In ‘A Bone in the Throat,’ he describes his protagonist and alter ego, the cook Tommy Pagano, as ‘darker, and not as tall as the chef, his hair stood up straight and spiky like a young Trotsky’s.’ He describes Little Italy with such verve, such flavor, that it is impossible not to smell the streets or taste the food. Sarah Weinman Read Quote
The quality I appreciated most about Grafton was her loyalty. She stuck with ‘Kinsey Millhone’ and the alphabet series conceit for her entire career but did not allow herself to stagnate as a writer. Kinsey’s first-person narrative gradually made room for other, third-person perspectives. Sarah Weinman Read Quote
In 2011, I contributed an essay to Tin House, ‘The Dark Side of Dinner Dishes, Laundry, and Child Care,’ talking about women writers I felt had fallen off the map. Sarah Weinman Read Quote
Vera Caspary wrote an essay called ‘My ‘Laura’ and Otto’s’ where she talks about the arguments she had with Preminger. She felt that not only did he misunderstand the character but that he couldn’t help but be misogynist. Sarah Weinman Read Quote
I first read ‘Lolita’ when I was 16, which I think is a little bit young. But it was a thrilling and disturbing read because it was the first time I really sensed that you could have an unreliable narrator, that you didn’t have to sort of tell the truth in a narrative, that there could be something deeper and richer and more complicated going on. Sarah Weinman Read Quote
Britain proves to be an ideal setting for many a medieval-minded crime novelist, regardless of century. Sarah Weinman Read Quote
To understand the current state of mind of both Sara Paretsky and her private detective alter ego, one must first roll back the clock to 1982, when Victoria Iphegenia Warshawski took her first investigative bow in ‘Indemnity Only.’ Sarah Weinman Read Quote
If you think the shifting tectonics of world history might make for a juicy crime fiction backdrop, the last decade or so has proved you right. Sarah Weinman Read Quote
Authors don’t tend to stay with the same agents and editors over their entire lifetimes, but Grafton worked with Marian Wood, her editor at Putnam, from Kinsey’s first outing, and signed with Molly Friedrich, still her literary agent, with the publication of ‘B Is for Burglar.’ Sarah Weinman Read Quote
