Questions people have asked Jane Isenberg
* What made you write about an overtly menopausal sleuth?
Menopause initiates many of us to mid-life, which I define loosely as fiftyish. Contrary to popular opinion, this is an exciting and productive time for most women. We're a lot smarter and tougher than we used to be. We survive and learn from things now that would have devastated us twenty or thirty years ago. In fact, in between hot flashes it occurred to me that much of the world's best and most important work gets done by mid-life women who sweat and forget in stoic silence.
But I couldn't find any fictional models of women experiencing menopause, much less talking about it. So I decided to create a fifty-something sleuth who would speak loudly and sweat proudly for all of us. As the series progresses, Bel and her friends experience midlife as the positive and transformative passage it has become.
* Is Bel Barrett really you?
Yes and no. Bel's virtues represent the best qualities of the many talented, gutsy, and giving women I've taught with over the years. However, her vices, which include overworking, over worrying, and over eating, come from me alone. That's probably why my friends think she's my alter ego and my other readers think she's theirs. Like most fiction writers, I've taken the world I know and the people in it and reshaped them to fit the story I want to tell.
* How did you get the accents and dialects of Bel's students and colleagues so true to life?
I've lived and worked in urban settings for decades, so I've heard a lot of
accents and dialects. And I've read thousands of student papers, so I'm also familiar with how people with different linguistic backgrounds write. I find the accents and dialects spoken in urban America today exciting, so I worked hard to make them as authentic as possible.
* Are community colleges really like RECC?
We never had a murder at either of the two community colleges where I
taught. But urban education at all levels often serves the needs of the
political people entrusted with overseeing it rather than the needs of the
students. Community colleges are no exception. Where there is an enlightened, empowered, and stable middle class population, community college students will almost always enjoy adequate facilities and competent administrators and faculty. Even if there is occasional patronage in these places, the friends and relatives who are hired may actually be up to the demands of the job. But in places where there is an undereducated, disenfranchised and transient working and underclass population, patronage can become the norm, and then public education suffers. Let's face it, not everybody's brother-in-law is cut out to be an assistant dean.
* How much time do you devote to writing?
I taught full-time when I began writing the series, so it was often a
struggle to find the hours it takes to research and write. While I was
doing laundry or dishes, I elaborated on plot. I wrote during the summer
and most weekends, usually for four or five hours at a time. I seldom
watch television. It helped that my books are set in a place I know well
and that my sleuth does the same work I was doing. It also helped that
by the time I began to write professionally, my children had flown the nest.
Then in December of 1999 after over thirty-five years in the classroom, I
retired from teaching and moved with my husband to western Massachusetts. I
left the teaching to Bel so that I could have more time for writing. So the books I’ve written since then have been longer and involved more research than the ones I wrote while teaching.
I still write in the mornings for a few hours a day, usually after a three-mile walk. While I’m walking, I often plan out the chapter I’m working on so that when I sit down at the computer, I am ready to begin.
* What research do you do?
Reading, visiting sites, and interviewing people with experience and expertise, usually in the early stages of planning a book. When I became menopausal I did a fair amount of research on this phenomenon, some of which found its way into THE “M” WORD. But I didn't know about poisoning people, so in order to do in Dr. Altagracia Garcia I needed to do some reading and to interview two pharmacists and an employee at the New Jersey Poison Control Center.
To write DEATH IN A HOT FLASH I found funeral services education curricula on-line, and I read about erotomania. For MOOD SWINGS TO MURDER I unearthed tidbits about Frank Sinatra’s mother and The Voice’s Hoboken years from
the Sinatra Archives of the Hoboken Public Library.
MIDLIFE CAN BE MURDER led me to learn about the adult bat mitzvah, the culture of the dot-com start-up companies, and rock climbing. In fact, the adult bat mitzvah intrigued me so much that I studied for one myself and
had the ceremony on June 21, 2003!
To prepare for OUT OF HORMONES WAY I read about the New Jersey Meadowlands,
dyslexia, and breast cancer. I also traveled back to New Jersey to ride a
pontoon boat through the Meadowlands on the Hackensack River and to visit
the Secaucus Outlets. I also interviewed an oncologist to learn about the latest treatment options for breast cancer victims. HOT AND BOTHERED found me learning about strippers and strip clubs!
I first became curious about racing pigeons when I read about them as a child. Writing about them in HOT ON THE TRAIL gave me an excuse to learn more about this sport, which was once very popular in Hoboken and other American cities.
* When you lived in Hoboken you set the books there. Why didn’t Bel move to Massachusetts? Will she move to Washington now that you have relocated there?
Bel isn’t going anywhere! She’s a Jersey girl born and bred. Someday I may write a book set in Massachusetts or Washington, but it won’t be about Bel. She would never leave her native state, her students, her friends and neighbors. I love New Jersey, and continuing to write about it gives me excuses to make deductible return visits. In a way, writing about Bel’s adventures in Hoboken and Jersey City enables me to live there still, at least in my head, whenever I want to. New Jersey, especially the northeastern part of the state, is much maligned. I love describing it as I see it, a dynamic and diverse place with a rich history where you can still get a really great slice of brick oven baked pizza to go!
* How does the fact that Bel is Jewish influence her and her sleuthing?
Bel is typical of many modern midlife women in that she undergoes several transformations. One of these is spiritual. She rediscovers her Jewish roots, roots which she had grown away from during the earlier part of her life. Like many American Jews, Bel has assimilated, and while she had remained culturally Jewish, she had not been informed or observant. She has an adult bat mitzvah in MIDLIFE CAN BE MURDER and becomes more knowledgeable. She begins to attend services upon occasion and to celebrate the Sabbath.
Bel’s religious rebirth does not propel her to join the ranks of orthodox Jews who keep kosher, believe that the Torah is literally the word of God, and socialize primarily within the Jewish community. Bel attends her local conservative synagogue irregularly, believes the Torah was written by many men at different times, and has friends from a variety of backgrounds. She does not object when her children do not fall in love with Jews or when her aging mother chooses to live with a Catholic friend. In other words, she remains typical of many Jews of her generation, Jews who approach their traditions thoughtfully and respectfully but who do not embrace all of them, especially those which run counter to her feminist beliefs.
But there is one belief central to Judaism that Bel does embrace, and that is that all people, women and men, black and white, old and young, rich and poor, are created in the image of God. This belief partly explains why Bel has chosen to teach economically deprived students in an urban community college and why she is always sympathetic to those less fortunate.
For further thoughts on menopause and mysteries, see "A Conversation
with Jane Isenberg" by Julia P. Allen at
A Friend Indeed.
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