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06-19-13: A 2013 Interview With Sharan Newman
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"...Jews and Christians did mingle a lot, but there was still the tension..."
—Sharan Newman
Sharan Newman admits to barely living in this century. Since she was a student at the age of 19, she has been studying medieval lives and literature and she's never looked back. It's as easy for her to transport herself to 12th-century France as it is for her to walk the streets of 21st century America. And her territory is a very particular slice of life, at least in her fiction.
Newman's Catherine LeVendeur mysteries begin when Catherine is a young scholar at the Convent of Paraclete, under the tutelage of Hélöïse d'Argenteuil, famous for her lover's correspondence with Peter Abélard. In the course of ten novels and one short story collection, LeVendeur handles murderers, witches, heretics and Knights of the Templar. Newman carves a bloody path through history.
But mystery and murder is not the only thing on her mind as she writes the books, and her setting offers her ample chance to explore the relationships between Jews and Christians in this medieval setting in some detail and with much nuance. There's a lot of world building going on in these books, woven with authentic characterizations and settings down to the details of 12th century toilet paper.
Clearly, Newman was a perfect fit for King's Higher Mysteries panel; her crime-solving protagonist is a nun, and her setting id rife with religious intrigue and tension. The mysteries that are being solved — and presented — concern more than just the death of one mere mortal.
Newman also writes non-fiction, and her most recent work of non-fiction is right in my scopes, 'The Real History of the End of the World.' We talked about her research for this book, which sent her to meet some very Fortean character types.
She's also the author of a series of novels about Guinevere, written long before the character became a staple of modern fantasy literature. Newman is a perfect example of the sort of author we need to hear about, and from. You can hear my conversation with her by following this link to the MP3 audio files.
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06-18-13: Podcast Extra: Laurie R. King Explores Higher Mysteries
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"In crime, we're dealing with passions."
— Laurie R. King
Laurie R. King never rests, and she never stops pushing the boundaries of literature. Her own works of fiction generally fit quite neatly into the mystery genre, but even in those works of genre fiction, she likes to discuss ideas that shift the question behind mystery from "Who done it?" to "What's it all about?" Better still King likes to bring these ideas to the public in the form of panel discussions, which she organizes with the Santa Cruz Public Library.
Her latest exploration, a panel that ran last month, took mystery to transcendence. In "Higher Mysteries," King brought along three distinguished writers to discuss religious themes in mystery fiction; Sharan Newman, author of the Catherine LeVendeur mysteries, Julia Spencer-Fleming, author of the Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne mysteries, and Zoe Ferraris, author of the Katya Hijazi and Nayir Sharqi novels. In each of these series, religion plays a major role.
It is, of course, definitely a higher mystery as to why I am lucky enough to know King, but we'll let that one remain in the mist and simply be grateful that King contacted me and allowed me to interview each of the panel participants individually about their work, and then to record the panel session at the library.
I'm beginning the series with my interview with Laurie R. King, a conversation about the theological inclinations of Mary Russell, the passions of crime fiction and King's new novel, 'The Bones of Paris,' a sequel to 'Touchstone' that gives King her third series of novels. King and I also talked about some of her other (thus far) standalone novels and her plans for them. You'll hear a reading from 'The Monstrous Regiment of Women' to being the interview, and farther in, a very intriguing piece from 'The Bones of Paris.'
One of the reasons that King remains so high on my list of writers is that she's really willing to overstep the bonds of publishing propriety, and to nudge her publishers towards what gives readers the most reading and re-reading pleasure. You can hear our conversation by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
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06-17-13: A 2013 Interview with Michael Pollan
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"The culture of barbecue is highly Balkanized."
—Michael Pollan
Even before you open the gate to get into the garden, you can smell the rosemary. It's important on a variety of levels. Rosemary is fragrant and used in so many familiar meals that it can't help but bring back memories. But it is also very easy to grow. It's a pragmatic herb to plant. That combination — the poignant and the pragmatic — gives you a good idea of what you're in for when you read Michael Pollan's 'Cooked.'
Beyond the rosemary, there were many more herbs, and edibles, though the only one that struck me was the huge dino kale — plant? — bush? I use it all the time; it's a great leafy green. It made me think I ought to get planting. There was the fire pit; a few ashes remained.
And again, we get a parallel to Pollan's book. I'd read quite a few reactions to book, and to me, more than a few seemed to miss the reading point. You can easily get hung up on some of the material Pollan covers, and in his own personal story of coming to the kitchen. He wrestles himself there. As a writer and journalist, he keeps on looking for more stories, and most of them seem to lead to someone's kitchen — and eventually, his.
We sat down to talk in a book-lined office with San Francisco Bay in the background. I was interested in pursuing not the mildly controversial explorations, or even his move to the kitchen, so much as in his sense of the stories he was telling.
To me, 'Cooked' was a peculiar type of journalism. It was not a memoir, but investigative journalism of the journalist himself. 'Cooked' is a lush, super-detailed portrait, so deeply descriptive that it comes round the other side to almost seem prescriptive.
After all, who would not want to be there for the pig-roasting, the braising, the bread-making, cheese-making, fermentation and brewing? Pollan takes us deep into the heart of the human history of food preparation, and in the process, makes our own kitchens look quite enticing. I will add that it helps to clean up, totally, immediately after you cook. When next you are hungry, the shiny cleanliness will draw you back in.
I probably could have talked to Pollan for twice as long as I did. But we had great fun in our conversation, which you can hear by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
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