Quote of the Day (Laura Lippman, on Fiction Detailed About Work and Place)

“I like books steeped in the quotidian — details about work and place. You can learn how to run a chicken-and-waffle restaurant by reading ‘Mildred Pierce.’ And I like fiction about money. I wish there were more novels inspired by the economy, from the micro (Jess Walter’s ‘The Financial Lives of the Poets’ and Eliot Perlman’s ‘Three Dollars’) to the macro (John Lanchester’s ‘Capital,’ Adam Haslett’s ‘Union Atlantic’). I am leery of writers who are too in love with their protagonists and assemble choruses of secondary characters to sing their praises. She’s so beautiful! She’s so smart! Nancy Drew is a prime example, but it happens in literary fiction too.”—American crime fiction writer Laura Lippman, “Laura Lippman: By the Book,” The New York Times Book Review, February 16, 2014

(Photo of Laura Lippman taken at the 2015 Library of Congress National Book Festival, Sept. 6, 2015, by fourandsixty.)

Quote of the Day (Laura Lippman, on an Annoying Preppy Mother)

 “In a school renowned for dowdy mothers, Lynette Moore was one of the dowdiest, gone to seed in the way only a truly preppy woman can. She had leathery skin and a Prince Valiant haircut, which she smoothed back with a grosgrain ribbon headband. Her laugh was a loud, annoying bray and if someone failed to join in her merriment, she clapped the person on the back as if trying to dislodge a lump of food. On this particular Thursday afternoon, Lynette stood on the sidewalk, speaking animatedly to one of the teachers, punching the poor woman at intervals. Sally, waiting her turn in the car pool lane, thought how easily a foot could slip, how an accelerator could jam. The SUV would surge forward, Lynette would be pinned against the column by the school’s front door. So sad, but no one’s fault, right?”—Crime fiction writer Laura Lippman, “ARM and the Woman,” in Hardly Knew Her: Stories (2008)

(Photo of Laura Lippman taken at the 2015 Library of Congress National Book Festival, Sept. 6, 2015, by fourandsixty.)

Quote of the Day (Laura Lippman, on a Dieting, First-Time Drug Buyer)

“Molly thought hard, and Molly thinking was like a fat guy running --- there was a lot of visible effort.”— Baltimore-based crime fiction writer Laura Lippman, “The Crack Cocaine Diet,” in Hardly Knew Her: Short Stories (2008)

(Photo of Laura Lippman taken at the 2015 Library of Congress National Book Festival, Sept. 6, 2015, by fourandsixty.)