CRIMINAL, Revisited: What Would YOU Do??
The paperback of Criminal is finally here! This means –if you’re like the book clubs I’m in– you and your book club can finally add it to your reading calendar! There are lots of conversation topics to grab onto in Criminal (here are conversation starters if you need them), and last year when the hardcover came out, I ran three specific ones by a bunch of different author friends. This month, to celebrate the paperback, I trotted out those questions again, and threw them at a couple more folks.
The question for this week was, “What do you think you’d really do if someone you loved told you they’d committed a murder?” and I asked two folks whose writing I really admire: Bennett Madison and Leila Sales. You can compare their answers to the six I got last year, and then tell me what YOU think!
Bennett Madison, author of September Girls
[Which is one of the best magical realism books I’ve read in a long time]
I think the odds of anyone I’m close to confessing a murder to me are fairly slim. I’m terrible at keeping secrets, and I hope that my friends– even the most murderous among them– know me well enough to know that I’m not the person to trust with your confessions, especially a really juicy confession like this. I am a storyteller. It would just be really tough for me not to blab.
Do you ever have the dream where you’ve killed someone? It’s one of my most common recurring nightmares and it’s always like, oh god, did I REALLY do that? The emotion the dream seems stir up is mostly, like, exasperation. Typical, I screwed everything up again and now I’ll probably have to go to jail; why do I always do these things?
I imagine that I would have a similar feeling if it was a friend who was the culprit. I would probably also feel really put out at the imposition of being asked to help. All this hiding the body stuff, abetting the cover-up, etc. etc., well, come on. Who has the time? I have my own problems to worry about without this kind of hassle. And I’m not that handy with a shovel either.
Of course, my reaction would probably depend on the situation– i.e., on what type of murder it is. Who got killed? On a scale of 1-10, how justified was the crime? And how good is this supposed friend? I’m sort of ashamed to say that I’m one of those too-trusting-in-the-system types who would probably urge this friend to find a good lawyer and confess and just hope for the best, rather than to try to cover it up or go on the run or whatever. (How does one even go on the run anymore? It seems like technology has made evasion impossible.)
The point here is that I hope none of my friends ever kills anyone. And if they do, I hope they don’t look at me for help. If I was really guilted into it, I’d probably try to help in whatever way necessary, I guess, but I’m sure I would be really grumpy and ungracious about it.
Leila Sales, author of This Song Will Save Your Life
[Which I’m recommending to everyone at Little Shop of Stories who loves Eleanor and Park!]
I’m not sure what I would do if someone I loved told me that she had committed a murder. The idea of it is so shocking, because I believe wholeheartedly that the people I love are intelligent, creative, and moral people. Of course they have their flaws–we all do–and I love people who I know have done things like shoplift or cheat on their girlfriends. Those are crimes, but I love my friends despite those actions, because none of us is perfect. But a murder is so far behind the pale that it would shake my fundamental understanding of this person whom I thought I knew so well.
One of my core beliefs, which I say on an almost daily basis, is “everyone has their reasons.” What I mean there is that people rarely do things just to be mean or difficult or petty. They always have their reasons for being mean or difficult or petty. And you may well think those reasons are stupid, and their actions illegitimate, but it’s important to understand where they’re coming from and what’s motivating them to take their action. This is a big part of being a writer: figuring out why your characters want to do the things they do, since their reason cannot be simply “to hurt somebody inexplicably.” If I found out that somebody I loved had committed a murder, I would want to find out what his or her reason was. That wouldn’t make the action forgivable. It’s hard to imagine a forgivable murder. But at least it would help me to understand.