As it does for many, my obsession with Agatha Christie started young. I was ten or so when I picked up my first Christie, fresh off a self-prescribed course of Greek mythology. Had someone asked me then to explain why reading a murder mystery from the heart of the twentieth century felt like a natural transition from the world of gods and monsters, I’d have been at a loss. Now, I can recognize that Christie has the rare ability to write “large,” making use of stock characters who interact in grownup ways amid life-or-death stakes—and rarer still, to do so by way of accessible prose. I can’t be sure, but I think it’s this “adult fairytale”-like quality that first drew me to Christie’s work.
But what kept me going? And going? And going?
My friend Janis would allay her fears of being alone with the argument that it would all be fine because she and another good friend of hers would “just live in The Golden Girls house together.” The concept of a house filled with one’s closest friends who live together and take care of each other in their senior years is an enduring source of comfort for her—as it has been for many women who worry they will end up spending this time in solitude. There is something inherently soothing about the show, particularly when confronted with a stressful, uncertain future; a friend recently told of The Onion’s famous front page after 9-11, showing a TV schedule with The Golden Girls on endless loop.
It was a midsummer afternoon and my old friend Dawn and I were walking from an un-air-conditioned Nepalese restaurant to our hotel in the dull, flat town of Montrose, Colorado. The sun seemed larger than usual, and brighter. It felt as if we were under a broiler. The road we were on was six lanes wide, or maybe eight. There was no sidewalk, so we were pressed right up against the curb, being passed by flatulent motorcycles—their riders helmetless—and eighteen-wheel trucks that were equally loud but at least generated a breeze. One of the many good things about Dawn is that she never complains about walking, never says, “You told me it was only another few blocks an hour ago,” never moans that her feet are tired or so swollen that her shoes no longer fit. The farther the better, that’s our motto.
Having witnessed my aunt’s success in corporate publishing throughout the 90s, and having watched well-paid editors played on films and TV shows, I hadn’t imagined my path toward a substantial income would be such an uphill shuffle—which is nothing if not a labor of immense love. And as for my book, it’s too incredible to believe that it exists; I can hardly bear to hold it in my hands.
Writing these words, I’m sitting in the living room of my childhood home, about five feet from the shelves that long ago contained those hallowed books from my aunt. In this exact spot, even before I had learned how to spell and write, I would scribble on blank paper with Magic Markers and staple the pages together—always, this desire, this drive to make books.
The book works as a juicy mystery — what really happened all those years ago? — but is equally satisfying as a story about the combative relationship between Amanda and Oliver, observed and commented on by Ellie Cooper, Amanda’s wry, kibitzing transcriber. It’s also an unlikely ode to the joys and frustrations of shoe-leather research, especially when the case is as crazy and convoluted as this one.
Before they went the way of the coal miner, music journalists were a definable demographic and music journalism an actual occupation. The good ones boasted cachet and influence; the best could inspire a generation. Tom Hibbert was perhaps the music journalist nonpareil for at least a dozen years between the early 1980s and 90s, an idiosyncratic stylist whose work graced the pages of Smash Hits and Q, where he repeatedly refused to kowtow to celebrities, irrespective of their status.
Phew, Eh Readers? – whose title alone gives those new to him a flavour of the arched eyebrow manner in which he wrote – is a collection of his finest and funniest writing, alongside fond recollections from those who knew him best: his wife, musician friends, fellow writers.