What Was I Thinking?

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I know a great, great story about something that made a writer look like the most brilliant person on the face of the earth — and it was a complete accident.

That story is not mine to tell. But now I have one of my own. Mine doesn’t make me look like a genius, more of a kook/idiot. But I still want to tell it.

Last weekend was Bouchercon 2008 in Baltimore, so I saw lots of my friends from the mystery world. One, Margery Flax, said to me: “Thank you so much for using the New York Times serial to pay tribute to Carole.”

And I was like: “Wha . . .?”

Carole Epstein was a good mutual friend. She helped me with a key plot point in By a Spider’s Thread. Although she had an apartment in New York, she rode the subway for the first time in, IIRC, 2003, when we went to the Matisse/Picasso exhibit at MOMA’s temporary home. She died in late 2003. Again, IIRC. I just know that I last saw her was at Bouchercon in Las Vegas.

And now I’m writing a serial, in which there is a woman named Carole Epstein. Only — it’s a complete coincidence. Or is it?

The Epstein part is no accident. In EVERY SECRET THING, a character named Harold Lenhardt is said to be haunted by the Epstein case. I used the serial to make worlds collide, putting Lenhardt in Tess’s Baltimore. Finally, it was time to find out why the Epstein case has stayed with Lenhardt.

But why did I add the “e” to Carol Epstein’s name, as it appeared in early drafts? This I do remember — looking at the words on my computer screen and feeling this absolute conviction: IT MUST HAVE AN E. IT IS WRONG WITHOUT AN E. SHE MUST BE CAROLE. But I was thinking of the character as Carole Massinger Epstein.

I’m not saying Carole guided me. She was too modest to insist on tribute. And, frankly, while the fictional Carole Epstein dresses well, she still doesn’t dress as beautifully as the real Carole Epstein. Hard to trust my memory, but I see her at the hotel pool, resplendent in a white suit, wearing a perfectly knotted scarf. She was a classy person. Classy enough to forgive a friend who didn’t even realize she was sending a shout-out.

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20 thoughts on “What Was I Thinking?”

  1. Now I know why the name jumped out at me! Great to see you this past weekend in Baltimore…and your city is all you said and more…the atmosphere just soaked into me of downtown..I kept hearing the theme from the WIRE in my head, when I was walking back to Lucy’s Pub from the Westminster Hall PWA banquet…and congratulations on your awards!

  3. Yes, congratulations on the awards! I didn’t realize how many until I got home last night as I had skipped the reception because I’m not good with crowds, and skipped the banquet to go enjoy your city.

    Becky, it was nice to meet you.

  4. From wherever it came the notion was a good one. Nice to know you are open to the things that waft through our minds for no known reason.

    I’ve spent 10 or 11 years congratulating you on the awards won by each of your books. But again I say, good job, enjoy and well deserved. The staff at Murder by the Book in Portland put the winners up in their store yesterday and commented to me that you were on their very short list of the year’s best books for WTDK. Rock on.

  5. I knew Carole too and I’m so so so pleased this happened, conscious or not. She was a class act, wasn’t she? (Says the woman who has a psych unit named after her in a Laura Lippman book) (but that was conscious, in case you’re wondering folks. Laura asked in advance) But what a great unconscious act.

    And major mazel tov on the Anthonys my dear. It’s not usual that the guest of honor wins, lemme tell you. It happened at “our” Bcon in Seattle in ’94 when Marcia Muller won but it’s not the usual occurrence.

    I’m reading Jeff Marks’ “biobibiography” of Anthony Boucher. I think he woulda been pleased.

    I hope you had the most fabulous time you could have. I’ve been stalling on emailing you, assuming you were still a little bit sleep-deprived.

  8. Carole was a friend of mine and she was a class act. She supported her writing with money she’d made in what she called “the rag trade”, actually the fashion industry. She ran a company that made mainly belts, I believe. She was a lot of fun, as well.

    Congratulations to Laura on her awards. They are well deserved. WTDK is my favorite book of the past several years. I regret not being able to make it to Baltimore, this year to celebrate as well as eat some great Italian food and crab cakes.

    don cannon

  9. Laura, what I like is that (and please understand that I am THRILLED that you won, as WTDK was my pick for best of the year as well) it tends to help argue against “the Anthony is a popularity award” meaning that well-liked writers get it, rather than “the best book” which is something i’ve heard for YEARS. It’s not true (I’ve seen the balloting and I know a bit about Bouchercon) and if it were a “popularity vote” wouldn’t it argue that the Guest of Honor would win that year every year? Or Sue Grafton who’s on the best seller list all the time? But because it’s a fan/reader award, it gets discounted as unimportant. Anthony voters are Dead Serious – they work hard on nominations and vote carefully. Yu did NOT win just because you were Guest of Honor. Trust me on this.

    As I say, you know DAMN well that i think you’ve written some of the year’s best several years out there, but what happened this Bcon IS the exception rather than the rule. Fact is, we con runners have to invite our guests of honor 2 to 3 years in advance and have no idea what will be published that previous year, so there’s no way we can “rig” anything!

  13. One thing I love about this small forum is that it brings together people I knew from the early, early days (Don, Andi, Roberta, many others) and yet there are always new folks showing up. Did I mention that Marjorie of Connecticut brought me a T-shirt for which I had pined openly on this board? (L&L Hawaiian Barbecue.) When writers start getting gifts in the signing line, life is sweet indeed.

  14. And the extra cool addition to that is that <i>I</i> “met” Marjorie over at the Laurie King chat room and told her about <i>this</i> blog which she hadn’t know about. She’s been a great help/find too over at LRK’s board. i don’t usually <i>do<i> author chat rooms per se, you know that “isn’t X wonderful” thing, but it’s been a real nice experience over there. And she allowed Bcon to host a Bcon chat where some of us old hands (hey, Don! haven’t seen you in ages, hey Beeg!) were able to give advice, talk about what conventions are like.

    does Hawaiian barbecue involve spam, Laura?

    Tw degrees of separation at best this world. Us Connecticut goils are cool, aren’t we just? (beam, beam)

  15. I deleted my earlier post in this thread that went on forever and it made me feel guilty for taking up so much room. My problem, not yours. Anyway, can I just say that in the midst of all those great creative brains nad all the amazing literary discussion at B’con, one of the strongest images burned into my brain was the sight of Laura (during the “Would I Lie to You” panel) doing 50 push-ups on the floor of the Sheraton conference room just to prove that she wasn’t lying that she could do them! Amazing.

    (Waves to Andi. Waves to Karen O.)

  16. Marjorie,

    I loved your post, because you nailed it: I am super-nerdy, not at all cool. And happy to be so. When you’ve been nerdy all your life, as I have, it doesn’t hurt when a teenager informs you that you are uncool. (And I am informed of this fact frequently.)

  17. So as to not confuse others even more and to know what Laura was just referring to, here is my old post just as it was originally posted, warts and all! Got that?:

    Ah shucks, Laura. I am just glad you didn’t post about a love of emeralds. Or ermine! I knew that I wanted to introduce myself to you and gush a bit about your work. Bringing something seemed like a good excuse. It was very intimidating going to my first B’con, not knowing in advance that everyone would be so gracious and kind. It turned out to be more wonderful that I ever could have imagined. I met my writing group friends in person for the first time. I met some of my favorite writers (waving now to Karen O.) and I came away with a huge list of new books to read because I was so impressed by the authors on the panels. However, this is the Memory Project, so for those of you who weren’t lucky enough to be in Baltimore, may I share a few memories? Laura is a beautiful woman, but in a completely different way than her PR/book jacket photos make her look. In those photos, she is all polished and a bit imposing. In real life when you see her, she comes across as far younger than her chronological age and (please take this as a compliment as I mean it that way) she is, well, nerdier. Meaning that her intelligence and curiousity shine through that beauty. (I am a proud nerd myself.) I also took note of her giant red patent leather purse and her lovely black and white shoes (picture saddle shoes gone high fashion). And on Sunday morning, she had a packed room of people eating out of her hand while she told stories about her writing life. When she talked about working in Texas and falling over a story involving a brutal murder and an ice house, there were chills running up my spine. She is also as funny and self-deprecating as you might imagine from her books. Laura, your city did you proud (free Berger’s cookies in the hospitality room!) and my group and I had good meals and great times. Thanks, Laura.

  18. Okay, okay, those of us who couldn’t go to B’con are now dripping with envy. Hope to get a good sense of it from this blog (which is helping) and various B’con blogs, including Sarah Weinman’s.

    But a solace will be the next episode in the NYT’s magazine of Tess Monaghan’s adventures ala Rear Window.

    If anyone can tell me where to look for those new authors at B’con, please reveal this.

    Just put “Hardly Knew Her” on hold at the library which has ordered a zillion copies.

    And for my two cents, WTDK was one of my favorite books which friends have heard about endlessly.

  20. “HEY MARJORIE OF cONNECTICUT:
    Is that New Haven OR Storrs Or the Univ of Conn?”
    * * *
    Hey, June. I am just outside of New Haven, near the water (I love that) and only two hours from mid-town Manhattan (I am a theatre person), so I am very lucky.

    Because I am so near to New Haven, I have been snarfing up Karen Olson’s very enertaining books (which I only heard about because of the Memory Project!). I just finished “Secondhand Smoke” and the third in the Annie series is on its way to me. (I can’t only read Laura, right? Even Laura reads other people’s books!)

    Anyway, hello from this Connecticut Yankee,
    Marjorie
    (who introduced herself to Laura at B’con as Marjorie Not Morningstar, but Marjorie of Connecticut is easier, I think.)

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