Sue Grafton | |
|---|---|
 Grafton in 2009 | |
| Born | Sue Taylor Grafton (1940-04-24)April 24, 1940 Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. |
| Died | December 28, 2017(2017-12-28) (aged 77) |
| Alma mater | University of Louisville |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Spouse | Steven F. Humphrey |
| Father | C. W. Grafton |
| Writing career | |
| Period | 1964–2017 (first published novel: 1967) |
| Genre | Mystery |
| Notable works | Kinsey Millhone Alphabet series |
| Signature | |
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| Website | suegrafton |
Sue Taylor Grafton (April 24, 1940 – December 28, 2017) was an American author ofdetective 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 novelistC. W. Grafton, she said the strongest influence on her crime novels was authorRoss Macdonald. Before her success with this series, she wrotescreenplays for television movies.
Sue Grafton was born inLouisville, Kentucky, toC. W. Grafton (1909–1982) and Vivian Harnsberger, both of whom were the children ofPresbyterian missionaries.[2]
Her father was amunicipal bond lawyer who also wrote mystery novels, and her mother was a former high schoolchemistry teacher.[3] Her father enlisted in the Army duringWorld War II when she was three and returned when she was five, after which her home life started falling apart. Both parents becamealcoholics, and Grafton said "From the age of five onward, I was left to raise myself".[4][5]
Grafton and her older sister, Ann, grew up in Louisville, where she went toAtherton High School.[5][6] She attended theUniversity of Louisville (first year) and Western Kentucky State Teachers College (nowWestern Kentucky University) in her sophomore and junior years[7] before graduating from theUniversity of Louisville in 1961 with a bachelor's degree inEnglish Literature and minors in humanities and fine arts. She was a member ofPi Beta Phi.[8]
After graduating, Grafton worked as a hospital admissions clerk, a cashier, and a medical secretary inSanta Monica andSanta Barbara, California.[8]
Grafton's motherkilled herself in 1960 after returning home from an operation to removeesophageal cancer brought on by years of drinking and smoking. Her father died in 1982, a few months before"A" Is for Alibi was published.[9]
Grafton's father was enamored withdetective 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 andThe Lolly-Madonna War) were published.[5][10] Grafton would later destroy the manuscripts for her five early, unpublished novels.[11]
Unable to find success with her novels, Grafton turned to screenplays.[12] Grafton worked for the next 15 years writing screenplays for television movies, includingSex and the Single Parent;Mark, I Love You; andNurse. Grafton sold the movie rights forThe Lolly-Madonna War and co-wrote the screenplay for the feature film. The adaptation, released in 1973 asLolly-Madonna XXX, starredRod Steiger andJeff Bridges. Her screenplay forWalking Through the Fire earned aChristopher Award in 1979. In collaboration with her husband, Steven Humphrey, she also adapted theAgatha Christie novels,A Caribbean Mystery andSparkling Cyanide, for television and co-wroteA Killer in the Family andLove on the Run.[8][13] She is credited with the story upon which the screenplay for themade for TV movieSvengali (1983) was based.[14][15]
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.[13] 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.[16]
Grafton had been fascinated by mystery series whose titles were related, such asJohn D. MacDonald'sTravis McGee series, each of which included a color in the title, andHarry Kemelman's Rabbi Small series, each of which included a day of the week in the title. While readingEdward Gorey'sThe 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.[13]
These became the series now known as the "alphabet novels", featuring sleuth andprivate 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."[17] The series is set in Santa Teresa, a fictionalized version of Santa Barbara.[18] Grafton followed the lead ofRoss Macdonald, who created the fictional version of the city.[19] Grafton described Kinsey Millhone as heralter ego, "the person I might have been had I not married young and had children."[9]
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.[20] Each novel's title combined a letter with a word, exceptX. After the publication of"G" Is for Gumshoe, Grafton was able to quit her screenwriting job and focus on her novel writing.[16]
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.[21] In May 2009, Grafton toldMedia Bistro that she was "just trying to figure out how to get from"U" is for Undertow to"Z" Is for Zero"[22] and that "just because she knows the endgame title for Z [...] doesn't mean she knows what V, W, X, and Y will be".[20] 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 aghostwriter to write in her name and "as far as we in the family are concerned, the alphabet now ends atY."[23]
Grafton's novels have been published in 28 countries and in 26 languages.[23] She refused to sell the film and television rights, because writing screenplays "cured" her of the desire to work with Hollywood.[13] (TV movies inJapan, however, were adapted from"B" is for Burglar and"D" is for Deadbeat.)[11] Grafton told her children her ghost would haunt them if they sold the film rights after her death.[24] The books in the series were onThe 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.[25]
Grafton's style is characteristic ofhardboiled detective fiction, according to the authors of 'G' is for Grafton, who describe it as "laconic, breezy, wise-cracking".[26] The novels are framed as reports Kinsey writes in the course of her investigations, which are signed off in the epilogue of each novel. Thefirst-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.[27]
| Work | Year & Award | Category | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B is for Burglar | 1986Shamus Award | P.I. Hardcover Novel | Won | |
| 1986Anthony Awards | Novel | Won | ||
| The Parker Shotgun | 1987Macavity Awards | Mystery Short Story | Won | |
| 1987 Anthony Awards | Short Story | Won | ||
| C is for Corpse | 1987 Anthony Awards | Novel | Won | |
| E Is for Evidence | 1989 Macavity Awards | Mystery Novel | Nominated | |
| 1989 Anthony Awards | Novel | Nominated | ||
| F Is for Fugitive | 1991Maltese Falcon Society "Falcon Award" | Won | ||
| G Is for Gumshoe | 1991 Shamus Award | P.I. Hardcover Novel | Won | |
| 1991 Anthony Awards | Novel | Won | ||
| A Poison That Leaves No Trace | 1991Edgar Allan Poe Award | Short Story | Nominated | |
| K Is for Killer | 1995 Shamus Award | P.I. Hardcover Novel | Won | |
| 1995 Anthony Awards | Novel | Nominated | ||
| M Is for Malice | 1997Audie Awards | Mystery | Nominated | |
| O Is for Outlaw | 2000 Audie Awards | Mystery | Nominated | |
| Writing Mysteries: A Handbook by the Mystery Writers of America (withJan Burke) | 2002Agatha Award | Non-Fiction | Nominated | |
| Q Is for Quarry | 2003 Audie Awards | Mystery | Nominated | |
| W Is for Wasted | 2012 Lefty Award | The Squid (Best mystery set within the United States) | Nominated | [28] |
| 2013Goodreads Choice Awards | Mystery & Thriller | Nominated | [29] | |
| 2014 Killer Nashville Awards | Silver Falchion Award (Private Detective / Police Procedural / Mystery) | Won | [30] | |
| V Is for Vengeance | 2012 Lefty Award | Golden Nugget Award (Best mystery set in California) | Nominated | [28] |
| Kinsey Millhone | 2014 Shamus Award | P.I. Series Character | Won | |
| Y Is for Yesterday | 2018 Anthony Awards | Bill Crider Award for Novel in a Series | Won | |
| 2000 YWCA of Lexington Smith-Breckinridge | Distinguished Woman of Achievement Award | Won | [31] | |
| 2003 Shamus Award | Lifetime Achievement Award | Won | ||
| 2004Ross Macdonald Literary Award | Won | |||
| 2008Crime Writers' Association's CWA Diamond Dagger award | Won | |||
| 2009Edgar Awards | Grand Master Award | Won | ||
| 2011 Agatha Award | Malice Domestic Award for Lifetime Achievement | Won | ||
| 2013Bouchercon | Lifetime Achievement Award | Won |
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.[32]
She married her third husband, Steven F. Humphrey, in 1978.[10] They divided their time betweenSanta Barbara, California, andLouisville, Kentucky;[5] Humphrey taught at universities in both cities.[16] In 2000, the couple bought and later restoredLincliff, a 28-acre (11 ha) Louisville estate once owned by hardware baronWilliam Richardson Belknap.[5][33]
Grafton died at Cottage Hospital inSanta Barbara on December 28, 2017, after a two-year battle with cancer of the appendix.[1][23][34][10]
In 2019, an award in Grafton's memory was established byG.P. Putnam's Sons and is under the aegis of theMystery Writers of America.[35]
Grafton's introduction of a young, no-nonsense female private detective in the Alphabet Mystery series was ground-breaking at the time whenA is for Alibi was first released in 1982. Until the creation of Kinsey Milhone andV.I.Warshawski, created bySarah Paretsky, inIndemnity Only, also in 1982, private detectives in fiction were almost always male.[38]
