When the Wall Street Journal Calls

 

When Sanette Tanaka, Wall Street Journal real estate reporter, arranged a phone interview with me, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

What I experienced during our half-hour chat was a professional journalist asking tough questions but also laughing about my humorous mysteries set in fictional Magnet Springs, Michigan, starring Abra the (untrainable) Afghan hound and, of course, Realtor Whiskey Mattimoe.

Ms. Tanaka was intrigued by my choice of a Realtor as a mystery series protagonist. I explained that a real estate agent has access to properties and people in widely varied conditions. Setting my Whiskey Mattimoe mysteries in a resort town lets me create colorful characters drawn to a charming and expensive setting. If a character isn’t misbehaving on holiday, he or she is probably making a living from those who are.

Humor is at the heart of my series and at the core of many real estate issues. As I told Ms. Tanaka, “When you have a lot of money and a lot of emotion involved in a time-sensitive transaction, things tend to go wrong. Looking for comedy in chaos is what I do.” 

Of course, Abra the Afghan hound helps things go wrong, but almost as often she helps solve the mystery, too. Abra is surprisingly heroic in Whiskey and Soda (Book #6). And she’ll play an unexpectedly vital role in the seventh Whiskey Mattimoe mystery due out later this year.

From Sanette Tanaka's February 22, 2013 article, "In Real Estate, Truth in Fiction":

Nina Wright, author of six mystery novels featuring real-estate agent and sleuth Whiskey Mattimoe, says she often embellishes absurd situations to suit her series. In real life, Ms. Wright, who lives in Oakland County, Mich., found out that one of her tenants was running an underground day-care service. In the fourth book, "Whiskey and Water," agent Mattimoe discovers that her tenant is operating an illegal adoption ring.
 
"There are so many things that can go wrong in real estate," says Ms. Wright. "I've bought and sold a lot of properties, but I haven't seen a single transaction where there aren't colossal screw-ups."

If a Tree Falls in the Forest and . . . Doesn't Kill You

In July 2010, I narrowly escaped being crushed by a one-ton tree limb that fell just feet from where I was hiking in a local Metropark. Two months later, the very same thing happened while I was hiking along a gravel road in a state nature preserve a hundred miles to the north. Let me add that I’ve been a walker and a hiker since I was a kid, frequenting forest paths, rural highways, and city streets, usually solo; in all those decades, I’d never had a brush with a breaking tree. Then I had two within two months.

Reactions to my double-death-dodges have varied from “Guess your time isn’t up” to “I’d watch my back if I were you” although some people are more spiritual in their word choice. This appears to be another of those infinitely numbered issues on which the world is divided into two points of view: either I was spared, or “they” (whoever that is) missed me that time. In the former scenario, I should be grateful. In the latter, I’d better be watchful.

Back in July, I had just passed under a spectacularly tall cottonwood when I heard a resounding crack, a whoosh, and a thundering thud, and felt a waft of displaced air. Without having to move, I was clear of the death-branch, though not by much. I spun around and stared at the expanse of wood and greenery that logic told me was supposed to remain aloft. My mind slowly registered what had occurred. And what had not occurred.

In September, the splintering thunder roared directly overhead. Although my physical response may not have been graceful, it was automatic. I did not look up or around. I darted across the one-lane road to the edge of the wetland, my feet sliding to a stop at the same instant the gargantuan half-tree struck the ground. I watched it bounce in place and settle.

What I wonder is whether my quick reaction the second time was a learned response, thanks to my experience in July, or a reptile-brain response based on the proximity of the unnatural noise. In other words, was I stunned and slower in July because I had had no personal experience with spontaneously falling tree limbs, or because my brain knew before I did that I was clear of the kill-zone? Was my deft, death-defying sprint in September due to a learning curve or a hardwired neuromuscular reaction that simply wasn’t required in July?

As for the “was-I-spared” or “was-I-warned” debate, I’ll spin it this way: two potentially fatal falling limbs in two months remind me that I’m fully alive. I have things to do, people and critters to love, and no way to know what wonders lie ahead. Fate may play a role, but I’m thanking my higher power first. The mind-body connection intrigues me, too. I’d love to know which matters more, skill-building or biology. What matters most is that I’m still living, still learning . . . and still learning to pay attention.

Death and Facebook: Social Media Grieving

It’s unsettling to get a friend request from someone you know is dead.

That happened to me last week. I had been offline, or more accurately, off Facebook while traveling. On the road, I learned that a former colleague had passed away suddenly. He was one of those people with whom I’d been meaning to reconnect since moving back to this part of the world. But I hadn’t yet made the phone call or sent the email. And now he was gone.

Back at my desk, I opened Facebook and found a friend request from him.

The story gets stranger. Within the past six weeks, I’ve lost four friends, aged thirty-something to seventy. Three of them were—and still are—on Facebook, where they endure like cyber-holograms. Dead but seeking friends and wall comments. Still receiving updates and invitations.

Welcome to social media grieving, yet another function of Facebook, whereby friends can process a shared loss via posts, photos, and links like these:

OMG. I can’t believe you’re dead! It's not right.

Sooooo sad you’re gone. We miss you every day.

What’s it like where you are now? It’s lonely here without you.

Remember this pink t-shirt you gave my dog?

SlingerBabe, sweetie, how are you doing without him? Call me, honey. We’ll go get drunk.

here’s that crazy mexican movie you helped me make, you were funny (via youtube link)

* * * * * * * *
For days I followed the growing lists of posts and added my reflections. For whom were we compulsively posting? Not for our dead friends, of course. They would never see the spike in action on their pages. We posted for ourselves and for each other, creating communities of grief and celebrations of life. Like the rest, I hungrily studied tagged pictures and whole irrelevant photo albums, struck by the disconnect between lively, even silly, images and the knowledge that two of these friends hadn’t been well enough to do anything—I mean, anything—for many months. Yet their robustly grinning profile photos beam at us. Carefree, cancer-free, so far from dead.

A medium as fluid and detached from active life as Facebook can magnify the loss of a friend, especially if we didn’t keep up with him in real life. His lingering presence on a bright, pulsating page promises more than he can deliver, an incompleteness that ought to be resolved. We get souvenirs of time spent elsewhere translated into highly abbreviated snippets. Text messages we would not otherwise have read, let alone wondered about, now confound and haunt us because our friend will never be able to explain . . . why he traveled to Romania . . . what made him try to save that crippled turtle . . . and who the hell is SlingerBabe?

Facebook shows me how many lives I’ve touched and lost touch with, what a minor player I became in the long drama of somebody I almost married. The process of social media grieving is painful, personal, and arguably unproductive. When the friending ends forever, the farewells begin. And go on and on. You have to know when to log off. Especially if, like me, you have books to write and a life to live.

Sayonara. Godspeed. I love you still.