Yesterday I Googled Myself

Not, you understand, because I'm a self-absorbed narcissist, although I can't persuasively deny it, but because writers who are trying to get themselves into the public eye are supposed to check from time to time to see whether their names are appearing online a lot. In order to do this we enter our names in a Google search, in quotes, and see what comes up.

So what did I find? 8400 hits. 100 pages of hits. I've been at this for quite a while, it seems.

Strange things appeared. And normal things as well. First of all I found stuff I put out there on purpose, like this blog, and The Crime Writers' Chronicle (my group blog), and my web site (www.kategallison.com). Then there were guest blog posts I'd done. An occasional interview. And a few reviews of my books, most of them kind. Many, many offers to sell books of mine, from Amazon and other online bookstores, from Ebay, and from Belgrave House, who reprinted the Mother Grey backlist for readers of ebooks. Google books. Somehow a number of my books got put up on Google Books.

One site claimed that I was 25 years old. That was piquant. Another claimed that I was 79 and my name was Galloway. That, too, was sort of intriguing, but once again false. One site offered a download of my first book, Unbalanced Accounts. Since they had no right to do this I was quite annoyed. There was no contact information on the site or I would have fired off a blistering letter. I put the case in the hands of the Authors Guild. If you want to read Unbalanced Accounts you can find it on Amazon Kindle, and I think you can 'borrow' it from Amazon for free. I, for one, never steal stuff if I can obtain it any other way.

But the things I brooded over longest were the reviews on Goodreads. Now, the Goodreads folks are generally lukewarm about my work. Why that should be, I'm not sure; probably their tastes don't run in the direction of the sort of stuff I write, light comedies of manners with dead bodies showing up from time to time. Perhaps they like stories of earth-shaking conflict with everyone's emotions endlessly described. I don't know, because I don't read anything that they read. Quite likely that's one of my problems.

I got a few complaints on Goodreads that I can sort of understand, for example that there isn't enough sex and violence in The Edge of Ruin for it to be considered a real murder mystery. Or car chases. No car chases. Of course, in 1909, you could outrun most of the existing cars on foot. Maybe they're right about there not being enough sex. I did have two of the movie actors getting it on in the hotel linen closet, but it happened off the page. I guess I should have been more explicit about that encounter. (The maid uttered a piercing shriek and dropped her armful of towels at the sight of Mr. Chalmers' wrinkled, heaving buttocks. Faye Winningly, moaning softly, was still wearing both her shoes. There was a hole in the sole of the left one.)

Perhaps, for the modern taste, I should have been more explicit about everything, not just the sex. Subtlety doesn't fly these days. To get subtlety you need an active imagination. To get subtlety you have to have a common culture with the person who is being subtle, so that when I raise one eyebrow you understand at once what I mean by that. We don't have that commonality anymore. Cultural diversity has its drawbacks.

I'm still trying to figure out what the fellow on Goodreads meant who accused my work of being amateurish. How could that be? Ten of my mystery novels have seen publication. For fifteen years I made excellent money writing software manuals, good ones, too, user documentation that you could actually follow. I know how to say exactly what I mean, and clearly. If I'm not a professional writer I'd like to know who is.

But enough of this, at least for another year. I promise I'll stop whining about my Goodreads reviews. In fact I promise never to go on their site again. The next time I post I'll tell you the story of how two other women and I tried to write a steamy bodice-ripper together. It's a very funny story.

A Lambertville Memoir: Blood, Bones, and Butter

We read Blood, Bones, and Butter, the Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, for our book group this month, written by Gabriella Hamilton, famous chef and now famous writer. It's a memoir, not a crime novel, so I'm out of my officially credentialed field of expertise here, but I found it to be an excellent piece of writing and I wanted to tell you so.

First of all, if her meals are as deliciously satisfying as her sentences and paragraphs, it must be a wonderful experience to eat at her Manhattan restaurant. Reading this book will make you hungry, although there are no actual recipes included in it. You will fly to your kitchen in search of something real to cook, and you will feel dismay because, not only is there nothing real to cook, but your pots, pans, and utensils are not in the state of rigorous order and cleanliness that Gabriella Hamilton would require.

Secondly, as far as the memoir goes, she dishes without oversharing. I think this is a good thing. Most of us could paint our ex-spouses naked (as they could paint us, if they had the skill) and people would be appalled. But we draw the cloak of charity, rightly. The reader understands that her mother is sore at her father, that she herself is sore at her husband, but she never tells us precisely why. We are left with the feeling that it is the nature of women to be angry at men, or in the nature of men to irritate their women.

And thirdly, the early part of the book is a charming picture of old New Hope and Lambertville. This is why the book club ladies picked it up in the first place, for we are Lambertville women. We heard that Jimmy Hamilton, Gabrielle's father, was unhappy with the book. Mr. Hamilton is a very big frog in our little pond. He runs a restaurant of his own, right across my back fence. No longer the penniless Bohemian of Gabrielle's childhood, he has enough money to endow various public works, and enough generosity to give cooking lessons to the old folks at the geezer health club where I work out. He is a helluva nice guy. I'm not sure what he hated about the book. I like him even better, knowing he was once a penniless Bohemian with romantic visions, like the rest of us. You'll be happy to know that now and then he still roasts lamb outside over an open fire.

Anyway, read the book if you get a chance. It's good.