Cameron Diaz and Women’s Liberation

 by Kay Kendall                              

                                                                               

I don’t know about you, but I feel relieved. Various TV morning shows and a plethora of online sources that follow celebrities’ doings say I can check one thing off my worry list. Movie actress Cameron Diaz “is not going to die an old maid.”

Really? In this day and age, wouldn’t you think that opinion was old hat? What is this—the 1950s?

Lest you taunt me for being frivolous, I assure you my musings are quite serious about the wedding of Ms. Diaz (42) and rocker Benji Madden (35). For the last two years I’ve thought a good deal about how far we women have come, baby, as I developed my mystery set against a women’s liberation background. Rainy Day Women takes place in 1969. Those were early days in what is known now as Second Wave Feminism. (First Wave took place in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, keying on legal issues, primarily women’s right to vote).

From the vantage point of 2015, looking back at the sixties, you could assume the women’s movement had changed many attitudes about appropriate behavior for women. And then you slam into nasty offhand comments about poor Cameron Diaz. Believe me, this actress is no wallflower. Her dalliances with celebrity boyfriends are the stuff of legend. To name only a few, there were heart throb Justin Timberlake, Oscar winner Jared Leto, New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez, and even P. Diddy  AKA Sean Combs.

With that dating background, Cameron Diaz needs a better commentary on her marriage that took place on January 5. She deserves to be compared to Warren Beatty, famous playboy who settled down with wife Annette Benning when he was all of 55. They wed, had children, and are evidently living happily ever after. When that happened, no one proclaimed he had been saved from a life of sad bachelorhood.

This blog topic was thrust upon me when a longtime pal shared her ire over media jabs at Ms. Diaz. My friend said, “A woman has many other ways to fulfill herself or prove her worth than through marriage. Why hasn’t everyone gotten beyond that narrow, old-fashioned opinion by now?”

Why indeed? Great question.

When I began writing Rainy Day Women, my intent was to show the kinds of issues bedeviling women 45 years ago. They flooded into consciousness raising groups with senses of despair over choices offered them in life—and then left those meetings emboldened to follow their own paths. Despite being called unfeminine or derelict of their familial duties, they set out to take control of their own destinies.

Clearly there are still some people who want women to remain in traditional roles no matter what. Female emancipation still scares many.

My husband likes to tell about the time he was traveling in Asia for business and a male executive delivered a stunning view. “There are three sexes in the world,” the man said. “There are men, women, and American women.” My husband did not find that amusing. Rather, he shakes his head when he tells the story, disturbed at such prejudice.

Okay then, I will now proudly place myself in that third category. If being an American woman means I stand up for my rights as a person then, yes, I will do that.

And as for Cameron Diaz, who has often gone on record as being uninterested in marriage, I would tell her this: “Honey, you just go right on living as you choose. Unmarried, married, or divorced—it is all up to you.” In short, you go, girl! 

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Kay Kendall set her debut novel, DESOLATION ROW--AN AUSTIN STARR MYSTERY in 1968. The sequel RAINY DAY WOMEN (June 2015) shows her amateur sleuth Austin Starr proving her best friend didn't murder women’s liberation activists in Seattle and Vancouver. A fan of historical mysteries, Kay wants to do for the 1960s what novelist Jacqueline Winspear accomplishes for England in the 1930s–write atmospheric mysteries that capture the spirit of the age. Kay is also an award-winning international PR executive who lives in Texas with her husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Terribly allergic to the bunnies, she loves them anyway! Her book titles show she’s a Bob Dylan buff too. 

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KK Exposed—Author Interview

By Kay Kendall

Here is a revealing interview I did some months back with Kings River Life, the California-based online weekly magazine. See if you can spot the secret I divulge!

How long have you been writing?    

I began with my own version of “The Night Before Christmas” at age seven. Later I wrote essays,lots of English major/then history grad student papers, then news releases and annual reports during my long career as a public relations executive. In 1998 I began writing fiction. Gloria Steinem said it best: “Writing is the only thing I do that I don’t feel like I should be doing something else.”

When did your first novel come out and what was it about? My first novel is DESOLATION ROW—AN AUSTIN STARR MYSTERY, published in March 2013 by Stairway Press of Seattle. After Austin marries her college boyfriend, they move from their native Texas to a foreign country. She has trouble coping with so much change—and then her husband is jailed for murder. Alone, far from home, Austin must find the real killer. When she also becomes a captive, things go from bad to worse. Danger stalks two young lives and a new marriage. This fraught love story rages through social upheaval and anti-war protests. Canada in 1968—surprisingly hazardous.

Have you always written mysteries/suspense? If not what else have you written?  My first completed fiction manuscript was a literary novel. It did not sell. I put it away and gave up writing fiction, but only temporarily. I still felt called to write so I took up genre writing. I devoured nothing but mysteries for two whole years and then began to write my own.

Do you write to entertain or is there something more you want the readers to take away from your work? I’m an anomaly in this modern world. I love learning about the past. It helps me understand how we got from back there to here. If I can tell an entertaining story that has some accurate historical detail to it, then I figure it’s an easy way to help people swallow some history that I think they should be aware of.

Do you have a schedule for your writing or just write whenever you can? Pretty much I write whenever I can. That said, I do have a pattern, based on sharing a house with a husband who is now retired and, although respectful of my writing life, deserves attention. Generally I write from noon until six in the evening.  

Do you outline or just wing it? I work from a basic outline. It’s like a road map. I know the basic route but add colorful detail—and red herrings—as I travel down that road.

 If you had your ideal, what time of day would you prefer to write? I work routinely from noon to about six p.m. However, in an ideal world I’d continue into late night. When I’m revising for publication under an editor’s hand—a stage I adore—then I can write for forty-eight hours straight—with brief timeouts for an occasional nap.  

Did you find it difficult to get published in the beginning?

Oh heck yes! Almost everyone does!

Do you have a great rejection/critique or acceptance story you’d like to share?  A well-respected publishing house for mysteries almost took my book, DESOLATION ROW. Three editors liked it, the fourth—the head honcho—did not. When she and I talked on the phone, she voiced two quibbles. First, she didn’t like that it was set in Canada, since “Americans don’t want to read about Canada.” (I bit my tongue to keep from saying—“You’ve heard of Louise Penny, haven’t you?”) Then she said that my writing about draft resisters during the Vietnam War did not tally with her memories. She concluded by saying that she usually didn’t revisit a manuscript, but if I made some changes, she would review mine again. I thanked her and hung up. She and I would not have been a marriage made in publishing heaven. Two weeks later I had a contract from Ken Coffman, publisher of Stairway Books in Seattle. He and his crew are ideal to work with. 

What are your future writing goals?  I’ve embarked on my Austin Starr mystery series. My next will be out in June 2015, RAINY DAY WOMEN. I plan at a minimum four books and hope for even more. God willing and the creeks don’t rise…as the saying goes in Texas.

What kind of research do you do?  Because I write about an era that I lived through, I do little research. I write from memory, and then when I throw in specific place details or real historical figures, I do a bit of online research to ensure accuracy. For DESOLATION ROW, I had a justice of the Ontario Supreme Court read it to ensure accurate representation of the criminal justice system in Toronto in 1968.

What do you read?  Historical fiction, the occasional literary novel, and masses of mysteries and spy stories. Also well-written thrillers, but I’m picky about those. Most of them are just slam-bang things so they don’t interest me much. However, my favorite novels of all time are JANE EYRE and ANNA KARENINA. 

What is something people would be surprised to know about you?  I married a Canadian and lived in Canada for two decades, an American in an unexpectedly different land. I also was offered work with the CIA, but decided to study history in graduate school instead. The spy world has always fascinated me, still does, but now I’m glad I didn’t end up there. But I sure do love it in fiction.  

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Kay Kendall set DESOLATION ROW--AN AUSTIN STARR MYSTERY in 1968. The sequel is Rainy Day Women, will be out in 2015. Her amateur sleuth Austin Starr must prove her best friend didn't murder women’s liberation activists in Seattle and Vancouver. A fan of historical mysteries, Kay wants to do for the 1960s what novelist Jacqueline Winspear accomplishes for England in the 930s–write atmospheric mysteries that capture the spirit of the age. Kay's an award-winning international PR executive living in Texas with husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Allergic to bunnies, she loves them anyway! Her book titles show she’s a Bob Dylan buff too. 

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A Sneak Peek at My New Mystery

By Kay Kendall

Today marks a red letter day for me. I sent the manuscript of my second Austin Starr mystery to my publisher, Stairway Press of Seattle. Part of my celebration is sharing with you a short excerpt from the book, RAINY DAY WOMEN, to be published in June 2015.

The tale is set in 1969, when my amateur sleuth Austin Starr is now the harried young mother of a three-month-old son. Despite her family duties—to husband and son—and the demands of her grad student career, she rushes to the aid of her best friend, Larissa. She is a prime suspect in the murder of the leader of her women’s liberation group in Vancouver. Soon another member of a women’s group in Seattle is killed. Austin must find the real killer before her friend is jailed for murder.

In the excerpt below, Austin questions Mia, a friend of the dead women’s liberation leader, Shona. I hope you dig the sixties atmosphere, when in my book the Pacific Northwest is drenched in blood, not rain, for a change.

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 “I’m busting to know what you think of him. Tell me.” I guess my voice got loud because two passersby gawked at us.

Mia rolled her eyes to the heavens. “More questions.” A heavy sigh escaped her lips. “Jack always said I was ballsy. Of course, I took that as a compliment. He doesn’t like wimps. The problem with Jack and me, however, was that we were competitors.”

“At what?” I said.

“We competed for Shona’s time, attention, and affection. Jack and I never talked about it, but my sense is we both knew what was going on. He worked at getting under my skin, and he succeeded. Jack belittled everything I did, called me ‘poor little rich girl.’ He was jealous of my wealthy family, but I wouldn’t let Shona tell him how I’d been sexually abused.”

“Sounds tricky for you to put up with. What happened when he succeeded in getting under your skin. How did you react?”

She ran her hands through her short hair and gazed across the street at the tall trees on campus. I let her drown in her own thoughts for a while, hoping she’d come out with something useful in solving the puzzle of two deaths. Or, at the least, one—Shona’s.

After a few moments, she turned to me and took off her sunglasses. “Once Jack and I came to blows at a party, and I was the one who ended up throwing the first punch. He was a drinker, and I did dope. In my experience, our two types don’t mix well. That night he was ragging on me about being rich, and I had reached my limit. I drew back my arm, aiming for his arrogant mug, but Shona jumped between us. I pulled the punch, and it hit her shoulder instead, but not a hard blow. Jack cackled in triumph and started pushing my buttons again, making nasty taunts. With Shona there, I pulled my punches in general and just stomped off.”

“Then I guess you won’t have an unbiased answer to my next question.”

“Go ahead,” she said. “Shoot.”

“Could Jack have murdered Shona, and perhaps Bethany, too?”

“My honest opinion?”

“Yes, please.”

 “Jack could be the murderer.” Mia stopped and put her sunglasses back on. “Absolutely, and there is no doubt in my mind.” 

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Kay Kendall set her debut novel, DESOLATION ROW--AN AUSTIN STARR MYSTERY in 1968. The sequel is Rainy Day Women, will be out in 2015. Her amateur sleuth Austin Starr must prove her best friend didn't murder women’s liberation activists in Seattle and Vancouver. A fan of historical mysteries, Kay wants to do for the 1960s what novelist Jacqueline Winspear accomplishes for England in the 930s–write atmospheric mysteries that capture the spirit of the age. Kay is also an award-winning international PR executive who lives in Texas with her husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Terribly allergic to the bunnies, she loves them anyway! Her book titles show she’s a Bob Dylan buff too. 

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Changing My Life Style

by Kay Kendall

Five years ago I left my public relations career of three decades and devoted myself to writing full-time. I thought I knew what this would be like, but I was so wrong. My expectation was that my life would be solitary, with little outside contact. My world would shrink and my conversations grow few and far between—held mostly with my husband, my dog Wills, and our three house rabbits. Well…wrongo!

Instead, my friend list—both real and virtual—has multiplied like crazy. I converse with new people all the time and have never been happier. Sure, I do spend hours in what I fondly call my writer’s lair, dreaming up mystery plots and scheming villains. But when I need a break, I go online and talk to my virtual friends all over the continent or attend an author’s event. If it’s my own, I hang out with my readers, and if it’s for other writers, I talk to writers I admire.  

T. Jefferson Parker and me

I don’t know if this is true for authors who write in categories other than mystery/thrillers, but in this genre, the writers are fantastically warm and welcoming. I expected the readers to be generous, but the friendliness of other mystery authors was a wonderful surprise.

A case in point was a signing event last night at Houston’s great Murder by the Book. T. Jefferson Parker talked about his latest novel, FULL MEASURE.  He has written twenty acclaimed mysteries over the course of his thirty-year writing career, and I’ve read and enjoyed many of them. I first met him at the annual ThrillerFest conference held by International Thriller Writers each July in New York City. That was in 2013 when my debut mystery was released. We shared experiences of writing a book with the Vietnam War as a background. I talked to him again at ThrillerFest in 2014, introducing myself again because I didn't expect him to remember me, even though we had emailed a few times. He said, “Of course I remember you, Kay.”

His opening words at last night’s event were, “Great to see you, Kay.” Well, if one of your writing heroes says that, of course your sense of well-being soars. We talked about books, and he shared the genesis of his new book, his first literary novel. A young Marine returns from hard duty in Afghanistan to find his America riven by discord and his family farm under threat from the economic collapse of 2008. I’m eager to read what this wonderful author has to say on these important subjects. (He is only one of three writers who've won more than one Edgar Award.)

Some of my new friends are writers on this blog. As a matter of fact, I am a participant because Linda Rodriguez invited me into the Stiletto Gang after I met her just briefly. Gang member Majorie Brody and I did a book tour together in Alabama and met another gang member at Killer Nashville a few months ago, Debra H. Goldstein. So far other gang members are online friends whom I hope to meet some day soon. Again, mystery authors are wonderful! My life is now quite literally a dream come true.

Lest you think it’s this way with all groups of writers, I hear it is NOT so! A mystery novelist on a Bouchercon panel a few years ago said he often went to meetings with his wife, a poet, and when poets gather, it gets downright chilly, and even vicious. Therefore he was stunned at his first attendance at Bouchercon to find all the mystery authors so welcoming. That was my first Bouchercon too, and I had just put my toe into the big ocean of mystery authors.  I can’t speak for poets (Linda Rodriguez can though), but I guarantee you, mystery/thriller authors are wonderful people.

Have you had similar experiences with mystery authors or readers? I hope you have, and if so, I'd love to hear your tales. Please share.

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Kay Kendall set her debut novel, DESOLATION ROW--AN AUSTIN STARR MYSTERY in 1968. The sequel, RAINY DAY WOMEN, comes out next year. Amateur sleuth Austin Starr must prove her best friend didn't murder women’s liberation activists in Seattle and Vancouver. A fan of historical mysteries, Kay wants to do for the 1960s what novelist Jacqueline Winspear accomplishes for England in the 1930s–write atmospheric mysteries that capture the spirit of the age. Kay is also an award-winning international PR executive who lives in Texas with her husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Terribly allergic to the bunnies, she loves them anyway! Her book titles show she’s a Bob Dylan buff too. 

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Saving Private Ryan—and Everyone Else Too

By Kay Kendall

Many anniversaries in the last few weeks remind us of the wretched world wars that ripped apart the twentieth century. Right off the top of my head, here are three important dates:

* June 6, 2014—70^th anniversary of D-Day.

* June 28, 2014—100^th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, precipitating incident of World War I.   

* June 30, 2014—80^th anniversary of “Night of the Long Knives” in Germany, when Hitler ordered murders of his Storm Troop leadership, thus cementing ties between the Nazi regime and the German Army.

Those first two dates received lots of publicity, but the third did not. June 30 was an important event that enabled Hitler to become Führer of National Socialist Germany and to claim absolute power.

Sometime in my twenties I realized that I think about war and its fallout far more than most females do. War is so common that many take it for granted, I think. But consider this: Some psychologists estimate that it takes three generations—three!—for the effect of having a family member serve in combat to work its way through the offspring.  Now, multiply that times the millions who served in both World Wars I and II, and then you begin to get a sense of how enormous and long-lasting is the legacy of twentieth century battles.

I also study history, enjoying every detail, trying to understand why events turned out the way they did…and also what could have been done to change tragic outcomes. There are others like me, but far more people keep track of the Kardashians’ activities than they do historical dates.

Because of this, and because I think it is critical to know something about history and not to forget lessons learned, I have chosen in my own small way to write about a long ago era. If you set a fictional story within an accurate backdrop, then readers can pick up a sense of the time and place almost by osmosis. My chosen era is the Vietnam War.

Mystery authors who have inspired me include Alan Furst, Philip Kerr, and Jacqueline Winspear. Each of these writers has new books out this year. Furst and Kerr set their thrillers within the lead up to and early years of World War II. Winspear has a famous series about Maisie Dobbs, a nurse in World War I. Her current book, however, is a standalone called The Care and Management of Lies. She is the third generation in her family since her grandfather was gassed in the trenches of France. Her father fought in World War II. She thinks and reads about war and its aftermath and writes about it too. The Care and Management of Lies is her homage to the Great War, and she describes eloquently why she wrote it, see http://thecareandmanagementoflies.com/camol-inspiration.php

Many moviegoers were made aware of the importance of D-Day by director Steven Spielberg and actor Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan. Since then Hanks has produced and participated in many films and television shows that memorialize that great conflict, World War II. The enormity of that war seems to get into your soul and will not let you go.

World War II is often cited as the “good war,” the one that was necessary to fight. On the other hand, World War I, originally called “the war to end all wars,” sadly did not live up to its name. In fact, historians now see the two great wars as parts of the same whole.

Philosopher George Santayana famously wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

If we do not want to produce millions more Private Ryans who must eventually be saved (or brought home in body bags), we need to ponder how humanity bumbles into wars so easily, and then decide what we as citizens can do to stop this idiocy. Waging war is too significant to be left to politicians alone.

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Kay Kendall's debut novel, Desolation Row—An Austin Starr Mystery, takes place in 1968. Mysteries about World Wars I and II inspired her to use the Vietnam War to illuminate reluctant courage and desperate love when a world teeters on chaos. 

Kay’s work in progress is Rainy Day Women, when her amateur sleuth Austin Starr must prove her best friend didn’t murder women’s liberation activists in Seattle and Vancouver. She is an award-winning international PR executive living in Texas with husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Terribly allergic to bunnies, she loves them anyway! Her book titles show she’s a Bob Dylan buff too.

Discover more about  DESOLATION ROW, here at
http://www.KayKendallAuthor.com