Page 40 - KPA 9 MAART 2016

PEOPLE & ARTS A31
Police shootings of blacks influence crime fiction genre
BY HILLEL ITALIE
AP National Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — In “Un-
derground Airlines,” an up-
coming novel by Ben Win-
ters, a black bounty hunter
rides through a poor neigh-
borhood in Indianapolis
alongside a white police-
man.
“As we crossed Broad Rip-
ple Avenue,” Winters writes,
“we passed a small knot of
black kids, laughing and
walking together on the
narrow sidewalk; one of
them, a short kid pushing a
bike, wore a hoodie pulled
low over his eyes. Cook
slowed down and gave a
blurp of the siren, gestured
at the kid to make sure his
face was showing. I caught
the kid in the mirror with his
middle finger aloft, a minia-
ture of impotent rage fro-
zen in the side-view as we
drove away.”
Winters could imagine the
scene simply by follow-
ing the news. The wave of
police killings that helped
launch the Black Lives Mat-
ter movement is also influ-
encing a genre that cap-
tured tensions between
police and non-white com-
munities well before the rise
of social media and cell-
phone videos. Publishers
and writers say that story
lines known to readers of
Gary Phillips or Walter Mos-
ley or Eleanor Taylor Bland
will likely become more
common and intense.
“When you’re writing
a book, you’re not in an iso-
lation chamber,” said Win-
ters, who in “Underground
Airlines” depicts slavery still
being legal in the U.S.
“This particular issue has
long and faithfully been
represented in crime fic-
tion,” said Joshua Kend-
all, editor-in-chief of the
crime fiction imprint Mulhol-
land Books, Winters’ pub-
lisher. “It’s simply that much
of the fiction has been
overlooked, just as the ac-
tual rate of abuse over-
looked by media until now.
That said, we need and
want more fiction about it.
The curiosity, concern and
appetite seem to have fi-
nally grown.”
David Baldacci’s novel
This Feb. 17, 2016 photo shows author Trudy Nan Boyce, a retired Atlanta Police Department
officer, posing for a portrait in Atlanta, to promote her debut novel, “Out of the Blues.” Boyce is
currently working on a new book about the murder of students at Spelman College, a promi-
nent black liberal arts school in Atlanta, and the protests that follow when the suspects are not
identified. She says the currently untitled novel was inspired in part by the shooting of Michael
Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
This book cover image re-
leased by Grand Central Pub-
lishing shows “The Last Mile,”
an upcoming book by David
Baldacci.
Associated Press
“The Last Mile,” scheduled
for April, tells of a black man
on death row and the likeli-
hood he was wrongly con-
victed. Mosley, best known
for “Devil in the Blue Dress”
and other novels featuring
the black detective Easy
Rawlins, says he has been
working on a book about
a former New York City po-
liceman investigating the
shooting of two officers by
a black man and learning
that the officers had tried
to kill the man first.
“In the end he realizes
that he has to come to
This book cover image re-
leased by Putnam shows,
“Out of the Blues,” by Trudy
Nan Boyce.
Associated Press stopped for traffic tickets.
some kind of understand-
ing about how the system
works, that his own sense
of law and justice is never
going to work for him,” says
Mosley, who is calling the
novel “Detective, Heal Thy-
self.”
Louise Penny’s “The Great
Reckoning,” coming out in
August, focuses on a cor-
rupt police academy in
Quebec and how trainees
absorb a hostile mentality
toward non-whites. In one
passage, a white cadet
confronts a black woman,
Myrna Landers, and glares
Wednesday 9 March 2016
“The old days of the PI
with just a file and an ad-
dress and a sexy secretary
are long dead,” said the
60-year-old author. “Back
in the 1980s and ‘90s writers
like me and Walter Mosley
Associated Press and Paula Woods pushed
the envelope forward and
at her as he tells her not to looked at different issues. I
advance any further. think the younger folks will
“Myrna Landers had seen do even better pushing it
that look many times,” forward more. You have
Penny writes. “When writers in this field who are
going to be able to use
While walking in civil rights things like Ferguson and
marches through Montreal. what’s happening on col-
She’d seen it in reports of lege campuses.”
riots and police shootings.
She’d seen it in color and “Everyone knows of Walter
in black and white. In re- Mosley, and there have
cent news reports and in been other excellent black
old newsreels. And archival crime writers published in
photographs. Of the deep recent years, such as Paula
South. And the enlightened Woods,” says Mark Tavani,
North.” vice president and execu-
But crime fiction is no tive editor of G.P. Putnam’s
more diverse than much Sons. “But in my experience
of the book world and, these writers are a small
at least in the near future, percentage of those I see.
many narratives that take As the larger discussion
on race will likely come about race and justice en-
from white authors such gages more people, I can
as Baldacci, Winters and see that changing.”
Trudy Nan Boyce. Kendall Boyce is a former Atlanta
is trying to change that. He police officer whose debut
has agreed to a multibook novel, “Out of the Blues,”
deal with Attica Locke and came out last month. She
says he is looking to sign up said she is currently working
other black writers. on a book about the mur-
Phillips, who set his 1994 der of students at Spelman
novel “Violent Spring” in College, a prominent black
the aftermath of the Los liberal arts school in Atlan-
Angeles police beating of ta, and the protests that fol-
Rodney King, said he was low when the suspects are
hoping that such younger not identified. Boyce add-
authors as Aaron Philip ed that the new novel, cur-
Clark and Desiree Zamora- rently untitled, was inspired
no would tell stories reflect- in part by the shooting of
ing more recent events. Michael Brown in Ferguson,
Missouri.
“As in many cases where
there’s a violent confron-
tation between the police
and citizens, that incident
did not begin with the en-
counter between the offi-
cer (Darren Wilson) and Mr.
Brown. That incident had its
roots in the systemic racism
and the legacy of slavery
that survives today,” she
said.
“So the next novel I have
written has an even stron-
ger thread exploring some
of the issues between the
police in Atlanta and citi-
zens who are confronting a
justice system that they do
not trust.”q