The Snake, the Crocodile and the Dog by Elizabeth Peters

Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Salon, the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, and The Believer. Her most recent book is Give Me Your Hand. Megan Abbott is the Edgar-winning author of the novels Die a Little, Bury Me Deep, The End of Everything, Dare Me, You Will Know Me, and The Fever. You know, I have to live while I do this. I can’t rush it, and it’s also not a lucrative endeavor. It’s going be hard for the reason that you say. I’ve recently decided that I’m writing about this, but I decided to give myself as long as it takes, because I have to follow the trial and I have to interview everybody who ever knew her. I just put it down for six months until recently, when I had drinks with a friend of mine who’s a staff writer at the Guardian and she was like, no, you should probably write about this. Then I just looked at the amount of work that it would take, and I started to question why I even wanted to do this in the first place.

I had decided immediately that I was gonna write about it. Immediately when it happened, I was following the story with obsessive concern. Sarah Gerard: I recently decided that I have to write about my friend’s murder, and she was murdered last September. But in the end, once you’re in it, it is all hard if it is working at all, I think. But if you’re going to live in that world for so long and it’s choice you make, do I want to be there? Do I want a book about torture? Do I want to spend two years with this and that? I think that’s the harder choice. When you write crime novels, it is inevitable that sexual assault comes in. There are certain subjects I wouldn’t want to have a whole book on.

There are some things you don’t want to live in that long. Megan Abbott: I think everything is difficult to write. Like it seems tricky to me to write sex, but is there certain subject areas or material that’s difficult to write more so than others?

I hope this isn’t embarrassing in any way, but you write about masturbation very well and I wonder if there are any topics or subjects that are especially difficult type of material-or not-for you to write about.

I it leads me to a question I wanted to ask, and, Julie, I was thinking about your book. Listen to this week’s readings!Ĭatherine LaSota: Sarah, you’re talking about that essay and how you can still become emotional when reading it. This week, the podcast features the reading and panel discussion from the LIC Reading Series event on May 9, 2017, with Megan Abbott ( Give Me Your Hand), Julie Buntin ( Marlena), and Sarah Gerard ( Sunshine State). Join them each week for stories, readings, and discussions with acclaimed writers, recorded with a live audience in the cozy carriage house of a classic pub in Long Island City, Queens, New York, and hosted by founder Catherine LaSota. Where is all of the literary love for Queens? It’s right here at LIC Reading Series.

The Snake, the Crocodile and the Dog by Elizabeth Peters