Katherine Hall Page discusses the origins of her latest story, “The Lodger,” from our Jan/Feb issue, on sale now!
Much as I take pleasure in writing about Faith Fairchild, amateur sleuth, mother, wife, caterer, over a series now numbering twenty-six books; going in a completely different direction is satisfying. I spend part of each year living in Maine—the same place—but a jaunt to Spain, Norway, Japan and more always brings new perspectives. “The Lodger” is that kind of voyage akin to other nonseries short stories and books I’ve written. My same eyes, but they are trained toward new landscapes.
The idea for the story began with a sentence I overheard on the subway in Boston. (Eavesdropping in restaurants, restrooms, pretty much any public spaces is invariably fruitful.) “You know. One old guy looks like another,” a woman commented to another, who nodded in agreement. Was this true I immediately wondered? I looked around at the people and there weren’t any elderly gentlemen that might have provoked the remark. The two must have been talking about two other men. During the rest of the ride and out on the street, I thought about men I knew or noticed around me. The observation began to ring true. Were there generic “old guys”? Just as supposedly married couples began to look like each other as they aged, did men too?
I tucked the idea away. It jumped out months later when a doctor friend whom I asked about heart disease for one of the books told me about the Lazarus Syndrome, Return of Spontaneous Circulation (ROSC). In one case, death was declared and then fifty minutes later the family noted a subtle eye movement. The deceased wasn’t! Rare, of course, yet a plot device tailor made for a mystery writer—an ending worthy of any of my favorites. My two “old guys” both came to life as the characters. The setting remained somewhat ambiguous except for the location on the East Coast, although the Victorian house is very like my aunt and uncle’s in South Orange, New Jersey, down to the in-law apartment on the former servant’s top floor.
Mary Roberts Rhinehart wrote a small tome, Writing Is Work, where she expands the title, describing the process as “hard work” and it is, but “The Lodger” was not. Putting together what I’d overheard earlier with the fascinating Lazarus Syndrome information into a dark short story, a departure from my usual was, well, fun!
I find short stories more difficult than full-length books agreeing with Henry David Thoreau who wrote to a friend: “Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short,” Poe wrote, “A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build toward it.” Taken together, these are a fine summation of the challenge posed by short story writing: that paring down process, the examination of each word essential for a satisfactory result. Honing “The Lodger” became a pleasurable task.
Aside from the crime or mystery-fiction writers that have influenced me, notably Agatha Christie and that master of both the novel and short story, Robert Barnard—I have been inspired by the short stories of Poe, O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), and Saki, (H.H.Munro). Reading all three as a young teen, I trembled with fearful delight: “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Last Leaf”, and “The Open Window”. Rereading still invokes the same feeling. Saki is an author I find too often overlooked. He was killed by a sniper during the Battle of the Ancre in WWI at age forty-three. Had he lived longer his legacy would be undoubtably richer.
Occasionally, I’ll meet someone who says they never read short stories. That they are unsatisfying and not to be classed with a “real book”. Something of substance unlike shorter works of fiction—so many bon bons for the less discerning reader—is implied. I’ve never been able to understand this as it shows both a want of taste and certainly imagination. These opinionated readers lack of the ability to expand that “paring down process” into something that may well stay have stayed with them for the rest of their life. Think Saki’s “Sredni Vashtar” ’s last sentence!
This interview with Barbara Peters, Poisoned Pen Press, is one I like very much:
It, and much more, is available on my web site www.katherine-hall-page.org I am also on FB
Katherine Hall Page is the author of the Faith Fairchild amateur sleuth mystery series, currently numbering 26 books, and other works. The Body in the Belfry was the 1991 Agatha Award winner for Best First Mystery Novel. Other Agathas include The Body in the Snowdrift (2006) and Best Short Story for “The Would-Be Widower”(2002) She has been nominated for the Edgar, Macavity, Mary Higgins Clark awards, and other Agathas. The Body in the Web (2024) won the 2024 Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction. Page has also published a collection of short fiction, Small Plates (Morrow), in 2014 and her series cookbook, Have Faith in Your Kitchen (2010). In addition to her adult fiction, Page has published a middle grade mystery series, Christie & Company, and a YA, Club Meds. Katherine Hall Page received Malice Domestic’s Lifetime Achievement Award in April 2016 and MWPA’s Crime Master Award in 2022. She was awarded MWA’s Grand Master Edgar Award in 2024.
Trace Evidence 