July 2024

An interview with Melanie Anagnos, happy birthday to my dad (and me!), and a new comedic mystery series to stream

What’s new

A few highlights of the past year, from top left across and down: 1. My parents' dog, Annie, a Very Good Girl; 2. Remedios Varo's spell for inciting erotic dreams; 3. The Hurricane Blonde reviewed in The New York Times; 4. The fairy moss forest in Orquevaux; 5. A book launch party at the hometown bookstore I've been going to all my life, Blake's Books in McKinleyville, CA; 6. The ancient necropolis in Cagliari, Sardinia; 7. The bluest waters I've ever seen, also in Orquevaux

It’s my birthday today—and also my dad’s birthday! (This either means I was The Best Birthday Present Ever, or that he hasn’t had a real birthday celebration in 36 years—you’d have to ask him.) I was going through my photos to remember all the incredible things that happened this year, and I am feeling so grateful and agog at how much there was to celebrate.

I published my second book in both the US and the UK, and it was reviewed by major outlets like The New York Times, and The Times (in London), AND it became an instant USA Today bestseller! I was lucky enough to go to Paris not once but TWICE, not to mention Marseille, Sardinia, Orquevaux in the east of France, Chicago, Hawaii, Palm Springs, and more. I made new friends, started book 3, published new articles, podcasted regularly, started a new segment of this newsletter, and saw Challengers in theaters so many times I think I’m now barred from my local Cinemark. All in all, it was a tremendous year, full of love, travel, laughter, BOOKS, and I feel so very lucky. Setting a high bar for 36!

In other news, I was interviewed for Canvas Rebel here! If you’re in the LA area, save the date for following IRL appearances:

Oct. 1: In conversation with Stephanie Wrobel for the launch of The Hitchcock Hotel, a spooky, twisty homage to Hitchcock that also has a hefty dose of dark academia, at Zibby’s Books in Santa Monica.

Oct. 4: In conversation with Lauren Ling Brown for the launch of Society of Lies, her gorgeous debut about secret societies at Princeton and the murderous secrets they keep (THIS one is SUPER dark academia!!) also at Zibby’s Books.

Oct. 24: In conversation with Hayley Krischer for her book Where Are You, Echo Blue?, a dark Hollywood thriller about a former child star gone missing. I have been SO EXCITED for this book since it was announced, at BookSoup in West Hollywood.

Thank you for being a part of a truly memorable year. ❤️

Melanie Anagnos is a crime novelist from the Garden State. She has her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and currently publishes Cherchez La Femme, a Substack on gender and media in the 1970s [Editor’s note: It’s so, so good!]. Her debut novel, Nightswimming, a police procedural circa 1979, is forthcoming from High Frequency Press. Formerly an attorney, a waitress, and a stay-at-home mom, she now spends chunks of time in Florida (and traveling up and down the Eastern Seaboard) with her husband and their Havanese, Cherry. 

What tabs do you currently have open on your computer?

I’m currently working on the second in my police procedural series, which is an arson case, so I have quite a few old newspaper articles and other sites (“Paterson Fire History: Alarm Boxes and Stanchions”) open for my research. And I just discovered the architectural photographer, Candida Höfer, so I’ve been rooting around online looking at her work, which is really quiet and beautiful. The internet can be a frenetic place so it’s great to have her photographs to balance the flood of information.

Where do you go to refill your creative well?

Walking is restorative. There’s an app from Cornell Labs that identifies birds by their songs, which is a very spring-like thing to learn about. Some say it’s Shazam for birds. I’m fairly sure the app was recommended on the Smoke ‘Em if You Got ‘Em podcast. I also keep a copy of E.E. Cummings: Complete Poems in my office and when I need to clear out my thoughts, I reach for a poem.

What was the last piece of art that made you want to create something?

I was steered towards Nordic Noir about a year ago and discovered Jussi Adler-Olson’s Department Q series (Danish police procedurals known for their distinct and quirky characters). I realize I’m somewhat late to that. I’m really enjoying the play between a direct narrative and the moral complexity of both the characters and their society.

What have you learned about your process of writing now that you didn’t know when you first started?

Years ago, I was in a workshop and first heard the advice that structure gives you freedom. It’s something I’ve seen again and again – Rian Johnson (director of Knives Out) speaks of freedom being “the enemy of art” and how he loves “the conventions of a genre to work in.” I think that’s what animates my crime fiction, having these established pillars that aren’t confining at all, but actually give me a defined space to create whatever I want within it. [Editor’s note: Well said, and I totally agree!]

The idea pushes back against the trope that genre is formulaic, which it isn’t at all. Shakespearean sonnets have rigor in form, but no one would say they’re flat or unoriginal in content.

What do you think people would be most surprised to discover you’re obsessed with?

As a writer with an interest in police procedurals, it’s an absolute must to take in everything that’s out there and have my work polished and authentic. I’m blessed to have former cops who share their stories. For content, I’m obsessed with non-fiction (books and podcasts) about policing, particularly policing in the 1970s. Tom Walker’s Fort Apache, the Bronx, which was published in 1976. Small Town Dicks: True Crime Stories and More is a favorite podcast that unpacks small town cases with the detectives who ran the investigations. Hosts include Yeardley Smith (the voice of Lisa Simpson for over 30 years) and Paul Holes (criminal investigator who was deeply involved with the identification and arrest of the Golden State Killer).

That said, for writing and craft, I’m a devotee of Pixar. I came across some online seminars a few years back with Mary Coleman, who’d been in development at Pixar and from there, I found several videos from Michael Arndt, the screenwriter for Toy Story 3. What a masterclass in storytelling.

Tell me a little bit about your Substack, Cherchez la Femme. How did you get started on it? 

This is also the answer to “what was the last internet rabbit hole I went down.” I was researching background info for a novel set in the 1970s. Really, out of nowhere, I came upon Playboy’s Great Playmate Hunt (the search for the 25^th Anniversary issue’s centerfold) and almost simultaneously discovered the fierce opposition by feminists to Playboy’s inaugural Girls of the Ivy League issue. The fact that these two issues of Playboy were released in the same year, and the media reception to both was so different, felt like a story hiding in plain sight – the obvious shaming of a certain type of woman grounded in class-based stereotypes. This was never my wheelhouse; I consider myself a fiction writer. But I have a background in law, which means I can weave research into a decent narrative, and the story really nagged at me. It had not been told. In the end, I worked with Leigh Stein, because I wanted the Substack to be cohesive, and published the essay as a series. Once I did, I was surprised with the response and decided to keep writing.

How do you decide which stories and historical events/personages to feature on Cherchez la Femme? 

Some of the pieces are my “outtakes and deleted scenes” from the longform essay and some are thoughts that I have from the 1970s – persons and/or events that feel under-reported. Like Emma Peel. She was hugely influential to anyone who happened upon the 1960s spy show, The Avengers, but also obscure at the same time. This was when there was no internet so TV shows that weren’t from the big three networks got overlooked. Emma Peel is currently the inspiration for a downtown New York dive bar/cocktail lounge and at the same time, not a figure anyone would necessarily have heard of so she’s a bit of my ideal target. Events and people that can serve as a lens to look at something that’s a little bit larger than just a cool movie or something I remember really enjoying back in the day.

My goal/plan is to keep writing as long as my readers stay with me. I can’t say this enough: it’s an honor to have loyal readers and I appreciate anyone who takes even a small amount of time out of their day to spend a few minutes with my work.

What draws you in about the 1970s in particular? 

The preceding decade, the 1960s, were times of enormous change: the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the sexual revolution, and even the beginning of gay rights. Much of that was occurring in the big cities and on the two coasts. The 1970s were incorporating everything that was edgy and new into the mainstream, all of the change really percolating into everyday life, and that was happening within a culture that was enormously skeptical. There was a darkness to the 1960s - the assassinations, the Democratic convention - and then the decade ended with both the Manson murders and Altamont. I’ve always seen a duality in the 1970s, as the era where American culture moved forward but with a side-eyed glance. The progress remained unsettled and that’s carried over for years. It’s in the current mood. The Free Press recently embarked on an ongoing series of debates and the very first, it took place in Los Angeles last September, was on the success of the sexual revolution. That’s reaching back in time almost six decades.

I’ll also add this about the 1970s – there was tremendous creative experimentation. The extremes of disco and punk rock. Style icons, Bianca Jagger and Debbie Harry. The launch of Saturday Night Live. The inaugural films of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola. So much there.

My open tabs:

• Outlaw billionaires, even the fake ones (yes, I mean Kylie Jenner).

• One of my favorite things about Los Angeles is the way it can alchemize cons into reality—like this housing complex.

• Always here to read about Ponzi schemes.

• Can’t wait to dive into Diarra from Detroit, a comedic mystery in the vein of Search Party (which I loved) or Only Murders in the Building (which I liked very much).

• Kamala Harris as the likely Democratic nominee has kickstarted an optimism these last few days I wasn’t even aware I was missing. If you want to make sure you’re registered to vote, check these registration deadlines and FAQs.