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Sue Grafton

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Sue Taylor Grafton (April 24, 1940 – December 28, 2017) was an American author of detective novels. She is best known as the author of the "alphabet series" ("A" Is for Alibi, etc.) featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone in the fictional city of Santa Teresa, California. The daughter of detective novelist C. W. Grafton, she said the strongest influence on her crime novels was author Ross Macdonald. Before her success with this series, she wrote screenplays for television movies.

Early lifeEdit

Sue Grafton was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to C. W. Grafton (1909–1982) and Vivian Harnsberger, both of whom were the children of Presbyterian missionaries.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Her father was a municipal bond lawyer who also wrote mystery novels, and her mother was a former high school chemistry teacher.<ref name="pi">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Her father enlisted in the Army during World War II when she was three and returned when she was five, after which her home life started falling apart. Both parents became alcoholics, and Grafton said "From the age of five onward, I was left to raise myself".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="wsj">Template:Cite news</ref>

Grafton and her older sister, Ann, grew up in Louisville, where she went to Atherton High School.<ref name="wsj"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> She attended the University of Louisville (first year) and Western Kentucky State Teachers College (now Western Kentucky University) in her sophomore and junior years<ref name="qa">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> before graduating from the University of Louisville in 1961 with a bachelor's degree in English Literature and minors in humanities and fine arts. She was a member of Pi Beta Phi.<ref name="kinsey">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

After graduating, Grafton worked as a hospital admissions clerk, a cashier, and a medical secretary in Santa Monica and Santa Barbara, California.<ref name="kinsey"/>

Grafton's mother killed herself in 1960 after returning home from an operation to remove esophageal cancer brought on by years of drinking and smoking. Her father died in 1982, a few months before "A" Is for Alibi was published.<ref name="guardian" />

Writing careerEdit

Grafton's father was enamored with detective fiction and wrote at night. He taught Grafton lessons on the writing and editing process and groomed her to be a writer. Inspired by her father, Grafton began writing when she was 18 and finished her first novel four years later. She continued writing and completed six more novels. Only two of these seven novels (Keziah Dane and The Lolly-Madonna War) were published.<ref name="wsj" /><ref name="nytimes"/> Grafton would later destroy the manuscripts for her five early, unpublished novels.<ref name=Carlson3Jan/>

Unable to find success with her novels, Grafton turned to screenplays.<ref name="adn730708">Template:Cite news</ref> Grafton worked for the next 15 years writing screenplays for television movies, including Sex and the Single Parent; Mark, I Love You; and Nurse. Grafton sold the movie rights for The Lolly-Madonna War and co-wrote the screenplay for the feature film. The adaptation, released in 1973 as Lolly-Madonna XXX, starred Rod Steiger and Jeff Bridges. Her screenplay for Walking Through the Fire earned a Christopher Award in 1979. In collaboration with her husband, Steven Humphrey, she also adapted the Agatha Christie novels, A Caribbean Mystery and Sparkling Cyanide, for television and co-wrote A Killer in the Family and Love on the Run.<ref name="kinsey" /><ref name="i1996"/> She is credited with the story upon which the screenplay for the made for TV movie Svengali (1983) was based.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Her experience as a screenwriter taught her the basics of structuring a story, writing dialogue, and creating action sequences. Grafton then felt ready to return to writing fiction.<ref name="i1996"/> While going through a "bitter divorce and custody battle that lasted six long years", Grafton imagined ways to kill or maim her ex-husband. Her fantasies were so vivid that she decided to write them down.<ref name="white">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Alphabet seriesEdit

File:Sue Grafton.jpg
Sue Grafton

Grafton had been fascinated by mystery series whose titles were related, such as John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series, each of which included a color in the title, and Harry Kemelman's Rabbi Small series, each of which included a day of the week in the title. While reading Edward Gorey's The Gashlycrumb Tinies, a picture book with an alphabetized list of ways for children to die, Grafton decided to write a series of novels whose titles would follow the alphabet. She immediately sat down and made a list of all of the crime-related words that she knew.<ref name="i1996">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

These became the series now known as the "alphabet novels", featuring sleuth and private investigator, Kinsey Millhone. The name rhymes and alliterates with that of Sharon McCone, the heroine of crime novels by Marcia Muller, of whom Grafton wrote, "Marcia Muller is the founding 'mother' of the contemporary female hard-boiled private eye."<ref>Marcia Muller, Edwin of the Iron Shoes (New York: The Mysterious Press, 1977), cover blurb.</ref> The series is set in Santa Teresa, a fictionalized version of Santa Barbara.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Grafton followed the lead of Ross Macdonald, who created the fictional version of the city.<ref name="library">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Grafton described Kinsey Millhone as her alter ego, "the person I might have been had I not married young and had children."<ref name="guardian">Template:Cite news</ref>

The series begins with "A" Is for Alibi, published and set in 1982. "B" Is for Burglar followed in 1985; after that, Grafton usually put out a further book in the series every year or two.<ref name=mb0905 /> Each novel's title combined a letter with a word, except X. After the publication of "G" Is for Gumshoe, Grafton was able to quit her screenwriting job and focus on her novel writing.<ref name="white"/>

Though written between 1982 and 2017, the Kinsey Millhone novels are all set in the 1980s, with each novel chronologically taking place only a few weeks (or at most a few months) after the previous one. The final novel ("Y" Is for Yesterday) is set in 1989.

The name of each book was a source of speculation.<ref name=sbi100429>Template:Cite news</ref> In May 2009, Grafton told Media Bistro that she was "just trying to figure out how to get from "U" is for Undertow to "Z" Is for Zero"<ref name=pbpg131007>Template:Cite news</ref> and that "just because she knows the endgame title for Z [...] doesn't mean she knows what V, W, X, and Y will be".<ref name=mb0905>Template:Cite news</ref> Grafton said that the series would end with "Z" Is for Zero, but she died before she could begin writing it. Her daughter said Grafton would never allow a ghostwriter to write in her name and "as far as we in the family are concerned, the alphabet now ends at Y."<ref name="cj"/>

Grafton's novels have been published in 28 countries and in 26 languages.<ref name="cj"/> She refused to sell the film and television rights, because writing screenplays "cured" her of the desire to work with Hollywood.<ref name="i1996"/> (TV movies in Japan, however, were adapted from "B" is for Burglar and "D" is for Deadbeat.)<ref name=Carlson3Jan>Template:Cite news</ref> Grafton told her children her ghost would haunt them if they sold the film rights after her death.<ref name="jan">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The books in the series were on The New York Times Best Seller list for an aggregate of about 400 weeks. F is for Fugitive was the first, entering at number 10 on the paperback list; by 1995 "L" is for Lawless entered the best seller list at number one followed by ten more in the series.<ref name="Cowles">Template:Cite news</ref>

Writing styleEdit

Grafton's style is characteristic of hardboiled detective fiction, according to the authors of 'G' is for Grafton, who describe it as "laconic, breezy, wise-cracking".<ref>Kaufman (1997), 385</ref> The novels are framed as reports Kinsey writes in the course of her investigations, which are signed off in the epilogue of each novel. The first-person narrative allows the reader to see through the eyes of Kinsey, who chronicles various descriptions of "eccentric buildings and places", giving depth to the narrative.<ref>Kaufman (1997), 386</ref> The repeated descriptions of the Santa Barbara shoreline (chronicled as Kinsey's early morning runs), are "skillful, evocative writing of a caliber that takes Grafton well beyond being categorized as 'merely' a writer of detective fiction and into the so-called mainstream of 'serious' American fiction."<ref>Kaufman (1997), 390</ref>

AwardsEdit

Work Year & Award Category Result Ref.
B is for Burglar 1986 Shamus Award P.I. Hardcover Novel Template:Won
1986 Anthony Awards Novel Template:Won
The Parker Shotgun 1987 Macavity Awards Mystery Short Story Template:Won
1987 Anthony Awards Short Story Template:Won
C is for Corpse 1987 Anthony Awards Novel Template:Won
E Is for Evidence 1989 Macavity Awards Mystery Novel Template:Nominated
1989 Anthony Awards Novel Template:Nominated
F Is for Fugitive 1991 Maltese Falcon Society "Falcon Award" Template:Won
G Is for Gumshoe 1991 Shamus Award P.I. Hardcover Novel Template:Won
1991 Anthony Awards Novel Template:Won
A Poison That Leaves No Trace 1991 Edgar Allan Poe Award Short Story Template:Nominated
K Is for Killer 1995 Shamus Award P.I. Hardcover Novel Template:Won
1995 Anthony Awards Novel Template:Nominated
M Is for Malice 1997 Audie Awards Mystery Template:Nominated
O Is for Outlaw 2000 Audie Awards Mystery Template:Nominated
Writing Mysteries: A Handbook by the Mystery Writers of America

(with Jan Burke)

2002 Agatha Award Non-Fiction Template:Nominated
Q Is for Quarry 2003 Audie Awards Mystery Template:Nominated
W Is for Wasted 2012 Lefty Award The Squid (Best mystery set within the United States) Template:Nominated citation CitationClass=web

}}</ref>

2013 Goodreads Choice Awards Mystery & Thriller Template:Nominated citation CitationClass=web

}}</ref>

2014 Killer Nashville Awards Silver Falchion Award (Private Detective / Police Procedural / Mystery) Template:Won citation CitationClass=web

}}</ref>

V Is for Vengeance 2012 Lefty Award Golden Nugget Award (Best mystery set in California) Template:Nominated <ref name="auto"/>
Kinsey Millhone 2014 Shamus Award P.I. Series Character Template:Won
Y Is for Yesterday 2018 Anthony Awards Bill Crider Award for Novel in a Series Template:Won
2000 YWCA of Lexington Smith-Breckinridge Distinguished Woman of Achievement Award Template:Won <ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
2003 Shamus Award Lifetime Achievement Award Template:Won
2004 Ross Macdonald Literary Award Template:Won
2008 Crime Writers' Association's CWA Diamond Dagger award Template:Won
2009 Edgar Awards Grand Master Award Template:Won
2011 Agatha Award Malice Domestic Award for Lifetime Achievement Template:Won
2013 Bouchercon Lifetime Achievement Award Template:Won

Personal lifeEdit

Grafton first married in 1959, aged 18, to James L. Flood, with whom she had a son and a daughter. The two divorced by the time Grafton graduated from college in 1961. Her second marriage was with Al Schmidt in 1962, but it ended with protracted divorce and custody proceedings over their daughter.<ref name="100acw">Template:Cite book</ref>

She married her third husband, Steven F. Humphrey, in 1978.<ref name="nytimes"/> They divided their time between Santa Barbara, California, and Louisville, Kentucky;<ref name="wsj"/> Humphrey taught at universities in both cities.<ref name="white"/> In 2000, the couple bought and later restored Lincliff, a Template:Convert Louisville estate once owned by hardware baron William Richardson Belknap.<ref name="wsj"/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Grafton died at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara on December 28, 2017, after a two-year battle with cancer of the appendix.<ref name=Ellis2017>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="cj">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="nytimes">Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2019, an award in Grafton's memory was established by G.P. Putnam's Sons and is under the aegis of the Mystery Writers of America.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

WorksEdit

Alphabet Mystery seriesEdit

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Essays and short storiesEdit

  • "Teaching a Child" (2013) – essay in the anthology Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting, published by W. W. Norton & Company.
  • Kinsey and Me (2013) – a collection of nine Kinsey Millhone short stories along with 12 other short stories about Grafton's own mother. The Kinsey Millhone stories, with one exception, appeared in magazines and mystery anthologies between 1986 and 1991. The dozen other stories, none previously published, feature Kit Blue, who, Grafton said, "is simply a younger version of myself."<ref>Sue Grafton, "Introduction," Kinsey and Me - stories, G. P. Putnam, 1993, p. xvi</ref> The book also includes a preface, introductions to the two separate story collections, and a previously published essay on hard-boiled private investigators.
  • The Lying Game (2003) – a Kinsey Millhone short story which appeared in the September 2003 special 40th anniversary Lands' End catalogue. It also appeared as a separate pamphlet given to attendees at Malice Domestic 2011 conference, where Grafton was recognized for Lifetime Achievement. It is included in Kinsey and Me.
  • If You Want Something Done Right . . . (Published 2020) An unpublished story found among Sue Grafton's papers by her husband after her death and originally published in Deadly Anniversaries, edited by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini.<ref>Otto Prenzler, "Forward", The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021, edited by Lee Child, The Mysterious Press, New York, p. xiv and "Contents", n.p.</ref> Reprinted in The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021, edited by Lee Child.

As editorEdit

  • Writing Mysteries: A Handbook by the Mystery Writers of America (with Jan Burke)

In popular cultureEdit

Grafton's introduction of a young, no-nonsense female private detective in the Alphabet Mystery series was ground-breaking at the time when A is for Alibi was first released in 1982. Until the creation of Kinsey Milhone and V.I. Warshawski, created by Sarah Paretsky, in Indemnity Only, also in 1982, private detectives in fiction were almost always male.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

  • In the "Mayham" episode of The Sopranos, Carmela sits by Tony's bedside in the hospital, reading Sue Grafton's "G" Is for Gumshoe.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
  • In the "Local Ad" episode of The Office, Phyllis goes to a Sue Grafton book signing at the mall to try to get her to be in the Dunder-Mifflin Scranton branch commercial.<ref name="ew4">Template:Cite magazine</ref> She is told by Michael Scott not to take no for an answer. After waiting in line, Phyllis meets Grafton, only to be rebuffed by her.<ref name="ew4"/> Phyllis continues to ask until she is thrown out of the store in front of all her friends. Meanwhile, Andy and Creed talk about how "crazy hot" the author is.
  • A scene in the film Stranger than Fiction shows Prof. Hilbert reading the Sue Grafton novel "I" Is for Innocent while serving as a lifeguard.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
  • In the Superego podcast Season 3 Episode 14, guest star, actor and comedian, Rob Delaney impersonates Sue Grafton.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

ReferencesEdit

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SourcesEdit

Further readingEdit

External linksEdit

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