Well, it was a sad, droopy weekend. Gabriel is in the midst of a stomach flu - he's in the home stretch, but, boy, has it been a rough one: vomiting, diarrhea, lack of appetite, lethargy. It's been rough on Julia and I, especially Julia (who got puked on!), and we're keeping the boy at home from school for a few days.
I originally intended an Author Profile to be a bi-weekly column, but I'm having a good time with it, so I'll make it a weekly thing. Today's author...
Ruth Rendell
Born: London, 1930
Career: The daughter of schoolteachers, Rendell went to work as a reporter and sub-editor at local newspapers after high school. For ten years, following the birth of her only child, she was a housewife (to a journalist) and an unpublished novelist for a decade before her first book was published, 1964's From Doon With Death. In this book, she introduced Inspector Reginald Wexford, a character who has appeared 20-plus novels to date. Her husband and her divorced in 1975, but then remarried two years later and lived in Suffolk until his death; Rendell still lives in London.
Since 1964, and particularly over the last couple decades, Rendell has been staggeringly prolific, usually churning out at least one, if not two, books per year. In addition to the Wexford novels, she has written over 25 stand-alone novels, close to ten short story collections, two novellas, and, most prominently, 14 novels under the pseudonym Barbara Vine. What is most striking is how acclaimed Rendell's body of work is; critics love her. She almost never has an "off" book. She has won almost every award given to mystery writers and is considered one of the grand dames of the profession. She is a Baroness, long supporting the Labour party. She is an obsessively punctual person, maintaining a strict writing regimen even today, a vegetarian, an exerciser, a cat lover.
Noted Books: Rendell doesn't have that one iconic work - that one book the general reading public knows her by, a one stone-cold classic. That's unfortunate, but a good thing, too, when you consider that all her work is worth a look. She's consistently great, not a one- or two-hot wonder. The first Barbara Vine novel, A Dark-Adapted Eye (1986), is reputedly the best of Vine's books. 1980's Lake of Darkness, An Unkindness of Ravens (1985), The Babes in the Wood (2002), Adam and Eve Pinch Me (2001), and The Rottweiler (2003) could maybe seen as standouts. Her 62nd book, this year's St. Zita's Society, is out now.
Themes, Style, Etc: Rendell is a crime writer, but she has often been seen as an auteur who saddles the line between crime writing and literary fiction. Her works often penetrate various classes of English society, illustrating the strained, envious, symbiotic, often murderous relationships between different . There's often a murder (or two). Perversity, darkness, loneliness, obsession, human nature askew - these are common themes. She doesn't like violence or torture in literature, she has often stated. There is something chilly, amoral, voyeuristic, frightening in her work; she's more Patricia Highsmith than Agatha Christie (whose work she despises).
Why You Should Read Her: Because you would be reading one of the world's great writers. By fellow writers and critics, she is regarded as one of the world's great practitioners of her craft. Her Barbara Vine books are even more acclaimed than her Rendell books.
Books I'd Recommend: Thirteen Steps Down (2004) and The Water's Lovely (2006), two cold, compelling, ingeniously-constructed tales of obsession. Portobello, from 2008, was a captivating five-starrer (like the previous two) about a collection of modern Londoners living in a down-and-out, slow-to-gentrify neighborhood. The two Vine books I've read, The Minotaur (2005) and The Birthday Present (2008) are pretty wonderful too.
Books I Want to Read: A Judgement in Stone (1977) (adapted into a nasty Claude Chabrol film in 1995, La Cermonie), Vine's A Dark-Adapted Eye, The Keys to the Street (1996), A Sight for Sore Eyes (1998) and its follow-up, 2011's The Vault.
There are multiple webpages dedicated to Rendell (even one centered on the series of British television films based on her Wexford novels), but no official Ruth Rendell website.
And let's make May and June Soul Months. One great Soul track a day for the next fifty-plus days,
Today, here's a track, "In the Rain," from the group The Dramatics, originally from their 1971 album Whatcha See is What You Get. The song went to #1 on the R&B charts in 1972.
The band was from Detroit, forming in 1962. They still perform, but without, of course, any of the original members. Enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRK4AwS3dh8
Today's photographer:
Steven Meisel (#33)
In a nutshell, here's what you should known about Meisel:
Son of a singer and record company executive.
Early obsession with drawing models.
Early career included a post as an instructor at Parsons. Also, worked at fashion design company Halston and Women's Wear Daily. A shoot he did of actress Phoebe Cates got him noticed by Seventeen; soon after followed assignments for W, Self, and Mademoiselle.
After joining Vogue in the late-1980s, he became friends with Madonna and shot some of her more provocative shoots. He was an image-mentor (for a lack of a better title) for her.
Has worked for Calvin Klein and Vanity Fair.
Credited for discovering many models: Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, and Amber Valletta.
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