BEYOND STEREOTYPE
IVY POCHODA’S LITERARY MYSTERY HUMANIZES VICTIMS
When literary agents participate in “pitch sessions,” where wannabe novelists show up to try to land representation, odds are pretty great that more than one writer will say something like, “So, there’s this serial killer, right? And he preys on prostitutes and strippers and runaways and ...”
“Yes, well, thanks. That’s been done...”
If the serial killer/downtrodden female trope isn’t remotely a new idea, Ivy Pochoda, a former writer-in-residence at the James Merrill House in Stonington, spins the concept like a dark carnival ride in her latest novel, “These Women.”
Spanning 15 years in which several women have been murdered in the same rundown area of south Los Angeles, the decidedly literary mystery unfolds in sequential, compellingly fractured sections. Each one is viewed through the eyes and experiences of six different women in the neighborhood: Dorian, the mother of a victim; Marella, a performance artist; Feelia, the sole survivor of the killer’s violence; Essie, a police officer; Julianna, a dancer; and Anneke, a quietly observant neighborhood mother.
That the victims are mostly prostitutes or topless dancers means that, even if there IS a connection, the police apparently have higher-priority cases to worry about in what might be considered more politically significant parts of town. After all, the police and law enforcement personnal seem to think, these folks chose to exist in the underbelly of society — and as such, over the years, the perpetuating stereotype of their victimhood increasingly prescribes a unified, “What else did you expect was going to happen?” reaction.
“What I was really trying to do with this was look at the issue of why one person’s story is worth telling and another’s not so much,” says Pochoda.
Pochoda returns to the Merrill House Monday as part of the foundation’s virtual “STUDIO 107” interview series with previous writers-in-residence. She started writing her breakthrough novel, “Visitation Street,” while working in the Merrill House, and is also the author “The Art of Disappearing” and “Wonder Valley,” which was a Los Angeles Time Book Prize finalist.
On the phone from the California home she shares with her husband and 6-year-old daughter, Pochoda speaks in a rapid cadence with the sort of familiar congeniality of an old friend. She further explains the “insider” perspective of her characters’ frustrations. She says, “One of
the character's daughter has been murdered. The young woman wasn't a prostitute, but no matter how often the mother tells that the to the police, they don't hear her. They automatically lump her in with the other victims. We all look at situations differently. In this case, if you live or work in Skid Row, it's a very different reality than if you don't, and most people outside aren't interested.”
It's only through Pochoda's ability to render the beautiful and wrenching desperation of the characters, whose lives overlap in loose but integral fashion, that she sculpts a book pulsing with depth and humanity. Each of these women has her own backstory — nuanced with loved ones, dreams and secrets, profound loss and poor choices, bad luck and small victories, and, perhaps most overwhelmingly, a vast wall of societal indifference.
“I wanted a giant palette of characters so I could come at this story from all different angles,” Pochoda says. “I've read a lot of books about places I've never been, and it gives me an idea of what those places are like. But it's very different if you live there. In that sense, there's no one way to see any particular issue, and there are a lot of good ways to convey how and why it's different.”
It's a reasonable approach — one that becomes incredibly moving and persuasive through the author's ability to channel her very different characters in both vivid and subtle ways. Pochoda's sense of inner dialogue, rhythms of speech and mastery of dialect are an indelible as tattoos. As well, the descriptions of the neighborhood — the homes and the clubs and the streets — and written with such senses-working-overtime skill that the reader feels compelled to send a rent check to the author.
Surprisingly, Pochoda says it was easy to harness six such disparate personalities. “I don't know how to write a one-character book,” she says. “That would intimidate me. I tend to write in blocks and focus on taking each character through their block of the story.” She laughs. “The way I look at it, it's almost a relaxing way to write because I know I just need to stick with one character through the duration of a few events. So I can commit completely to that character and then move on.”
One of the most striking aspects of “These Women” is that, to the characters, the idea that a serial killer is preying on the neighborhood seems increasingly obvious — but the police, who realize the same thing, can't be bothered to devote the time and resources to pursue the possibility.
When Essie discovers a connection between the recently murdered girls and some from several years ago and presents her suspicions that a serial killer is at work, she's mocked and told to stay on her own patrolperson beat. It's also true that, once, Essie and her husband were involved in a tragic auto accident — and her own department didn't believe her version of events. The cops covered up for her — taking care of their own — but the truth is there was nothing she'd done that needed covering up. Essie, too, then, is a victim of the same dismissive perspective as the other characters.
“At first, I didn't want the usual male detective going around asking questions,” Pochoda says. “But my editor said, ‘Look, to tie this together, you need a detective.' I was resistant until she suggested it could be a woman who experienced the same attitudes — someone no one believes and has to advocate for herself in her own profession.”
A particularly interesting element to this narrative approach is that, while there's an increasing undercurrent of menace as victims die and more threads are revealed, the killer is offscreen and at times almost forgotten — an observation that excites Pochoda.
“Exactly!” she says. “The whole point of the book is that you're almost not supposed to care who did it!”
Nonetheless, the reveal, when it comes, is a shock and, significantly, provides the resolution these characters deserve. And, of course, every mystery novel needs a solution — for, indeed, Pochoda has for better or worse been categorized as a crime writer.
“In a sense, I had no choice, and I guess I AM writing mysteries,” Pochoda says. “And that's fine. The crime writing community is very welcoming and supportive. It's noncompetitive and fun. Someone might write noir and another has a PI and another writes crime through the lens of social justice. I write literary mysteries. There's room for everyone, and that's incredibly refreshing. For me, Laura Lippman, Alafair Burke and Megan Abbot have become close friends of mine, and they inspire me. I wanted to write ‘These Women' because of what they do and how supportive they are.”
Pochoda and her husband and daughter are about to head out for an afternoon walk, but she wants to convey how happy she is to revisit southeastern Connecticut and the Merrill House — even if it's only in a virtual fashion.
“I really do think we'll relocate to that area at some point,” she says. “We really like it there. I don't think we can afford Stonington Borough, but we fell in love with this big house in New London and always said we'd buy it someday. It sold a long time ago, but it became a joke between my husband that we'd one day live in New London. Except we're also sort of not joking.”