Chapter Member
Spotlight Profile
March, 1998
Spotlight Profile
March, 1998
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Carolyn Wheat,
Author and one of the founders of
Sisters in Crime
Carolyn Wheat, author, lawyer, teacher, and one of the founding members of Sisters in Crime, takes you into the world of a legal aid/low profile defense attorney, Cass Jameson. Looking for street talk as it really sounds; courts as they really function; and Brooklyn as it really looks? You'll find it in Carolyn Wheat's books. Carolyn was in on the founding of Sisters in Crime, back when, and currently teaches on the west coast while continuing to create Cass Jameson based novels. She is also a Winter Olympics junkie. Ask her about luge! This interview was conducted by Louise Guardino on Friday February 13th, with gremlins in attendance. Carolyn selected the following passage, from her book, Where Nobody Dies (1986), as one of her favorites:
If cops fall in love with the street, then criminal lawyers fall in love with the system. It's a mainline shot of primo adrenaline, a daily fix of pure, uncut life. So I strapped up my arm and prepared to stick the needle in. I walked to court.
IC
That's a fine example of Cass Jameson's approach to daily life as a Brooklyn defense attorney. How closely does it mirror yours?
Carolyn
Some things you don't realize while you're in the situation; I don't think I fully understood my reasons for doing my defense job when I was doing it. I was filled with a certain amount of idealism and a fairly large dose of ego, which was gratified by fighting the system. Only later did I realize I was in part a voyeur as well, and that the adrenaline was a kick I became addicted to.
IC
Like Cass in Troubled Waters, did your idealism grow out of protest movement experience?
Carolyn
Yes. I protested the Vietnam war by marching on Washington twice (1967 and 1969). I also worked for Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty, and my first job out of law school was with Morrisania Legal Services in the south Bronx. I saw a lot of poverty and hopelessness, and at that time, I believed the government could help bring hope to those people who weren't in the mainstream of our economic system. But the idealism wasn't, I hope, completely naive either. It certainly became less naive as I matured, which is the way things are supposed to be.
IC
Gee, at that time (late 60s) the South Bronx looked much like Sarajevo does today. How much has your idealism tempered?
Carolyn
Oh, you were there, were you? Yes, it did have that bombed-out look. Well, my idealism has been tempered by what I like to think of as realism, in that for example, I defended tenants who withheld rent because of poor conditions in the buildings. I wanted to believe at that time that every single one of them was righteous and that they weren't ripping off the landlords. But some of them were -- they'd hold back the money and then skip out on the rent, leaving a debt the landlord had to deal with. In short, I began to see that human nature wasn't all good just because someone was poor. You could be oppressed and be a rip-off artist at the same time, and that made it a little harder to be idealistic, even though I still believed they were entitled to a good lawyer.
IC
Ah, and speaking of being entitled to a good lawyer: medical doctors have to deal with the possibility a patient may die; criminal defense lawyers with the possibility a client they've freed may do future harm. In Fresh Kills one of Cass's clients brutally kills her own children. How does an attorney deal with the emotional strain, the moral dilemma. They don't teach that in law school, do they?
Carolyn
I just wrote about ten lines on how I never had to deal with that and began recounting the case of a colleague of mine, when I remembered that I did have a case that raised these issues. God, what you block out over the years. My client was crazy, voices and all that, and I represented him on a wacko charge of dropping a safe out a window onto an ambulance. I got him released on condition he go see his shrink; two days later, he was arrested for putting his child in the oven (not murder; the kid lived). Irony: I heard an account of the case on the TV news and thought, "Boy, I'm glad that one's not mine." Famous last words. Well, I represented him by treating him like a person instead of a monster. By the time I met him in court, he was filled with remorse, knowing that what he had done was horrible, but thinking God had told him to do it. The case may have become the first 'guilty but insane' plea in New York State.
IC
My immediate reaction: Oh no, no no! I guess you have to take a deep breath. So, New York has 'guilty, but insane'? More states should.
Carolyn
That's what I meant by saying that case might have been the first one; they were just changing over from 'not guilty by reason of.'
IC
How much did Cass's fear in Mean Streak of eventually becoming a female "Murray Singer, the Court Street hack" reflect what you felt?
Carolyn
Oddly enough, not much. I guess in some corner of my mind I knew I wasn't going to be an old lawyer. An old writer, this I still have hope for, but an old lady hanging around the courthouse passing out cards and calling the third phone from the left in the lobby her office -- God, I can't think of much worse than that. I may starve as a writer, but I can do it with dignity.
IC
What a picture you paint of a greater than 20-year legal career! Admit it: you wanted to be a writer all along! Want to tell us about it? Your first book, Dead Man's Thoughts, came out while you were still in the legal aid business, right?
Carolyn
I always say I was born into both my professions. If you'd met me at five, I'd have been a lawyer and a writer. A lawyer because I was a good arguer, always trying to figure out what was 'fair' -- or, since I was, after all, a kid, what was 'not fair.' And a writer because I made up stories from the earliest times in my life. So, yes, I wanted to be a writer but not at the cost of never having been a lawyer. Dead Man's Thoughts came out in 1983; I was with Legal Aid, although I had taken a year off to write the book. When I was finished, I went right back into the pits. But after the second book, I left for good and tried to make a living as a writer. Not so easy, especially living in New York.
IC
Your books are so much better for your legal and street experience: it shows!In the second book, Where Nobody Dies, Cass recalls her college protest days, where she got "...a bigger dose of radical problems than bargained for." At the time you wrote that, were you knowingly planting the seed for your latest book, Troubled Waters?
Carolyn
Thank you, and yes. What I didn't know at the time was how long it would take me to write Troubled Waters (nor did I know what title my publisher was going to saddle me with).
IC
What would you rather have called Troubled Waters?
Carolyn
Titles are hard. After a lot of false starts, I came up at last with A Prayer for the Pretender, a line from a Jackson Browne song. The publisher thought it too long and not murderous enough. But as long as we're on that sore subject, the one that will come out in August is Sworn To Defend, which I had called Acid Test. I like my own title better, but they've realized after five books that I'm a lawyer and they think they ought to let the reading public in on that fact in hopes that I'll sell, if not like Grisham, like Scottoline.
IC
I like your title, Acid Test, better. Troubled Waters was a departure from your other books in some respects. A retrospective, a travel back to the days of Phil Ochs (one of my favorite protest composer/singers), migrant farm worker rights and Iran-Contra shenanigans. Had the story been in your mind all those intervening years?
Carolyn
The idea for writing something about the migrant farmworkers in Ohio came when I was part of the Office of Economic Opportunity as a law student, well before Cass was even a gleam in my eye. Later, I realized she would be the one through whose eyes I would show that experience, adding, of course, murder, which wasn't there in real life. But since time kept passing, it became necessary to involve three time periods, and that's when the sanctuary movement and the contras came into it.
IC
Cass used photography and visualizing a scene as a photo as a device to keep her sanity. You must also be an avid photographer. Are you?
Carolyn
I was once, but when I began writing fiction on a serious basis, my photography fell by the wayside. I once had a darkroom in my kitchen; sold it and now I mainly admire other people's work. Photography does remain part of Cass's life and is important in Sworn To Defend.
IC
I understand that you were involved in the founding of Sisters in Crime. Tell us about how you got involved.
Carolyn
I was just there. Sheer accident. That first breakfast took place at the Baltimore Bouchercon; I heard about it from someone -- no idea who; the news was just out there somewhere that Sara Paretsky had called us all together to talk about the status of women in mystery. I showed up and I still have a handwritten list of names and addresses of other Northeasterners who were present. Later, Sara sent us all a letter beginning 'Dear Sister in Crime' and the rest, as they say . . . I was also one of the proud wearers of a HBBA T-shirt at the same B-con, if you've heard that story. There are many ways to be a feminist, some more fun than others.
IC
I haven't heard the story of the HBBA-T-shirt. What is it?
Carolyn
Well, much of this is hearsay. I was only present at the tail end of the creation. But word on the street has it that some of our fellow females were upset because the males who organized conventions had a bad habit of grouping all the women together on panels with names like 'deadly dames' and 'lethal ladies' -- and then having all men on all the other panels. A nice little ghetto, not made any more palatable by alliteration. So the women at the B-con just prior to Baltimore decided they preferred to be addressed as Hard-Boiled Bitches of America -- or just the initials. Gail Larson, owner of the Baltimore bookstore The Butler Did It, had T-shirts made up. They were lavender, had a caricature of Mae West on them, and the letters HBBA. During a particularly macho panel chaired by Bob Randisi, a bunch of women with these T-shirts on under other tops stood up, unbuttoned our over-shirts, and flashed the panel with our new HBBA personae. Much merriment ensued, but it got a tad serious when Linda Barnes accepted her Anthony for "Lucky Penny" -- the short story that introduced Carlotta Carlyle to the world -- by thanking, among other things, HBBA. (She had written five books about a male detective because her publisher said no one wanted to read about a woman.)
IC
Wonderful story! I'm still smiling. On a more serious note, your short story "Life, For Short" in the Sisters in Crime 4 collection (Marilyn Wallace, editor) was strong and...disturbing. Want to talk about it? (and it was nominated for an award, right?)
Carolyn
It was nominated for a Macavity by the Mystery Readers of America. It came to me when I had a broken leg and had to sleep funny. I guess it's a measure of how strongly I value my imagination; I could remain alive so long as I could dream, unlike some who feel they'd kill themselves if they couldn't do what they dreamed about.It was also, by the way, a real crossword puzzle clue, and I still have no idea what it meant in the crossword. It just sounded so wonderful as a title.
IC
Some questions for the "pre-published" among us: you've said elsewhere that you are a "spurt writer". Tell us more.
Carolyn
It's more than just 'sometimes I feel like it and sometimes I don't.' I go through various stages with a book; I'm not fast. But sometimes I write like one possessed, and then I take time and cool off a bit, step back, contemplate the next stage. I can't seem to work according to the 'eight pages a day come hell or high water' formula, although I admire those who can and do.
IC
Do you have a full-blown plot in mind when you begin or just a fragment of an idea?
Carolyn
Oh, no. Plotting is hard. Plotting is work. Plotting is hell. Fragments begin to add up and to connect, but I have to whip them into shape before they turn into anything resembling a plot.
IC
Do you begin writing before you've whipped these fragments into shape?
Carolyn
Yes and no. I might start a scene at the beginning, or work on character stuff or settings, but I don't usually write the words CHAPTER ONE on top of a page until I have a pretty solid outline. I like to know where I'm going.
IC
Do you do much rewriting?
Carolyn
Yes. Lots and lots and lots. Sometimes as I go, making a scene stronger or deepening it to include sensory detail. I also revise when I reach the end of an arc, by which I mean a plot point. And then there are several big-time revisions of the entire manuscript. I think rewriting is just about the key to the whole thing. The important part is to know what you're revising for, not just go in and change the words around. Quick book recommendation: Self-Editing For Fiction Writers by Browne and King. A big help for the rewriter.
IC
If you could spend several hours with one of the following people, who would you choose and why? Lizzie Borden, Margaret Thatcher, or Margaret Bourke-White (for those who don't know of her, she was a renowned Life magazine photojournalist).
Carolyn
Margaret [Thatcher], of course, although Walker Evans might be more my type. Lizzie -- let's face it, the woman only did one interesting thing in her whole life, and how long can you talk about that? Bourke-White lived a very interesting life, saw a lot and preserved it for others to see through her sharp lens, and courageously underwent brain surgery. My kind of hero.
IC
If you know the TV program, how closely does The Practice reflect reality?
Carolyn
Not at all. Except, maybe, for the sex. There must be people who go at it so hot and heavy that they fall out of showers together. Otherwise, it bears as much resemblance to real legal life as Picket Fences did to small towns in Wisconsin. Kelley raises interesting issues, but realism isn't his strong point.
IC
What's your favorite movie, nonfiction book, and classic mystery book?
Carolyn
How can anyone have a favorite in those categories? A favorite food, yes; chocolate. Even a favorite city or a favorite season. But those are hard ones. Still -- for a long time, anyway, my favorite movie was a little-known Gene Kelly musical called It's Always Fair Weather. Haven't seen it in a while, so not sure if I'm still in love with it. Favorite classic mystery: now there's another tough one. I taught a class recently and re-read a few classics, and the one that held up best for me was The Maltese Falcon, but that doesn't make it a favorite in the sense of curling up with it. It's not a curler. Sayers let me down quite a bit; found myself wanting to slap Lord Peter silly. I'm also a Queenian, so will say Cat Of Many Tails as my favorite classic read. Favorite nonfiction? How can there be such a thing? You read it to learn something, and then you've learned it, so who needs it any more? I guess the best I can do is mention my current passion, which is Frida Kahlo, the Mexican painter. I have several picture books of her stuff and a nice big biography by Herman Herrera; I am actually going to go to Mexico City at least in part so I can see her old house, now a museum. La Casa Azul.
IC
Are you an internet junkie?
Carolyn
Yes. I love the mystery sites and the Star Trek sites. Haven't chatted much, just visited web sites.
IC
If you could defend one of the following, who would you choose and why? Lee Harvey Oswald, John Gotti, or Ted Bundy.
Carolyn
Great question. You're very good at this. Oswald would have been quite a challenge at the time (especially since I was in high school :-)) but today everyone believes in the grassy knoll, so he'd be an easy walk. No fun. Gotti beat the rap several times before, so winning his case wouldn't put me on the map either. So it's Bundy because to win Bundy's case would be a coup. I'd just have to leave town and change my name so I wouldn't get lynched. But he'd be the challenge, I think, and no lawyer can resist a challenge.
IC
This is it, the finale. You are free to talk directly to our readers and say whatever you wish.
Carolyn
Well, first, let me thank you for inviting me. Your questions were very well chosen. What do I want to say? I love the idea of the internet chapter. Sisters in Crime was -- thanks to Barbara Paul -- the first mystery group in cyberspace, and I'm pleased to have finally become a small part of that online presence. Thanks again to you for this great interview.
IC
Well thank you, Carolyn, for your time, patience and suffering through caffeine withdrawal. Great interview...our readers will eat it right up.
Books by Carolyn Wheat
Dead Man's Thoughts
Where Nobody Dies
Fresh Kills
Mean Streak
Troubled Waters
Sworn To Defend (available August 1998)
To see previous Spotlight Profiles, click
here.
Carolyn Wheat
Louise Guardino