anyone will be able to get any traction with fiction about the pandemic. It takes time, sometimes a long time, to get enough distance to turn pain into art. But mentions of the pandemic? We'll have to drop them in, at least those of us writing in the present day. The great novel about the 1918 pandemic, Pale Horse, Pale Rider, was published 20 years after the events it covers, but countless novels written before that had men who had been in the war and women who had lost family to the influenza. 

So I can picture Russ recalling having to struggle to get his officers masks and gloves, or Clare telling someone about her church's efforts to keep the food kitchen going, but only if it's all safely in the past, and we can get on with a nice, simple, wholesome murder.

Reds, would you want to read about this pandemic in the future? And do have your copy of Julia's new book yet?

Lucy scores Hid from Our Eyes