Writing by the Bechdel Rule—and Not Even Knowing it

by Kay Kendall

Even though the Bechdel Rule has been around for three decades, I never heard about it until seven years ago when it first popped up in film reviews in the New York Times. Now, I love movies and try hard to keep abreast of trends, so I looked it up pretty quick. I don’t like feeling behind the times.

Also known as the Bechdel Test, it judges movies by three criteria: (1) it has to have at least two women in it, who (2) talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man. Cartoon illustrator Alison Bechdel popularized her pal Liz Wallace’s concept in the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For in 1985. There are now 8,151 movies listed at bechdeltest.com that pass the test.  

When I first read the test’s definition, I was astonished. Movies I watch and books I read routinely pass this test, even before I knew it existed. The first mystery I was in the midst of writing, Desolation Row, passed as do the two books that followed.

I believe I was born a feminist so it’s no wonder this rule was one I lived by. There are fictional female characters to whom I give credit for prodding me along my way. They include the mighty Jane Eyre, the extremely curious Nancy Drew, and even the tragic Anna Karenina. After all, the Russian woman came to a very bad end indeed by living only for the love of a man and nothing else.  

I recently returned to my treasured copy of Jane Eyre to see if it held up to my current feelings about living one’s life as a female. Again I was astonished because the proto feminism of the novel was laid out on almost every page. For example, look at this passage, written in complete contrast to the fate of poor Anna Karenina: “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being      with an independent will.”

While that is the second most quoted passage from Jane Eyre, here is another one, a real doozy, given the era it was written in, the 1850s in Victorian England:

“Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, to absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.”

And yet Jane Eyre is also a magnificent love story because of the heroine’s passion for Mr. Rochester. Proving that she could be not only independent but in love too, she most famously stated, “Reader, I married him.”

Second wave feminism peaked in the 1970s and declined thereafter. Feminism was attacked as being anti-male. I always thought that was utter bosh, complete nonsense. I am delighted that has changed of late. We women can stand up for ourselves without trashing all men, for certainly all men do not deserve that, only the ones who seek to hold women down, to keep us, as the Rolling Stones gleefully sing, “Under My Thumb.”

In my second mystery, Rainy Day Women, I quote that awful title from the Stones, and in my third mystery, After You’ve Gone, I have my heroine quote Jane Eyre, “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me.”

So books that pass the Bechdel Test with flying colors snared me as a young reader, and they do so today as well. And, dear reader, now I write them too.

~~~~~~~

 

 Author Kay Kendall is passionate about historical mysteries.     She lives in Texas with her Canadian husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Her second book Rainy Day Women won the Silver Falchion for best mystery at Killer Nashville.

Visit Kay at her website http://www.austinstarr.com/   or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/KayKendallAuthor

 

 

Introducing Wallie MacGregor in AFTER YOU’VE GONE

By Kay Kendall

Last week my third mystery launched. My book’s birthday plus my own made it a stellar week. I can’t give you a piece of birthday cake, so here’s a song for you.

Fiona Apple sings “After You’ve Gone.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH3tvv-qnrI

 

The song was penned in 1918, remaining popular throughout the next several decades—especially during the 1920s, which is what I was looking for. Even in the last 30 years many singers have covered it. Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Edie Gourmet, and many more. In truth, the song is fantastic. Singing styles change, but the song holds up. For comparison, here's a performance fro 1927 by a star of that era, Ruth Etting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjgBara7N88

All my mysteries take their titles from popular songs. My first two are Desolation Row and Rainy Day Women. But because this new book takes place in 1923, I can hardly use another Bob Dylan song, can I?

Copyright laws don’t cover song titles, but lyrics are. While Dylan’s are still protected, “After You’ve Gone” is no longer under copyright. These words from the chorus fit the storyline of my new mystery.

 

 

After you’ve gone and left me crying

After you’ve gone there’s no denying,

You’ll feel blue, you’ll feel sad,

You’ll miss the bestest pal you’ve ever had.

There’ll come a time, now don’t forget it,

There’ll come a time, when you’ll regret it.

Oh! Babe, think what you’re doing.

You know my love for you will drive me to ruin,

After you’ve gone,

After you’ve gone away, away. 

After You’ve Gone (1918)
Music by Turner Layton and lyrics by Henry Creamer 

When you read my new mystery, you’ll see how many characters must carry on after someone has gone—someone very near and dear to them. The biggest loss of all kicks off the mystery, of course. But there are others—oh so many others. Just count them all up. You’ll see.

Author Kay Kendall is passionate about historical mysteries.  She lives in Texas with her Canadian husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Visit Kay at her website  http://www.austinstarr.com/   or on Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/KayKendallAuthor 

 

Skipping Woodstock, But Finding Women’s Lib—and Murder

By Kay Kendall

 In my Austin Starr mystery series I try not just to entertain but also to portray what an historical era is like. My first two books are set in the tumultuous 1960s: Desolation Row and Rainy Day Women. Due out next February is a prequel, After You’ve Gone. It features Austin Starr’s grandmother as a young woman in small town Texas during Prohibition. Although the historical setting is different (bootleg gin, flappers, gangsters), many of the issues the two women face are similar. What place should women have in society? What do women owe to their family, their husbands—and to themselves? What the grandmother grapples with in 1923 is related—almost distressingly so—to choices her granddaughter will face in 1969. To prepare you to read the prequel, here is a rundown on my previous mystery.

Rainy Day Women takes place in August 1969. Headlines across the continent shriek about the sensational murders in Los Angeles of a pregnant starlet and her friends—though Charles Manson and gang haven’t been caught yet. Apollo 12 astronauts Armstrong (he walked on the moon), Aldrin, and Collins have just arrived back on Earth. Rock music fans look forward to a big outdoor concert—posters call it the Woodstock Music and Art Fair.

But my amateur sleuth Austin Starr scarcely knows any of this. With a three-month-old baby, she is sleep-deprived and still adjusting to her new life’s heavy demands. Then a phone call sends her (and baby Wyatt) flying across North America to help find a killer. Why? Because her dear friend Larissa is suspected of murdering women’s liberation activists in Seattle and Vancouver. Then Austin’s former CIA trainer warns that someone has contracted a hit on her. Her anxious husband demands that she give up her quest and fly back to him. Austin must decide how much to risk when she realizes that tracking the killer puts her and her baby's lives in danger. 

I set my mystery against the backdrop of women’s liberation almost fifty years ago because second-wave feminism (as it’s now called) changed lives, and yet the rightful place of women in society still remains a point of contention. My character Austin Starr discovers the movement when she questions members of the dead women’s groups and is fascinated with the new ideas she hears.

 Even though Austin’s young husband is an anti-war activist, she herself is not a radical. I wanted her story to be accessible to anyone today, of whatever political persuasion, and so I explore what life was like for a typical young woman—not a headline maker, not a Hanoi Jane or Angela Davis, but a moderate who nonetheless gets swept up by history's tides during the turbulent sixties. All that turmoil lends itself to drama, intrigue, and murder.

I don’t think this is a true spoiler when I divulge that the very day Austin discovers the murderer is the same day it rained hardest at the Woodstock festival. Later she decides she has no regrets at missing the famous event, saying, “I never liked mud very much anyway.” In the coming prequel we see how much of her intrepid spirit she inherited from her grandmother—she who faced off against a thug sent to Texas by none other than Al Capone. Set among true-to-life details like that, I've composed another young woman's tale about finding her balance in a world ruled by men.

*******

Meet the author

 
Kay Kendall is a long-time fan of historical novels and now writes mysteries that capture the spirit and turbulence of the sixties. A reformed PR executive who won international awards for her projects, Kay lives in Texas with her Canadian husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Terribly allergic to her bunnies, she loves them anyway! Her book titles show she's a Bob Dylan buff.  In 2015 Rainy Day Women won two Silver Falchion Awards at Killer Nashville. Visit Kay at her website  http://www.austinstarr.com/>   or on Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/KayKendallAuthor 

 

Before the Wishlist. The Beatles! and Tales of Yesteryear

By Kay Kendall

Ah, the ease of the online wish list. I battled against the concept for years. But I finally succumbed.  What I GAINED: several hours of my precious time. What I LOST: the joy of watching loved ones delighted by their surprise gifts. If you are a boomer (as I am), then you recall when gift-giving before the wish list hit the scene. You tried to surprise the gift recipient—to surprise and delight. My joy of gift giving and wrapping came from my maternal grandmother who reveled in every aspect of gifting. 

In my boomer youth, I watched her decorate packages imaginatively. She could have hired on for Neiman Marcus—a store back in the day that did elegant and fanciful wrapping. (Their efforts today are a sad, pale imitation, fie!) What my grandmother could not do—not to save her very soul—was to keep her gifts a secret. She got so excited that she just had to give you hints--hints so major you could easily figure out what your gifts would turn out to be. I took such pleasure in her enjoyment that I didn’t mind.

Maybe telling Santa what you wanted for Christmas grew into the concept of wish lists. Yet today's wish list has more power. Woe to you if you give someone under-forty a present not on his or her wish list. I fought against wish lists until a dear friend said she gave up trying to surprise her offspring with delightful gifts. Finally she switched to the dreaded wish list or gave gift cards. Otherwise her grandchildren and children were chagrined. That’s how I discovered my offspring was participating in a societal shift. A generational difference, clear and simple. And so . . . I threw in the towel. But I remember a different time. I recall a December when I was a graduating high school senior. I wanted Beatle albums and 45s. When asked what I wanted for Christmas, “Beatles please” was my instant answer. My ONLY answer.

Meantime my mother and grandmother were in the kitchen making cranberry loaves, fudge, and mounds of cookies...all the while talking about the Christmases of their youths. My mother said she’d been pleased with mandarin oranges and pecans in the toe of her Christmas stocking, back in the 1930s. My grandmother recalled helping her mother go into the farmyard in Ohio and select a goose for neck twisting, in the first decade of the twentieth century--the holiday meal to be! I loved their quaint tales of the good old days. (Probably these stories helped grow my lust for history.)

When the morning of December twenty-fifth dawned. I went into the living room with my parents (I, an only child, admittedly a tiny bit or more spoiled). I had expected to call this my very own Beatles Christmas. But no. Arrayed beside the brightly lit tree was a set of three luggage pieces.

“You’re going off to college next year,” Delight shone in Mother’s eyes. “We knew you needed nice suitcases.” I tried to murmur sincere thanks while eyeing other presents. Where were the telltale signs of even one 33-long-play album? But John, Paul, George, and Ringo were nowhere to be found. All was not lost however. My paternal grandparents sent a check that I promptly cashed and turned into two longed-for Beatles albums. But, oh, I still recall the rush of emotion, the dramatic upheaval.

Things are so different now in the high season of gift giving. Well something’s lost but something’s gained in living every day. That’s the way the song goes, Joni Mitchell’s beloved “Both Sides Now.”

So then, what’s your opinion of the wish list phenomenon? What do you remember about gift giving and receiving in the “good old days?” What’s the routine at your house? I’d sure love to know.

*******

 

 

Meet the author

Kay Kendall is a long-time fan of historical novels and now writes mysteries that capture the spirit and turbulence of the sixties. A reformed PR executive who won international awards for her projects, Kay lives in Texas with her Canadian husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Terribly allergic to her bunnies, she loves them anyway! Her book titles show she's a Bob Dylan buff. In 2015 Rainy Day Women won two Silver Falchion Awards at Killer Nashville. Visit Kay at her website < http://www.austinstarr.com/>or on Facebook < https://www.facebook.com/KayKendallAuthor>



 

Red Stilettos? Not with MY Feet!

By Kay Kendall

Darned good thing I’m not required to wear stilettos to be part of this magnificent gang of writers. I’m tall, two inches shy of six feet, and have no need whatsoever for sky-high heels. And to boot (hee hee) I don’t wear red shoes—or any other bright color. Nature gifted me with rather large feet (ahmm) in order to balance my height.

Nancy, my pal since kindergarten, always teases me about my foot size. I reply I'd tip over if they were small, or average, in length. That's a sensible view—all of me should be in proportion. But recently I saw actress Brooke Shields interviewed on TV when she divulged an odd factoid. Though she's six feet tall, her shoe size is a seven. She concluded, “Therefore I often fall over.” I raced to phone Nancy to tell her that my opinion had been validated. (Inquiring minds might like to know my own size rhymes with the number seven.)

Despite my flippant answer, I'm not fond of my feet. They often don’t even seem to belong to me, lurking at such a far distance from my eyes. My feet seem almost alien. This probably relates to the fact that I once had difficulty finding shoes to fit me, back when larger sizes for women were uncommon and I would end up buying ill-fitting footwear. Consequently my feet always hurt.

Style wise I also took what I could get. My shoes were never stylish and always in somber colors. In my first job after grad school, my employer was hosting a fancy dinner. One of my coworkers wanted to know what I was wearing—answer: blue—and then what color shoes I would wear. When she heard I could choose either black or brown shoes, she was stunned, insisting I had to do better than that. She set to work on me, getting me to upgrade to fancier footwear. My fascination with more interesting shoes dates from that point in time—30 years ago.

 These days the range of sizes for female feet has grown—and my feet have not, hallelujah! Now my shoes spread all over my closet and creep into my husband’s space. The colors range more widely—showing a partiality to gold and blue. Nevertheless, you still won't find a heel higher than two inches, or a pair that is red. Some things never change.

~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Meet the author

Kay Kendall is a long-time fan of historical novels and now writes mysteries that capture the spirit and turbulence of the sixties. A reformed PR executive who won international awards for her projects, Kay lives in Texas with her Canadian husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Terribly allergic to her bunnies, she loves them anyway! Her book titles show she's a Bob Dylan buff. In 2015 Rainy Day Women won two Silver Falchion Awards at Killer Nashville. Visit Kay at her website < http://www.austinstarr.com/>or on Facebook < https://www.facebook.com/KayKendallAuthor>

 

WHY READING IS LIKE CHOCOLATE

by Kay Kendall

 

Reading is similar to chocolate. It tastes luscious to most people, but not to all. These days, however, we know through research that chocolate is a healthy thing to eat.

Scientific researchers have likewise come up with reasons why we should read. Here

is a curated list of reasons scientists say reading should be done—not only for our enjoyment and increased knowledge, but for our mental and physical well-being.

So next time you feel remorse when you’ve spent all day reading a favorite new book, just remember these reasons. Then POOF! Your guilt should vanish. Getting swept away by a compelling story line or character in a wonderful book is not only entertaining but also is good for you.

Which of these reasons resonate most with you? I’ve picked two faves. I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours! How about it?

1. Reading is an effective way to overcome stress. Researchers at the University of Sussex found that reading relaxed the heart rate and muscle tension faster than other activities often said to be de-stressors—for example taking a walk, listening to music, and drinking tea. Note that the research was done in England, a bastion of tea drinkers, so this is really saying something shocking.

 2. Reading exercises our brains. As our bodies need movement to be strong, our brains need a work out too. Reading is a more complex activity than watching television and actually helps establish new neural pathways.

 3. Reading helps maintain our brains’ sharpness. Neurologists who studied brains of those who died around age 89 saw signs of a third less decline among those who stayed mentally active with reading, writing, and other modes of mental stimulation like puzzles, as compared to those who did little or none of those activities.

 4. Reading may even ward off Alzheimer's disease. Adults who pursue activities like reading or puzzles that involve the brain are less likely to have Alzheimer's disease. Intellectual activity not only grows our brain power but also strengthens brain against disease.

5. Reading may help us sleep better. Reading before bed is a good de-stressing habit, unlike watching flashing electronic devices or television that cue the brain to wake up.

6. Reading self-help books can ease depression. Reading books that encourage people to take charge of their own lives can promote the idea that positive change is possible. A control group that had “bibliotherapy” combined with talk therapy was less depressed than another group that did not read self-help literature.

7. Reading helps people become more empathetic. Spending time exploring an author's imagination helps people understand other people’s points of view and problems. Researchers in the Netherlands performed experiments showing that people who were "emotionally transported" by a work of fiction experienced boosts in empathy.

8. Reading can develop and improve a good self-image. Poor readers or non-readers often have low opinions of themselves and their abilities. Reading helps people understand their own strength and abilities, hence growing better self-images.

So, here's to your hours and hours ahead of guilt-free reading! Enjoy!

 ~~~~~~~

Meet the author -- Kay Kendall is a long-time fan of historical novels and now writes mysteries that capture the spirit and turbulence of the sixties. A reformed PR executive who won international awards for her projects, Kay lives in Texas with her Canadian husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. 

Her book titles show she's a Bob Dylan buff. Her second mystery, Rainy Day Women, won two Silver Falchion Awards at Killer Nashville in 2015.

Visit Kay at her website
< http://www.austinstarr.com/>
or on Facebook
< https://www.facebook.com/KayKendallAuthor>