Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here. On Tuesday, the reissue of the third book in my Diana Spaulding 1888 Quartet, No Mortal Reason, came out in trade paperback and e-book formats. Reissuing books requires rereading them to make any necessary changes and/or corrections. Rereading this one reminded me just how many details I borrowed directly from real stories about ancestors on both sides of my family. For finding source material for the late nineteenth century, genealogical research is right up there with reading old newspapers and local history books.
In No Mortal Reason my sleuthing couple, Diana Spaulding and Ben Northcote, stop in rural Sullivan County, New York, on their way back to Maine from Colorado, to meet relatives Diana never knew she had. I grew up in Liberty, New York, where John Gorton, my paternal great-great-great-grandfather was one of the earliest settlers in 1797. My mother’s maternal great-grandfather, Matthew Hornbeck, moved to nearby Hurleyville almost that long ago. Between them, the Gortons and the Hornbecks had lots of family stories to tell and my grandfather, Fred Gorton, also wrote his autobiography. When his manuscript came to me, I edited what he wrote and published it as (his title) The Life of a Plodder.
I didn’t set out to use any particular family stories when I started to write No Mortal Reason. Well, I never do, since I don’t outline or otherwise plot my novels in advance. I did know that Diana’s uncles would be running a hotel, since Sullivan County in 1888 was already becoming a mecca for families wanting to escape the heat of New York City in the summer. The Hornbecks had a farm/boardinghouse (sometimes advertised as a hotel) until my grandmother’s death in 1958, so I remember spending time there first hand.
The original Hornbeck farm in the 1880s
I’ve often borrowed character names from my family tree, especially surnames. In this case, Diana’s uncles are Myron and Howd Grant. Myron (or M.H.) and Howard Hornbeck were my great uncles. The Grant comes from the Gorton side, where a Mercy Grant married a Samuel Gorton in Connecticut in the 1800s. Mercy Grant is Howd Grant’s daughter in my novel. In the previous Diana Spaulding mystery, Fatal as a Fallen Woman, I gave Diana’s mother another favorite family name—Elmira. I’d already used Jerusha and Parmelia for secondary characters in the first book, Deadlier than the Pen.
For No Mortal Reason I did more than borrow names. I also lifted a couple of stories straight out of family lore. According to my mother, the Hornbecks once owned a map to a lead mine located in the area around Sundown, New York. It was kept in “the blue trunk” and one summer in the 1930s her grandfather and uncles (that would be M.H. and Howd) attempted to follow the map and find the mine. They had no luck, but they apparently terrified the local residents because they were dressed in their Sunday suits and driving a big black car. Everyone thought they must be mobsters, since Sullivan County was where Murder Incorporated had a habit of dumping bodies. My characters don’t find the mine, either, but searching for it added a nice wrinkle to my plot.
The grandfather who wrote his autobiography was born in 1876 and included many details about his childhood. I used a lot of them in my second published novel, Julia’s Mending, a book for ages 8-12 set in Liberty Falls, New York in 1887. The title character, Julia Applebee (two more family names, one each from my mother’s maternal and paternal lines) has a cousin named Simon. Like my grandfather, he was nicknamed “Scorcher” because of the speed at which he could ride his bike. I couldn’t resist having Scorcher reappear in No Mortal Reason as the telegram delivery boy.
There is, however, one drawback to using things that “really happened.” Even if they are true, they may not be believable. In Julia’s Mending, Scorcher boasts of hitting a rut in the road while riding his bike too fast, flying over the handlebars, and landing on his feet, unscathed. Since that really happened to my grandfather (at least according to him), I didn’t hesitate to use the incident in the book. Naturally that was the detail one reviewer decided to single out as being too unrealistic.
Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-four books traditionally published and has self published others. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. In 2023 she won the Lea Wait Award for “excellence and achievement” from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. She is currently working on creating new editions of her backlist titles. Her website is www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.
This is critical during revision. I was frustrated when I attempted to revise solely on the keyboard, because that process didn’t allow me to break out of my intuitive writing mindset. But writing and revision are two different things. It was a big day when that important truth dawned on me.
Her interpretations of music from the 1930s, 40s, 50s and a few from the 90s – were fabulous – because I heard the lyrics in new ways. “What makes a ‘standard’” ? she asked the audience. Her answer – a song that not only LASTS through generations, but that has a universal emotion that continues to hit people in lots of different decades. Made me think about the ‘older’ crime/mystery novels that we still read – because of the characters that still speak to us.
I learned that Roy was a generous soul and allowed young artists to copy his work (which they did, almost dot by dot). He said, go ahead copy – and use the exercise to find your own voice. I learned that many fellow artists, like Warhol, bought Roy’s work, even if the critics were unkind.
The Charlie Mingus Band was playing. Charlie is deceased, but his wife used her own money to form this band so that Charlie’s contemporary jazz compositions would not go unplayed. The band has been together for over a decade now and play all over the world. How each instrumentalist plays off each other and riffs and changes and goes back to the written sheets was inspirational.
A few things I’m going to commit to:
If you are in and around Portland this week, I hope you can join Rebecca Turkewitz and I in conversation about the Best American Mystery and Suspense.
Kate Flora: A perfect example of how dazed and dizzy I am is that yesterday, I wrote a whole post, pressed the button to have it post on the website, and it disappeared into the ether. That’s how things feel these days. Between the constant barrage of requests for money from everyone in the country, nerves about the election, and the disjointed effect of the time change, at least once a day I’m convinced that my brain has failed.
New England Crime Bake. That should be fun if I can only organize my thoughts and remember how to do a power point. It also says I’m going to moderate a panel on Sunday. It says there’s a dentist appointment, a hair appointment, two more “maintenance’ appointments and then a quick trip back to Maine to preview the marvelous Gardens Aglow at the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden. When, exactly, are those quiet late fall days sitting at my desk writing?
What does that look like? Unlike those of my fellow writers who are plotters or pantsers, I’m a cooker. I don’t write out elaborate notes. Nor do I sit down and start writing and see where the story goes. I start working on the plot and wondering. Wandering around for a few months asking questions. Who was killed? Why were they killed? Who killed them? Who else wanted them dead, and why? What will I put at the crime scene that will help the investigation? And so forth. I often say that, like Paddington Bear, during this process I should wear a little tag that says ‘please look after this author. Thank you.’ And on the back, when I’m found staring blankly at the frozen peas, ‘If found, please return to…’ and my address.
