Writing About Death
by Saralyn Richard
As a mystery author, I’m often asked how and why I write about death. “You’re such a genteel lady. Why don’t you write about happy things: parties, petit fours, and puppies?”
I do write about happy things. Parties, petit fours, and puppies inhabit my books, for sure, because those are some of the delightful things about life. Authors of fiction do their best to represent life in all its magnificent aspects, and sometimes that includes writing about death.
Because I write mysteries, and characters sometimes die, I’ve interviewed numerous people who have experience with death: funeral home employees, gravediggers, policemen, physicians. I’ve always been struck by the serenity and matter-of-fact attitudes these sources have exhibited. The “death is a part of life” philosophy prevails.
Once I spoke with a mortician, who told me that when she prepares a body, she is humble and respectful, realizing that she is the last person to interact with the deceased. When she finishes the job, she goes out into the wide world and her senses are sharpened. She feels more alive than ever, more determined to make every living moment count.
That’s how death is. Death reminds us of life, how precious, how fragile, and how fleeting it is.
Mystery novels should not be confused with treatises on death. On the contrary, most mysteries I read, and certainly those that I write, are entertaining whodunits, designed to engage readers in solving intellectual and emotional puzzles. If a character dies along the way, the event is more plot than theme, a challenge for other characters to overcome, a life’s lesson to learn, a world order to restore.
Bad Blood Sisters is the story of Quinn McFarland, a young woman who has grown up in her family business, a mortuary. Quinn’s family has often joked about death, but this summer death stops being funny. Quinn’s estranged BFF is brought into the funeral home, a victim of violence, and Quinn realizes that the blood oath they took and the secrets they buried now put Quinn in extreme danger.
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