Z Is For Zero
April 24, 2018
This title was to be the final alphabet mystery series novel by Sue Grafton.
Sadly, she died December 28, 2017 and, according to her daughter, the final book will never be completed and the series ends with Y is for Yesterday.
April 24, 1940, however, should be B is for Birthday, the day Grafton was born in Louisville, Kentucky.
Although I’m not a big mystery reader, I do admire writer’s who display the tenacity it takes to achieve success. Grafton was such a writer.
Her early life was marred by a difficult home life as both her parents’ were alcoholics and, according to Grafton, “From the age of five onward, I was left to raise myself.”
It was her father’s influence which sparked an interest in writing. According to the Infallible Wikipedia:
“Grafton’s father was enamored of detective fiction and wrote at night. He taught Grafton lessons on the writing and editing process and groomed her to be a writer. Inspired by her father, Grafton began writing when she was 18 and finished her first novel four years later. She continued writing and completed six more novels. Only two of these seven novels (Keziah Dane and The Lolly-Madonna War) were published. Grafton would later destroy the manuscripts for her five early, unpublished novels.”
Success eluded her so she began writing screenplays and worked steadily for 15 years as such. The skills she acquired in this occupation were essential as she learned about story structure, realistic dialogue and how to create effective action sequences.
The Alphabet Mystery series begins in 1982 with A is for Alibi. Also from Wikipedia:
“Grafton had been fascinated by mysteries series whose titles were related, such as John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee series, each of which included a color in the title, and Harry Kemelman’s Rabbi Small series, each of which included a day of the week in the title. While reading Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies, a picture book with an alphabetized list of ways for children to die, Grafton decided to write a series of novels whose title would follow the alphabet. She immediately sat down and made a list of all of the crime-related word that she knew.”
It was after the publication of G is for Gumshoe that Grafton was able to quit writing screenplays and focus on her novels. There is one book in the series which does not comply with the naming conventions and that’s the letter ‘X’ – which is the complete title of the 24th book.
It was at a writer’s conference a few years back that I was told by an agent that having a series is the way to go. Of course, series or not, one must still obtain a publisher, have a marketing plan and do all the leg work to promote one’s books. For most writers, in my opinion, that’s the harder task than penning the book.
Writer’s write and, despite the lack of a publisher, it’s what we are compelled to do. Sue Grafton was also compelled to write so a toast to her memory on her birthday and the gift Dishe left behind with those 25 alphabet books.
To read more about Sue Grafton, here’s a link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sue_Grafton
The line “Where were you in ’62?” is in reference to the movie American Graffiti where then unknown actor Richard Dreyfuss becomes obsessed with finding the blonde who is driving the white Thunderbird. He never does but the already iconic Thunderbird is cemented in legend and, for his character, is what defines his final teenage experience.
First, a description of the car. It’s a 1964 1/2. White with a black convertible rag top. Red leather seats. Pretty much every teenager’s dream as the coolest car. I know it was mine.
Then, behind me, blue and red lights come on. My heart pounds. Oh crap.
For more information, here’s the Wikipedia link to the Mustang and, for those who have never seen American Graffiti, it’s a classic movie worth the time it takes to watch.
The safety pin was an especially great invention for mothers everywhere to keep the baby’s diaper pinned without stabbing the child. Making a large pin with a cute animal as the protective head has been a popular adaptation for decades.
When Punk Rock became a thing in the late 70’s and early 80’s the practice of using a safety pin as a decorative piercing became popular with the musicians and their followers.
“This is NOT the story of a convict who had told his love to tie a ribbon book to a tree outside of town. I know because I wrote the song one morning in 15 minutes with the late lyrical genius Irwin Levine. The genesis of this idea came from the age old folk tale about a Union prisoner of war – who sent a letter to his girl that he was coming home from a confederate POW camp in Georgia… Anything about a criminal is pure fantasy…”
Billboard has ranked “Yellow Ribbon” as the number one song for 1973, selling 3 million records in the United States in just three weeks. In fact, BMI (Broadcast Music Inc) which tracks songs for artists claims the song as been played over 3 million times in 17 years of continuous airplay. That’s true staying power.
It was on March 27, 1980, that the first plumes of steam escaped from Mt. St. Helen’s. Just over seven weeks later, the mountain experienced a 5.1 earthquake which caused the north side of the volcano to slide away and triggered the largest debris avalanche in recorded US history.
It was not until the April 23rd issue when I reported the first dusting of ash in Eatonville. Less than a month later the mountain blew.
The name Barbara was, at the time, a very popular name. It first hit the top ten names list in 1927 and remained there until 1958, a whopping 31 years. If you expand a bit, the name was a top 20 name for a total of 38 years. Whether one can blame Barbara’s free fall from popularity on the Barbie Doll is debatable. Having the most famous fashion doll in the world bear that name no doubt made more than a few parents reconsider it as a good choice for their daughter. After all, who would want to name their child after a doll? Another factor is that names, particularly girl’s names, tend to be popular for a period of time then are not used for decades.
Little girls everywhere loved Barbie. What wasn’t to like? She was pretty, had a great wardrobe, and was the perfect size for small hands. But there was something missing. That something arrived in mid-March 1961: Ken.
I got my first Barbie Doll for Christmas 1961. Her wardrobe consisted of a bathing suit, a short gold dress, a black evening gown (Solo in the Spotlight!) and a wedding dress. Based on how those clothes ‘survived’ the years I must have played with that doll a lot. The wedding dress, particularly, is mostly a rag but I still have it.
The closest I ever got to having a Ken was when I played the game “Barbie, Queen of the Prom.” In that game you had to navigate the board to collect a prom dress, appropriate accessories and, most important, a date. There were four choices: Ken, Allan, Tom and Poindexter. No one ever wanted Poindexter. Probably because he looked like he was about twelve. By the time I was playing that game, it was the mid-1960’s and Ken’s military crew cut was going out of style. No, the desirable date for Queen of the Prom was Allan, a freckled face red head with a winning smile.
It’s one of the most grueling races in the world and participants encounter blizzards, white out conditions and temperatures, with wind chills as low as -131 degrees.
What I determined in the five days I spent there with my two best friends from high school, Cindy and Daphne, were the following:
I am forever grateful to my two friends for the once in a lifetime event. It was, as the name of the business stated, Just Short of Magic. It was a beautiful, sunny day and the temperature was 10 degrees.
Although the adventure was only a couple of hours it was, as their business name proclaimed, just short of magic. I relished the rush of cold air, the way the sled flew over the snow, the cacophony of the barking dogs, and the sparkle of the white snow.
A good editor is the key to making sure whatever is written reads right and, well, doesn’t make ridiculous mistakes. In late February 1997 an American Family Publisher’s Sweepstakes entry was received by the Bushnell Assembly of God Church. It began thus:
If I had any doubt that my GPS truly was God my disbelief was dispelled about a year and half ago. I was on my way back from Yakima and was driving up I-82 towards Ellensburg. I glanced over at the GPS but what I saw left no doubt that some higher power was in charge. Instead of an elevation of about 2700 feet as expected “God” let me know I was at over… 50,000 feet! As Doc Brown says in Back To The Future “Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need… roads!” Although the photo I snapped was a bit fuzzy, you can clearly see the elevation and God’s instruction that I am to continue to the alley. What alley, I never did find out. This craziness continued until Thorp when, apparently, I was no longer flying and once again on solid pavement.
Geologically, nine years is a very short time period. But for farmer Dionisio Pulido of Paricutin, Mexico, the event which began at 4 p.m. on February 20, 1943, forever altered his life.
ars. These two wrote detailed descriptions, drew sketches and maps and took samples and thousands of photographs during this time. Many of these are still used today by researchers. Foshag continued to study the volcano until his death in 1956. Between 1943 and 1948, almost fifty scientific articles were published in major journals about the volcano, with even more since. The worldwide effort to study Parícutin increased understanding of volcanism in general but particularly of scoria cone formation.”
barbaradevore.com 