A Place in Time
Meredith Cole started her career as a screenwriter and filmmaker. She was the winner of the St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic competition, and her book Posed for Murder, was published by St. Martin’s Minotaur in 2009.  She was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Her next book, Dead in the Water, comes out May 11, 2010. She teaches mystery writing and screenwriting.
Writing about a place where I have lived has been rather like a large helping of reality mixed with quite a bit of imagination. I used actual events, people and businesses as jumping off points for my first two books. And then I embellished and changed them into something new in both Posed for Murder and Dead in the Water. But my Williamsburg, Brooklyn really exists in my imagination more than anything, and is mostly the neighborhood as it was ten years ago rather than the one it is today. Today there are chain stores, luxury condos, tourists coming in from New Jersey and many of the artists and galleries have been moved away. Even I moved away, and so I’m still writing about the place with sort of a rusty glow.
After living on the Southside of Williamsburg for 10 years, I wanted to write about people in my neighborhood. My block was about 95% Puerto Rican when I moved in, and slowly my neighbors were driven out by rising rental prices. I was interested in the Puerto Rican women that I got to know – some through my son’s school. Some of them were brash, aggressive and loud, others were very quiet and sweet, and so many of them were grandmothers by the time they were my age. After I got the idea for having a girl gang in my book, I adapted it around the social clubs I saw in the neighborhood. It was something new but it was also grounded in the reality of the community.
With Dead in the Water, I didn’t set out to write a mystery about prostitutes. The second oldest profession has been around since money was invented (or perhaps it began with barter), so what could I say about it that was new? But the story of Lydia McKenzie becoming obsessed with photographing prostitutes seized hold of my imagination and wouldn’t let go. As Lydia became interested, so did I. And everywhere I turned I found little nuggets that fed into my story. I heard a story on NPR about women in the projects who were part-time hookers, mostly to pay the rent. I began to think about the idea of a married woman who appears to be “normal” on the surface but is actually living a secret double life.
In the book, Lydia is a hero in the truest sense of the world. Not only does she try to track down a killer, but she ends up standing up for vulnerable women who have no voice, and who are far from empowered. She wants them to be safe, and enters their world to try to find a way to rescue them. I wanted to show the kind of heroes who go out to educate women about other killers — STD’s, abuse, poverty – in an attempt to save their lives. They needed a book, too.
In the end Dead in the Water is a mystery. Someone dies, someone looks for answers and in the end there is justice. But the setting and the characters are what make it memorable, and I hope mine will resonate with my readers, and give them insights into another time and place.
May 11, 2010
Posted in: Guest Blogs
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6 Responses
Congratulations on the new book. If it as good (or yeah even better) than your first book, you will have great success with Dead in the Water.
Helen Kiker
Your book sounds great–I will look for the first one. Love “writing with a rusty glow”–that’s Williamsburg right there.
Funny how a place’s moment in time is what resonates enough to make story. But I guess who were are is dependent upon what moment in time we are encountered, too.
That might have been a little bit much for this early in the a.m., pre-therapeutic dose of caffeine.
But I’m glad to see that another one of Lydia’s adventures is out there for us.
Meredith, thanks so much for visiting—it has been a real pleasure to have you here!
This sounds really good! I know I would enjoy reading it!
These two books sound like something I’d want to read. Sounds like I need to put Meredith Cole on my “got to find” list.
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