Volume 3, Issue 3 – June, 2000
Elaine Viets: Tall Order
Six feet tall and bulletproof — these attributes apply equally to Elaine Viets and her creation, Francesca Vierling. Well, bulletproof doesn’t really apply, but sassy, brassy, and tall most certainly do. And despite her lack of immunity to a speeding slug from a .44, Elaine Viets manages to hook readers with Francesca’s own particular brand of snappy comebacks, wry wit and dogged determination.
Viets, a St. Louis native now residing in Florida, draws on her own journalistic adventures to provide fodder for her protagonist’s adventures. Crescent Blues got out the stepladder to ask Viets about bad doctors, scratch and sniff strippers and Viets’ own (not entirely unusual) desire to kill an editor.
Crescent Blues: You have a new book coming out in July — Doc in the Box. Would you like to tell our readers a bit about Francesca Vierling’s latest adventures?
Elaine Viets: Someone finds a permanent cure for bad doctors — and the nasty receptionists who insist on all the HMO paperwork. Francesca, a columnist for the mediocre Midwest daily, The St. Louis City Gazette, tries to save her ailing career by solving the medical murders.
But she doesn’t spend all her time in the sick room. Francesca is also looking for a male stripper named Leo D. Nardo, aptly called “Your Titanic Lover,” who disappeared after midnight with a gym bag full of cash.
You tackle a thorny issue in Doc in the Box– neglect, carelessness, and ego in the health care profession causing needless deaths, especially among cancer patients. Was there a particular case or personal reason that prompted this book?
Every year, as many as 98,000 Americans die of preventable medical errors, according to the Institute of Medicine. This is scary. It means every person in a town the size of Cedar Falls, Iowa, gets wiped out by preventable mistakes. Every single year.
In my own family, my grandmother died of breast cancer. My husband has colon cancer. We’ve seen some very good doctors — and some very bad ones.
Doc in the Box featured a subplot with male strippers. What kind of research did you do and can you give us any juicy stories?
I once did a heartwarming story about a day in the life of some male strippers, and hung out with semi-naked guys in their dressing room. Am I dedicated to my work, or what? The strippers were a lot like my character, Leo D. Nardo. They even borrowed my hairspray. They liked dancing and they liked money, and they would literally fill the dressing room sink with their tips after each dance.
What fascinated me were the bloody scratches from the women’s fingernails. The women in the audience were professionals — nurses, teachers, executives, and moms and grandmothers. But they literally clawed the skin on the guys’ hips and bellies when they tipped them.
While we’re on the subject, has there ever been anything you’ve researched that family or friends have considered particularly crazy or dangerous?
Some of my activities scared the stuffing out of my neighbors. Especially when I lived on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. The neighbors were already shocked because I swept my townhouse walk wearing a “Clapton Is God” t-shirt. They couldn’t decide which was more blasphemous — my t-shirt or the fact that I did my own housework.
One Saturday, a couple of bikers dropped by to visit. One had his beard braided biker style, so it wouldn’t blow in his face. The other guy was about six-feet-six and had a knife that could cut down redwoods. They were actually harmless. They’d stopped by for coffee in my kitchen before they rode home to Missouri.
When the two bikers knocked on my door, my upstairs neighbor, a White House speechwriter, came running around to the backyard and said to my husband, “There are some MEN on the front porch and your wife is going to let them inside!”
Don [Crinklaw, Viets’ husband] said, “Yeah, she’s like that.”
In your previous book, The Pink Flamingo Murders, workers rehabilitating an old home not only bashed in rotten walls and unrepairable fixtures but each other as well. Rehabbing also plays a role in your first book, Backstab. Have you endured the process yourself?
Yep. Don and I rehabbed an old house when we lived in St. Louis. We were a lot like the young, dumb couple in the book, living in hope and plaster dust. Amazingly, we finished the house and we’re still married.
The Pink Flamingo Murders showed home owners at their worst (and occasionally their best). How did your own neighbors react?
They gave me some of the book’s best stories. St. Louis rehabbers are a special breed. They save the city one house at a time.
Were any of the characters based on them?
Ralph, the rehabber in Backstab, is based on a good friend named Lee. He did wonderful work on old homes. He died of AIDS and I miss him very much.
In your second book, Rubout, Francesca attends a Leather and Lace bikers’ society ball. In real life, you were among the very few civilians invited to attend a biker ball that actually takes place annually in St. Louis. How did you wangle your invitation?
I knew some bikers from a newspaper story I’d written. One invited me to the Leather and Lace Ball, where a thousand Harley riders party hearty every year. Real bikers don’t like Rubs — Rich, Urban Bikers, so this was an honor. I wore leather, not lace, and was the first woman judge of a “Best in Leather, Best in Lace” contest a lot like the one in the book.
How did the real St. Louis bikers feel about the way you portrayed their fictional kin?
They loved it. They even held a signing for me at the Kirkwood HOG meeting. That’s Harley Owners Group.
What kind of price do you pay for being one of the Bad Girls of traditional mystery? Have family and friends given you any flack about your forays into the world of bikers and boytoys?
My husband’s been terrific. He never wanted a wife who had dinner on the table at six — and he sure didn’t get one.
My relatives are divided. My Aunt Betty and her family understand. They know I’m never going to marry a stockbroker and drive a minivan. The other side disapproves. One uncle said my writing made things difficult for him at his club. A cousin told me, “We should tolerate those people — but we need not associate with them.” She got a little upset because I invited her to what I thought was a “sixties fashion show.” Turns out I heard wrong. It was actually a “sadistic fashion show,” with models in black leather and chains. My cousin looked like Martha Stewart at a leather bar.
I’m sure your readers would like to know how much of Francesca is Elaine — and vice versa?
I don’t know any more. I think Francesca is a lot like me at 30, when I still believed a corporation could change for the better. Francesca loves newspapers and wants The St. Louis City Gazette to fire her evil boss Charlie and become a first-rate paper again. I know that will never happen.
Francesca Vierling writes columns for the imaginary St. Louis Gazette. Elaine Viets writes columns for United Feature Syndicate (UFS) out of New York. How much do Francesca’s experiences reflect your own?
I’m lucky. I have great editors at United Feature — no Charlies or Wendy the Whiners. Before UFS, I worked for a daily newspaper. I used to meet with my friends from other papers and we’d talk about awful editors. Francesca’s paper is a composite of all the bad newspapers we knew.
How do you juggle a full-time writing job and your career as a novelist?
Badly.
Do the two reinforce or interfere with each other?
They interfere. The column is eating into my novel-writing time. I’m frustrated because there’s so much you can’t say in a newspaper column. Editors fear you might offend readers. Novels offer more freedom. My goal is to be a full-time novelist.
What prompted your recent move to Florida, and how did it change your life?
I hate winter. I hibernate when it’s cold. I realized how much of my life I spent shut up inside the house, shivering. Now I go for long walks along the beach every morning, and think about killing people. It’s very relaxing.
What do you miss not living in a big city? What don’t you miss?
I love the traffic jams in Fort Lauderdale. Six cars sit at a stoplight, and everyone moans about the traffic. I really miss the Washington, D.C., museums. After you’ve roamed the fabulous Smithsonian museums, which are free, you’re ruined for any other. I couldn’t believe the first time I went to the Fort Lauderdale art museum. They wanted to charge me — to see BOTH pictures.
Who were your childhood heroes and how did they influence your choice of career?
Brenda Starr. I was dumb enough to think I’d really find Basil at a newspaper.
Which writers had the most impact on you when you were growing up? Do you still find them as compelling as you did then?
I loved Mark Twain, Steinbeck, and DuMaurier. I read Steinbeck, because he was on the Catholic Church’s list of banned books. It was my first dose of realism. I thought Daphne DuMaurier was so romantic. And I loved Twain’s humor. Twain still holds up, but now I see the sadness underneath the laughter.
DuMaurier did not survive as well. I re-read Rebecca and wondered why the heroine was placating the surly Max DeWinter, and what kind of pervert was he, going on about her innocence? I’m afraid to re-read Steinbeck.
What was the greatest challenge you faced in writing or publishing your first novel?
Finding someone to buy it.
How has your vision for Francesca — or the challenges — changed since then?
I’m trying to decide whether to kill Charlie or not. Several women readers, who’ve worked for skirtchasing scumbags like Charlie, begged me to off him in the next book. While I would love for Charlie to die slowly and painfully, I think he’s always going to be part of Francesca’s life. But I don’t know — maybe your readers have some thoughts on the subject.
Maybe they can help me decide: Should I kill Charlie?
What advice would you give new writers?
Put away some “go to hell” money. Then you can walk away from a project if you have to. Knowing you can tell anyone to go to hell is the only way to stay independent.
Is there anything else you’d like to tell our readers? Soapbox and white space provided courtesy of Crescent Blues.
Write hard — die free.
Teri Smith
Raising hell for fifty years from Alaska to the Azores and all points in between, Teri Smith (nee Dohmen) was an Air Force brat who never stopped traveling. She was also a mother, a grandmother (of ten!), a help desk wizard, a financial assistant, acquisitions editor for Samhain Publishing and, most importantly, the Queen Nag of the Known Universe. A multi-published short story writer, her first novel, With Nine You Get Vanyr, written with Jean Marie Ward, was published in 2007. Contrary to common belief, she never stopped living.