![]() ![]() Where are my parents? How drunk are they? You start doing that an early age and of course it’s going to shape you.” And I also became very observant, because that’s what the child of an alcoholic has to do. “But that also meant I grew up in ways that would pay off for a writer later on. It’s like they missed that day at school. The truth is that my parents were college-educated, passionate about books, soft-spoken, good-natured people. “Look, I’ve come to realize that many people had it a lot worse than me. What she had to cope with was her parents’ alcoholism, which was in full bloom for as long as she could remember. At a certain point, I just had to suck it up.” I know we’re not responsible for how we’re brought into the world, but once you know the facts, then you’d better play the hand you were dealt. It’s a collection of stories about both women’s pasts and how unfinished business can take a terrible toll. She brought it to the forefront in a volume she brought out earlier this year, called Kinsey and Me. Millhone’s background keeps being revealed to us in all its complexity, but Grafton’s is simpler. My kids always beg me not to wear it anymore.”Īnother interesting way in which Grafton and Millhone resemble each other is that they’ve both had to deal with various skeletons in their familial closets. I bought mine in Columbus, Ohio, for $98 in 1978. ![]() I cook, which she doesn’t, but we both own a single all-purpose black nylon dress. “I have children and grandchildren, which Kinsey doesn’t. But she never went for round three, while Steven (Humphrey) and I have been going for 35 years now. “We’ve both been married and divorced twice. Grafton amusingly ticks off more similarities and differences between Kinsey and herself. Millhone is a girl who prefers jeans to skirts, boots to high heels and quarter-pounders to pheasant under glass, all of which distance her from her chic creator. The lilting tones and honeyed cadences don’t quite jibe with her major creation, the hard-boiled California critter Kinsey Millhone. The other surprise is that mint julep of an accent she still sports, a lasting souvenir of her Louisville, Ky., birthplace. The woman who walks into Balzac’s in the Toronto Reference Library is smaller than you might have pictured her. Each one has begun with a letter of the alphabet, running in strict order, from the one that started the series, “A” Is for Alibi, to the current volume, “W” Is for Wasted.Īnd unlike other writers who run out of steam before they run out of paper, Grafton’s latest effort topped the bestseller lists of both the New York Times and USA Today, proof that at 73, she’s still got what it takes. Since 1982, she’s penned 23 homicide mysteries, all featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone. Grafton’s the name - Sue Grafton, to be precise - and murder’s the game. Meet the woman who’s done more for the alphabet than anyone since Campbell’s Soup. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |