C.J. Songer: Marriage as the Root of All PI Novels

C. J. Songer sets her sights on a target — hopefully not a critic. (Photo courtesy of C. J. Songer.)

Forget the avocados and oranges. Mysteries constitute California’s most important export. From the genre-shaping work of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler to the neo-noir epics of James Ellroy and the C. J. Songer’s tough-yet-tender protagonist, ex-cop Meg Gillis —

What? You haven’t read anything by C. J. Songer? Where have you been? Well, don’t worry, I won’t tell. Just go read her, right away — you’re lucky we caught this early, while she only has the two books out. And before you said that in public. Sheesh.

Crescent Blues: Let’s take it from the top — what was the seed that eventually grew into Bait and Hook, the first books in the Meg Gillis series?

C. J. Songer: Well, the “seed,” appropriately enough, came from my husband. [Smiles.] I wanted to find a way to re-connect him to his police department past. He had to retire on an injury, and he had a very hard time reconciling himself to that, so he severed many of the ties. He put all of his police stuff in a box and wouldn’t talk about it, on the theory, I think, that it was easier not to be reminded of what he couldn’t be anymore.

We’d still get together with some of our police friends and families away from the department — I made a point of dragging [my husband] to things — and he always came more alive when he was there, hashing over old times with the buddies. So a few years later, when I was deciding to start writing officially, it was very natural to use a police department setting akin to the one that we’d known, and then need his input to be sure I was writing it right.

Do you see Meg as a descendant of the classic PI — a loner, following a strongly held (though sometimes hard to articulate) moral code even when it conflicts with the letter of law or her own best interests. Or is that simply a projection of your readers?

I see Meg as Meg. I don’t know how my readers see her. She does have a very strong moral code, even if it isn’t always immediately obvious, and yes, sometimes that code demands sacrificing herself for somebody else’s good, but isn’t that true for everyone? We all deal with that, I think. Meg’s simply a woman of our times, trying to figure the best way through this thing we call life.

One of Meg’s strengths is that while she’s a strong, assertive woman working in a traditionally male occupation, she’s also very believably feminine. How do you achieve that balance?

I just write her as she is. [Smiles.]

Sometimes male readers find it hard to identify with a female protagonist — what has your experience been with Meg and male readers?

Well, most of them seem very taken with her, which is gratifying, although one or two have mentioned wanting to smack her because she just won’t behave. They don’t think she’s wrong, exactly, but they do feel very strongly that she shouldn’t take such chances, and that she should listen more to her guy. I’m trying to see this as a good sign…

Some of your readers have said less than flattering things about Joe Reilly, the homicide cop Meg meets in Bait and then in Hook. No spoilers, but I suspect Reilly’s not leaving anytime soon. Can you tell us more about how you see the relationship between Meg and Reilly?

They don’t like Reilly? Really?? But he’s such a New Age, sensitive kind of guy! He’s honestly trying here, you know. I have to say this — he’s being very patient, giving her running-room, and she’s just dragging him around, dissing him. It’s fortunate that she’s good in bed. And that she really likes him. And that he really likes her.

What about Mike, Meg’s partner? I admit, I worry about him. I keep remembering that scene in the Maltese Falcon where they’re repainting the door from “Spade and Archer” to just “Sam Spade.” Sure, he’s a rogue, but without him, how could you manage to get Meg into a book’s worth of trouble?

Oh, I never thought of that — Thank you! You know, there’s quite a trend in mysteries these days of killing off the Significant Other. Now, see, I’ve been threatened with bodily harm if I slaughter Meg’s S.O. but, Mike, well… [C. J. strokes her Freudian slip — er, chin.] Hmmmm…

Meg’s not only an ex-cop, but the widow of an officer slain in the line of duty. What made you decide on that background for her?

I’m married. [Smiles.]

Not only are you married to an ex-police detective, but you worked for the Glendale, Calif., police department. How has that affected your work?

It’s the root of all ev — oops, I mean, writing. Seriously, it is what has fueled me and it is what fuels the books. It’s a very difficult culture to express or to comprehend. If you’re in it, you generally can’t see its oddities as oddities and you embrace them as natural and necessary to survive, which in a sense, they are. If you’re outside of it and have never been in it, then much of the behavior and the automatic reactiveness can seem bizarre.

I was in it at least partway, because I tend not to embrace things, and I’m still connected to it, although I’ve been living outside of it now for a while, so perhaps I have a reasonable perspective of both sides. I’m trying very hard to be true to the culture as I’ve experienced it, in all of its good and bad aspects.

How much can you draw on your own background and that of your husband and friends, and how much do you actively research aspects of your books?

It’s sort of a blend of both. I do a fair amount of training in weaponry and methods of self-defense because I find it very interesting and challenging and liberating and exhilarating and frustrating and a bunch of other things like that. In that sense, I actively research. Where I need more specific input as to departmental procedures or whatever, I usually check first with my husband, because he’s knowledgeable and handy, but I also have a number of friends I can call on. When in doubt, I do!

Although Meg sometimes bends the rules — breaking the law or the terms of her understanding with Reilly when necessary — she never does it lightly, and she always ends up paying a price. Is that by design?

Isn’t that how life works? Maybe it’s the way I’ve experienced it. [Smiles.] I don’t have a design, per se. A number of the things people have asked me lately have to do with my writing process, and there seems to be a “deus ex machina” implication to some of those questions, as if I’m writing by hovering over a little diorama someplace, ready to reach my godlike hand in and alter the goings-on at my whim. I’m a great believer in taking personal responsibility for things, so I’m somewhat nonplussed myself to be saying, “No, no — I just write what’s there.” But that’s how I do it.

I try to be true to all of the people I’m interpreting — if Meg does such-and-such, what’s Reilly going to do? If he’s reacting this way, how’s Meg feeling at the moment, what’s most important to her? That kind of stuff. I guess I believe that Meg would be the first to deny that the term “honorable” applies to her — she doesn’t see herself that way. But I do. And when you’re a pragmatic realist who finds yourself operating stupidly honorably, well, then, sheesh, no wonder everything’s going to hell!

What kinds of books do you like to read, when you have the time — mysteries, or something else entirely?

Don’t tell anyone, OK? I like science fiction.

Does your law enforcement experience influence how you read other mysteries — are there things you can’t read because they don’t ring true, or things you find particularly compelling because they do?

Yes.

Such as?

Uh…can I call a friend?

How have the cops or ex-cops you know reacted to Bait and Hook?

Many of them don’t read cop-fiction because of what you mentioned in your previous question. So far, thankfully, the ones who’ve read my books and who’ve talked to me about it have liked [the books] a lot.

There are operational differences between police departments — big city versus smaller-town, for instance, sheriffs versus a PD, or the way a certain area of the country handles problems as opposed to another geographical location. But there are some things that are just absolutely specific to the cop experience across the board, and the response I’ve gotten has been extremely positive.

I have a rather hard-bitten Internet friend from one of my Tactics lists who’s a sheriff with a department in Kentucky. He’s one of the last people in the world that I’d have thought would have wasted any time reading my tripe, so I not only didn’t expect it, I was taken completely by surprise to get an email from him last summer asking when Hook was coming out. [My Internet friend] added very casually that he’d gotten Bait, read it, and brought it into the station to pass around. Most of his guys had read it by that time, he said, and they thought it was pretty good, so they were all wanting to know about the next one.

It was very moving for me, that email. Resonating. It’s the way I’d see a look coming over my husband’s face when I’d be reading him a chapter, and I’d know that, somehow, I’d gotten it right.

When did you first become interested in writing?

I don’t know. I’ve been doing it in one form or another as far back as I can remember.

I’ve heard several current or ex-law enforcement officers say that they definitely see an us against them feeling among the police; that the general public can’t possibly understand what their lives are like. Do you think that’s true? How do mysteries fit into the situation?

Yes, I do think that’s true. With my mysteries, I’m trying to communicate across both lines. I don’t know if it can be done, or if the far-reaching effects will much matter, but I always worry when I see a Great Divide starting among people I care about.

How would you feel if one of your kids decided to go into law enforcement — would you be excited or terrified?

I’d be worried. And proud. And then worried again. I’m a mom. [Smiles.]

You show a keen interest in martial arts, sharpshooting and other demure feminine pursuits. You’ve even trained with Navy SEALS. How did you get started doing this, and how does it relate to your writing?

One thing leads to another. I started by taking a handgun class, the range master of which was an ex-Navy SEAL. He had what I thought was an excellent philosophy of self-defense, so it was very natural to go back to him for further training. In one of those classes, a number of his “brothers” who were currently SEALs, came along to help teach. It was beyond fascinating.

I was the only female in the class, so there’s sometimes a “male ego” notion that you have to get by, but they saw very quickly that I wasn’t there for the guys or to play at being tough. I was just there to learn. Also, I have kind of a knack for this stuff, so they went out of their way to show me things. Everything I do is very specific to my needs and my interests — I don’t mean to set myself up as an authority on anything. I’m not a sensei or dojo master, don’t want to be.

Is martial arts training something you’d recommend for more women?

No. I think women should find and use the strength of the skills they have. My biggest difficulty with many of the martial arts styles that I’ve encountered (and have only briefly sampled, so again, remember — my interests, my needs) is that most of them seem to be run as belt factories. Get you in, get you hooked, keep you coming back and paying until you can make the perfect kataa. I’d rather go and learn some down-and-dirty tricks right now that might stand me in good stead in an actual confrontation.

Remember the scene in one of the Indiana Jones movies where the 7-foot-tall guy with the turbanned head and the whirling scimitar faces Indie after Indie’s just been fighting for his life with countless other foes? The 7-foot guy’s grinning all over himself while he’s whipping that sword around, because he’s fresh and he knows swordplay, and he’s anticipating carving Indie to bits.

Indie looks at that, says something like, “Aw, hell,” and pulls out his pistol and shoots the guy with the scimitar. Yah. That said, I do think women should take defense training. Life isn’t fair, we’re usually at a physical disadvantage in a fight, we’re culturally-mistrained, yadda, yadda, yadda. So, yes — take a defense class, any defense class that will give you the fighting mindset. Think “Pioneer Woman,” if nothing else. Picture yourself on that prairie, the young’uns huddled, the wolves coming, and you the last line of defense. Train smart, ladies. It’s a dangerous world out there.

How do you feel when you venture into a stereotypical masculine pursuit — whether it’s sharpshooting or writing a pretty hard-boiled brand of mystery. Do you find it easy to be accepted, or do you feel you have to do more to prove yourself than a man would?

Wow, that’s a very interesting question. The answer is that I’m a little bit stubborn, and I do these things to suit myself — for my own purposes and needs. I don’t care so much about acceptance as I do about getting what I came for. In other words, I don’t compete in these situations. I don’t try to “prove” myself because that would be exactly counter to the reason I’m going. I’m going to learn.

I had an excellent instructor last year who took me aside on a lunch-hour to say that he’d noticed that some of the more macho guys always got into line ahead of me when we were lining up to shoot. (I was, again, the only female in the class.) [He said] that it wasn’t right — that I needed to learn to stand up for myself. He was very worked up about it, he meant really well, and he clearly had the wrong notion of me as a nice timid girl, so I explained myself to him. I said that it didn’t matter to me, that I didn’t have to be “first,” because one way or another, I’d get my turn. I wasn’t letting anyone else’s attitude there prevent me from learning.

I can learn from anything and anyone, and I have — I’ve even learned from people who were determined not to teach me. That’s my philosophy, see? I don’t have to be first. I don’t have to be in your face or better than you. Just give me my turn. Or I’ll take it.

Your books display a rough-hewn and apparently random texture that feels a lot more true-to-life of a modern investigation than Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe or the tidy, traditional police procedural. Meg Gillis usually finds herself treading water as fast as she can in the urban street equivalent of a shark tank. Is that just a matter of style, or do you think that the mystery has had to change as the world has changed?

Are you a writer? (Yes, I know you know I know you are… [Smiles.])

“Urban street equivalent of a shark tank.” Amen and then some. I had a confrontation, brief but pointed, with a jack-off guy who thought he was being so funny, having put some other cops up to “test” my skills, and I used a very similar phrase. I said, “Yes, I can swim with the sharks if I have to, but my friends don’t throw me into the tank.”

Interesting. I think of Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe as “cozies.” I think of Dashiell Hammett with his Continental Op, and — gosh, now I can’t remember names — a number of other writers of his ilk, as the “hardboiled” writers of their times. We have the same distinctions now, with different players, so I think that it’s just a matter of style — all the “genres” updated, as it were, to fit our times.

How do you react when people decry mystery fiction as sensationalizing crime and murder for popular entertainment?

They do?

Do you have an agenda for your writing — something you’d like to accomplish beyond writing the book itself?

I like to communicate different ways of looking at things — events, people. I think that feeds into my writing. Is that an “agenda?”

What’s your writing method like? Do you plan and outline, or do you dive in and see where your characters lead you?

I dive. I wrestle. I hit my head on the keyboard a lot in despair. It’s a very physical activity, writing.

Are there other mystery characters, or even other kinds of writing that you’d like to try?

Not really. (See, I’m so dull! [Smiles.]) I haven’t yet hit a point where I’m tired of my characters — there are so many interesting questions about them for me to explore that it’s hard to picture not going on. I do occasionally wonder how I ever wrote what I’ve already written, and I frequently wonder how I’ll ever write again, because it’s a terrifying thing, creation. But the need is there, sort of welling up from time to time, to go back into that world again and have at it. (There are self-help groups for this, right? [Smiles.])

Is there anything else you’d like to say to wrap things up?

“Thank you?” “Hope you like the books?” “Am I done yet?” (I HATE talking about myself.)

Donna Andrews

Donna Andrews is the author of Murder with Peacocks, which won the St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Award in May 1998. Her second book in the Meg and Michael series, Murder with Puffins, will be released this spring.