#15: Five for Them, One for Me, with Tracy Clark
Clark's novel FALL is out now
Tracy Clark’s BROKEN PLACES made a lot of noise when it came out, racking up a series of award nominations, including Anthony and Shamus nods for best first novel, and firmly establishing Tracy as a writer to be reckoned with. She followed it up with three more in the Cass Raines series, and continued to accumulate an impressive list of accolades, including two Sue Grafton Memorial Awards and praise from CrimeReads, Library Journal, the American Library Association, and the Washington Post.
(Also, she’ll try to claim she’s not a short story writer, but she chalked up an Edgar nomination in 2022 for her story “Lucky Thirteen” in the anthology MIDNIGHT HOUR.)
Her latest novel, FALL, is the second in her Detective Harriet Foster series, chronicling a Black female police detective in a male-dominated department. It’s the follow-up to HIDE, which was just nominated for a Lefty Award for best novel. Tracy brings her trademark intelligence and depth of character to these novels, while continuing to paint a vivid portrait of Chicago. She’s simply one of my favorite writers working, and one of my favorite people in the community.
She’s also the latest “Five for Them, One for Me.”
Let’s go.
FIVE FOR THEM
1. Tell us a little about your newest novel, FALL. What was the origin point for the story?
TRACY CLARK: The streetlight on my block was out. It stayed out. A call to the alderman’s office lasted too long and the result was unsatisfying. Bam. I had a victim for my next novel. There are 50 aldermen in the city of Chicago. Seriously, I think we can do with just 12. I dispatch three in FALL. Streetlight stayed out two weeks.
2. Your first four books featured ex-Chicago cop-turned-PI Cass Raines, and your latest series features Chicago PD Detective Harriet Foster. They’re both wonderful, and very different, characters, and I’m curious about the challenges and differences between writing them, particularly in how they each go about their respective jobs.
TC: Cass was fun to write, but PIs usually are, aren’t they? They’re snarky, irreverent, color-outside-the-lines kinds of characters and it’s a lot of fun getting the voice right. Writing Cass was easy, I basically just put her on the page and let her go. She’s a real dynamo. Cass is working to make things right for the underdogs of the world. She absolutely abhors injustice. She will do anything to protect the vulnerable, including voluntarily jumping into Lake Michigan in pursuit of a fleeing boat with a bad guy on it. Ick. Lake Michigan! Who of right mind and sound body does that? Nobody I know. Detective Harriet Foster is motivated by the same impulse, the greater good, honoring the badge, serving and protecting the innocent, but she’s a bit darker character. Burdened and weighed down by trauma, and grief and loss, Harriet (Harri), goes through her day moment by moment, hour by hour, pushing her way through. On the job she’s brilliant, an intelligent investigator, at the end of her shift she goes home to nothing. She lives a half-life, a stagnant existence. Once that badge and gun come off at night, she’s like a clock with no hands. Stuck. Still.
Writing both characters is challenging because writing is challenging. But the goal is always to create characters that lift off the page and engage readers. I work really hard on making my characters human and complicated and flawed and intriguing, at least to me. Hopefully, if I do that, others will like them too.
3. Chicago always feels alive and vital in the pages of your books. How important do you think setting is for your work? How does it influence character and story?
Chicago is a character in all of my books. This is a pretty exciting town. Our governors go to prison, our aldermen go to prison. The first American serial killer lived here. Al Capone’s family lived not far from where I grew up. I’m not saying we’re a city of criminals, but we do kinda have a reputation for doing the corruption thing better than most. But there’s more to us. Chicago has a beat, a vibe, a rhythm. We’re a city of vibrant neighborhoods and wonderful salt-of-the-earth people. We work hard here and play hard. Every neighborhood, and we have 77 of them, takes pride in its uniqueness and heart. Chicago breathes and pulsates. It’s got soul. The city seeps onto every page I write. I can’t keep it out.
4. We’ve chatted a little about our writing processes, and you’ve said you’re a pantser (meaning you’re making the story up as you go along). Tell us about what your process is like on a book. Also, since you tend to write series characters, does have a pre-existing lead and a cast of regular characters help or hinder the pantsing process?
TC: I am a pantser. I’ve tried it the other way, but my brain just doesn’t work that way. So, my process is this: I get a spark of an idea. I choose my victim, claim my crime scene, and then I start tapping away on the keyboard. Body. Crime scene. Go. I build everything on the page as I go. I make a million decisions, a million mistakes. I paint myself into corners and fight my way out again. Some days go great, other days don’t. Then at some point, a story unfolds, and I can see a path to the end. I’ll make a million more mistakes before I get there, but I know I’m at least heading in the right direction.
For me, writing a series and having my regular cast of players to move around, does make things easier. It’s one less thing to have to worry about. I know who my people are, I don’t have to create them from scratch each time out. With my characters set, it’s simply a question of what fresh hellscape I can put them in? How tough are they, really? Complacent? Oh yeah? Try this psychopath with a thing for redheads. The tougher the challenge, the greater the victory.
5. You’ve talked about your admiration for another famed Chicago crime writer: Sara Paretsky, the legendary writer of the V.I Warshawski novels. What about her work spoke to you, and what influence would you say she’s had in your own writing?
TC: I think I was hooked on Paretsky two paragraphs into INDEMNITY ONLY. In 1982! It was the writing style—clean, precise, deliberate. It was the voice—intelligent, purposeful, socially conscious. It was VI herself—tough, brave, flawed, indomitable. And the books were set in Chicago, my hometown, and Paretsky nailed it. VI grew up on the South Side in the shadow of the old steel mills. I’m a South Side girl, too. VI didn’t take smack from nobody. I loved her grit, how she thumbed her nose at authority, how she didn’t give an inch. Paretsky has given us one of the iconic female PI characters of modern fiction. I can distinctly remember reading one of the books, stopping at a sentence, dropping the book to my lap, and saying to myself (out loud) Nope, I’ll never be that good. That hasn’t stopped me from trying to get that good. A girl’s gotta have a goal, right? Because of Sara Paretsky I wanted to write. Because she was so good, I wanted to be good, too. And, for the record, admiration’s underselling it … by a lot. I think I made a complete fool of myself when I met Sara Paretsky for the first time (Thank you, Lori Rader-Day). But she was just lovely, as I always knew she would be.
ONE FOR ME
You can only save one venerable Chicago institution or landmark; everything else in the city is getting Thanos-snapped away. We’re talking museums, sports teams, your favorite hot dog stand—everything’s gonna go except your one choice. What do you save and why?
TC: LOL. Thanos-snapped. Good one. Tough questions. Two choices. I’d have to make my decision on the day. It would either be the Chicago Water Tower, an iconic symbol for the city, which survived the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 while everything around it burnt to a crisp, OR the nearest library I could get to in order to save all the books and the knowledge therein. I kinda believe, though, that if we’re talking hotdog stands, the folks at the Weiners Circle could beat old Thanos and make him cry. That’s how we roll in Chi-town.
HEY, LOOK! IT’S A FREE STORY
My story “Knock” was part of the stellar lineup in Lawrence Block’s PLAYING GAMES anthology that came out last year. I’ve posted “Knock” up on my website—something of a capstone to a wonderful 2023. I hope y’all will read and enjoy it. I definitely encourage you to buy the book; it’s filled with powerhouse writers.
SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
Art Taylor let me clutter up his otherwise-excellent First Two Pages blog to talk about "A Tear in His Hand," my debut in the storied pages of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.
I’ve shown up on a few podcasts lately, so if you’ve ever wondered how bad the accent is, here’s your chance to find out.
Terrence McCauley had me over at Spies, Lies and Private Eyes, and I dropped in at Out with Dan, hosted by Dan White.
Both are fun conversations where we talk BECAUSE THE NIGHT, SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE SALVATION, my writing influences, my gratitude at getting to tell stories, the changing face of Southern fiction, and the importance of representation. They’re good times, but I’m gonna apologize upfront for probably telling some of the same jokes.
That’s all we’ve got for now. Thanks for coming. See you next time, and hey, let’s be careful out there.
Good, good stuff! Thanks for this work.
Great post, James. I enjoyed Knock a lot!