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No
doubt plenty of serial-mystery detectives have been
introduced to their readers with a dramatic courtroom
scene. But how many were being arraigned on bounced-check
charges thanks to their employer's skipping town? There
is only one Blanche White, the irreverent, middle-aged,
African American domestic worker and occasional cook
who, along with being a full-time mother, is also a
part-time amateur sleuth--the inimitable creation of
writer Barbara Neely. With her debut novel in 1992,
Neely joined a growing number of female African American
mystery writers who are gaining a wide audience with
their compelling whodunits set in black America. But
even among her peers, Neely is unique. You might say
she has demystified the mystery by delivering a thoroughly
engaging protagonist who not only solves the crime,
but who also exhibits familiar foibles and strengths,
believes in kitchen-table wisdom, and possesses a wicked
sense of humor. As Kate Mattes, owner of Kate's Mystery
Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts, puts it, "Blanche
could be a friend. When I read the books I feel as though
she's talking to me."
The
keep-it-real ethic of Neely's writing is a natural outgrowth
of the author's down-to-earth nature and her fierce
commitment to political activism, her profession before
she turned to writing full-time. She created Blanche
while suffering writer's block with another project,
and no one was more surprised than Neely when her first
book, Blanche on the Lam (St. Martin's Press, 1992),
grew into a top mystery series. "I thought I was writing
a novel that happened to have murder in it. Blanche
was an amusement," Neely says. "But when the book did
so well, I realized the mystery genre was perfect to
talk about serious subjects, and it could carry the
political fiction I wanted to write. In a way, I feel
the genre chose me."
This
happy accident of form meeting function has resulted
in four books thus far. In Blanche Among the Talented
Tenth (St. Martin's Press, 1994), Neely's second stab
at the genre, her hero gets a chance to vacation at
a hoity-toity, all-black resort in Maine, where, along
with trying to find a connection between a suicide and
a possible murder, the "eggplant-black" Blanche encounters
color and class pigeonholing within the black community.
And in Blanche Cleans Up (Viking/Penguin, 1998), the
sharp-eyed domestic worker-cum-sleuth inadvertently
gets involved in a political scandal, before literally
and figuratively cleaning up. As she winds her way in
and out of sticky situations, Blanche reveals a healthy
dose of attitude. Neely writes in Blanche Cleans Up,
"Once in a while she'd been messed with so badly, she'd
had to let her finger slip into somebody's drink, put
too much salt or hot pepper in the eggs rancheros, or
add a couple of tablespoons of cat food to the beef
bourguignonne."
Not
quite the nuances you might expect from your average
gumshoe. Says Neely, "I wanted to provide a perspective
rarely seen in fiction, that of a poor, black domestic
woman." This she has done to the delight of mystery
readers hungry for a hero of substance. Neely's eye
for the literary detail that reveals as much about the
human condition as it does about murder has led some
to compare Blanche to no less than Langston Hughes's
classic character, Jesse B. Semple, from his Simple
stories. As writer Ntzoke Shange has been quoted as
saying, "[Blanche] rivals Simple in her insight, political
savvy, and humor on the ways of white folk."
Translated
into French, German, and Japanese, the books have brought
Neely major critical and academic recognition, along
with literary awards such as the Agatha, the Macavity,
and the Anthony, three of the four major U.S. mystery
prizes for best first novel. Neely's fourth book in
the series, Blanche Passes Go, where Blanche, a rape
survivor herself, tackles issues of battery and rape,
is due to be published in July by Viking/Penguin.
Born
56 years ago in a small town in Pennsylvania, Neely
comes from a family of readers and local activists--people
who read not just for entertainment, but also to understand
how worlds they weren't a part of worked. "I grew up
with the idea I ought to be able to do anything I wanted
to do." She says, "I was encouraged to write, though
it didn't occur to me people made a living at it. But
I've always kept a journal and in the sixties, I wrote
extremely bad poetry."
The
sixties were also when Neely first ventured into activism.
While working as a medical typist at the Children's
Hospital of Philadelphia, she got involved with the
Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and
History. She began giving talks on black history at
schools and from there, became an organizer at the Philadelphia
Tutorial Project, working with gangs and housing issues
in the black community. Thinking she could use a degree
in urban planning, Neely headed to the University of
Pittsburgh. Her master's thesis focused on women and
incarceration, and landed her a job with the Pennsylvania
Department of Corrections as designer and director of
the first community-based correctional facility for
women in Pennsylvania. When her partner took a teaching
job in Boston in the mid-1980s, Neely followed.
Throughout
her career as an activist, Neely had been honing her
writing skills. She'd created stories as gifts for friends
and had one published by Essence magazine. With the
move to Boston, she began to more fully explore the
pull of the pen. "I didn't take myself seriously as
a writer until I was in my thirties; then the understanding
came to me that a full life would mean doing something
I was absolutely in love with doing, whether it paid
or not." Now writing full time, Neely is still a committed
activist--an identity that's amply evident throughout
the books. "I'm not sure my message isn't polemical,"
Neely admits, "so I rewrite and rewrite so that it's
always Blanche, not Barbara, talking. You can't call
yourself a mystery writer without understanding how
the genre works. On the other hand, for me the question
isn't 'Have I got the clues right?' but 'What would
Mrs. Buffalo who lived across the street from me do
about this?'
"I
see Blanche both as an everyday black woman and as an
agent for change," Neely continues. "She's a behavioral
feminist!" But, when asked if she feels women are such
avid readers of mysteries because the genre offers them
the "dream of justice," Neely snaps, "Anyone looking
for justice in a book needs to sign up with an organization
and make it happen in the world! There's very little
justice in the Blanche books; they're reality based."
Neely's
had a number of movie offers, but fearing her beloved
character will be turned into "an Aunt Jemima, or someone
lighter, thinner, younger, and cuter," she has turned
them all down. She's not interested in writing the screenplay
herself, either. "I've already imagined it in the form
it's in," she says. "My stuff is always about what's
going on in the black community, because that's who
Blanche is. It's interesting to me that academic papers
have been written on Blanche. But I'd like to hope,
too, that women who have domestic help will, after reading
a Blanche book, look at the woman vacuuming the floor
and see her as a person, rather than as a function,
and act accordingly."
Ann
Collette is a contributing editor to "Fiction Writer"
magazine.
Photography by Asia Kepka
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