Laura Lippman was a reporter for twenty years, including twelve years at The (Baltimore) Sun. She began writing novels while working full-time and published seven books about “accidental PI” Tess Monaghan before leaving daily journalism in 2001.Her work has been awarded the Edgar ®, the Anthony, the Agatha, the Shamus, the Nero Wolfe, Gumshoe and Barry awards.
Lippman's new novel is Lady in the Lake.
From her Q&A with Eva Jurczyk for The Rumpus:
Rumpus: Do you think there’s fear of writing female characters who are unlikable?Visit Laura Lippman's website.
Lippman: I think the trick is that you want to create human characters but you don’t want to fall into these patriarchal traps of the woman as a nag, the woman as a bitch, the woman as bossy. I think the smartest female writers I know are trying to figure out that middle path between the perfect character and the character who has flaws in this old-fashioned, sitcom kind of way. Gillian Flynn really threw down the gauntlet when she created Amy in Gone Girl. That’s a pretty hard character. There’s nothing to like about her. But she’s full, and she’s complete, and she’s interesting, and she very much owns her agenda and what she’s doing. I think that raised the bar a lot. A lot of women who were working in crime fiction, didn’t go out necessarily and create characters in the vein of Amy but they’re like, if my character can’t have blood on her hands, if my character can’t make mistakes, if my character is the perfect person who daintily steps through the plot and ties everything together and makes everyone feel good about themselves, is that the kind of book I want to be writing?
Speaking only for myself, that’s really uninteresting to me. When I wrote series fiction about Tess Monaghan, who still pops up here and there, she was always really imperfect. And not imperfect in that fake way, you know the fake imperfection you sometimes find in female characters. They’re like, “Oh I forgot to put my lipstick on before I left the house.” She was truly imperfect. She was impulsive. She was cranky. She wasn’t always kind to people. And she could be quite tactless. And that was always very...[read on]
The Page 69 Test: Another Thing to Fall.
The Page 69 Test: What the Dead Know.
The Page 69 Test/Page 99 Test: Life Sentences.
The Page 69 Test: I'd Know You Anywhere.
The Page 69 Test: The Most Dangerous Thing.
The Page 69 Test: Hush Hush.
The Page 69 Test: Wilde Lake.
My Book, the Movie: Wilde Lake.
The Page 69 Test: Sunburn.
The Page 69 Test: Lady in the Lake.
--Marshal Zeringue