Mindful of Murder

Best selling author Susan Juby is on the podcast to talk about her delightful murder mystery Mindful of Murder. The novel features Helen Thorpe as a smart, preternaturally calm and insightful butler who uses her sleuthing skills to unravel the mystery of the death of her former employer. Susan talks about the joys of owning her first Instant Pot and how her British Columbian upbringing informs her writing. Mindful of Murder is part of the Red Fern Book Review book subscription box.

Books and Resources Discussed:

Mindful of Murder by Susan Juby
The Woefield Poultry Collective (Home to Woefield) by Susan Juby
Alice, I Think by Susan Juby
Nice Recovery by Susan Juby
Republic of Dirt: Return to Woefield by Susan Juby
Me Three by Susan Juby
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Follow Susan Juby:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/susanjuby
Website: https://susanjuby.com/

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

I'm there's something about seeing people who don't fit comfortably into the mainstream I find there's something emotionally so satisfying about seeing them find a place with other people who don't fit into the mainstream. And so all of my books have that as one of their themes. And so this is part of what's going on with all these side characters is just finding that place to belong. I was a as a kid, you know, I wrote about it in the memoir, not like very peculiar.

Amy Mair: 0:58

Hello, welcome back to the Red Fern book review. I am your host, Amy Mair. And today I am joined by best selling BC author, or national author, actually, Susan Juby. And she's based in Nanaimo BC. And she's written a lot of other books, including Alice, I think, Nice recovery, and Republicans dirt, which won the leek Hawk medals for humor. She's best known for her young adult novels. But I first found out about her one of my favorite books is her book called The Woefield Poultry Collective. So we can talk about that too. But we're here today to talk about her book called Mindful of Murder. And it is debuted it came out last month. And it debuted as number one on the Canadian independent booksellers list of new releases, and number eight and Canadian fiction. And it's also part of a book subscription box that I've put together with a local independent bookseller in Vancouver, known as book warehouse. So with that, I just want to say hello, Susan, and thank you so much for joining.

Unknown: 2:13

Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

Amy Mair: 2:16

I wanted to start before we get into book talk you have posted online, you recently made a very special purchase, and you bought an instant pots. Can you explain what that's all about?

Unknown: 2:34

I, well, when I got the great news that the book had debuted at number one that was you know, that felt very extraordinary. And I have a student who wrote a story where she described having that Instant Pot money that was so taken, I thought that was such a charming idea. And so I thought, well, that's how I'm going to splash out is going to have a I feel like I have might have instant pot money now. So I went got an instant pot. I did not get the airfryer attachment because I don't think we're at that stage yet. But one day, one day.

Amy Mair: 3:07

I thought that was really cute. And yeah, it was clever. Okay, so you're, I want you kind of combine them to me a bunch of John genres and particularly in this book. And I wanted to how would you describe? How would you classify your writing because this you've written a mystery, but it's also a romp. In my opinion. It's also a BC book. What how do you describe what how would you just classify your writing?

Unknown: 3:43

In this book? Well, it's a mystery. And I would say on a continuum of, you know, hard boiled, and cozy, it's sort of like way over toward the cozy. So, you know, it's meant to be a funny murder mystery, with you know, some thoughtfulness in it, but it's it's certainly a cozier take on the murder mystery than you know, there's not there's no torture, all the tough stuff mostly happens off stage.

Amy Mair: 4:12

So tell tell everybody, why don't you give everyone a synopsis?

Unknown: 4:16

Sure. It's always a little difficult to boil it down, you know, writers they like to, I'll just 45 minutes later on, finish with, with every little detail of my amazing book. It's a book about a woman who has a really, you know, beautiful retreat center and New Age retreat center on a fictional Gulf Island or discovery Island, and she dies suddenly. And her former lodge manager, who is has just graduated from Butler school goes back to take care of the sort of a task she's been given in the dead woman's will, and the task is to determine which of the relative should take over the lodge And so it's and so what happens is it this retreat center there are a number of different courses. And so what the woman has asked her name is Edna Todd has asked her former lodge manager to give them all the most popular courses at this lodge. And her lodge manager becomes the detective. And she is a very, she's a former Buddhist and a meditation teacher, and she's just gone to become a butler. And so it's about figuring out gradually that the woman was murdered, she didn't die naturally. And that one of these people is probably responsible for her death. So that is the the galloping synopsis. And so it's full of Gulf Island. People and, you know, odd, odd people. And yeah, I just had a lot of fun with it.

Amy Mair: 5:49

Um, I, I really enjoyed the local references and I kind of pulled a couple you know, you talk about if you live around here, there's a fun place to go for oysters called Smithies Oyster House you talked about that. Talked about local beer are beautiful trees, you rip on the Nymo, which is where you live, which sometimes gets teased Fanny by oysters, but one of my favorite things, you have a really funny quote. And he said it was the police detective is investigating and says, that's the strangest thing I've heard all week. And I'm pleased I am pleased for seven different Gulf Islands. And you know, it's kind of, yeah, if you live on an island, it can be quite quirky. But how would you I wanted to ask you in that vein, like, how did your British Columbia upbringing or just living where you do impact your writing? And how does it How does it appear in your writing? Would you say?

Unknown: 6:53

Well, the way my writing comes to me is I think of a character often with a, you know, voice like literally a voice whispering or something like that, or some image, and then it's, I put them into a place and a place is always in, almost always in a small town. So my first books were all set in Smothers Brothers, which is in northern British Columbia, which is where I grew up. And there my books since then have taken place around Nanaimo, somewhere in Nanaimo, or because I started spending a bunch of time at a retreat center on a golf Island, at a place that looks a lot like that, retreats that go violent. So I tend to be very situated in where I am. And in my imagination, what I've tried to write in larger cities, because I've lived in Toronto, and I've lived in Vancouver, and I can't get a can't get interested in the same way that I am. In the dynamics of a smaller place. There's just something about that small town environment that appeals to me very much and I love representing where I live in a place that people would understand. I think there's a little bit of not class warfare, but when I was first writing, it was expected that that's where stories took place, right? So they were in Toronto, they were in London, they were in New York, I thought, Well, I think stories might also happen in some less less cool place. So I'm gonna write about them. And so I wrote like about Smithers as Smithers and I wasn't an IMO. In this case, because it's a murder mystery. I created an island called sutil island that is, as I say, very similar to Cortes Island.

Amy Mair: 8:36

Um, why don't we just set up why don't we do a reading to give people a flavor of what what this is all about? And you've picked a passage. So why don't you set that up and

Unknown: 8:47

your I'm going to read a couple of pages from the beginning of the book. And so at this stage in the book, Helen, who is the former lodge manager, was sent to Butler school by her former employer who has died suddenly, but Helen doesn't know this. So this is the very beginning of the book, where all the recent graduates, Butler graduates, if you're not familiar with Butler's, like, the modern manifestation of the butler, is it Butler's are a big thing now very well, there's a lot of very well really, yeah, there's Yeah, so there's colleges and universities, well, not universities, colleges, where you go to train as a butler and they're all over the world, including in Toronto, this one set in set in the United States. They're big in the Netherlands. So these billionaires, they want they want domestic help, but high end domestic help. So a butler school is a is a is a thing. So this is the beginning of the beginning of the book. So it's all about lawyers getting ready for their headshots and all the rest of it that they'll put on. There is also a website I believe it's called butler.com where you go and you you know, you can Look at all the new ballers and find one for your star real is this for real? Oh this is absolutely for real oh my goodness okay yeah no Butler's are Butler's her father's are a big deal right now so I'll just read you a little bit from the beginning the butler's so they're watching the photographer who has come to do all their headshots and they've been partying the night before because they just graduated. The Butler's who'd been up all night watched him work him being the photographer with well disguised blurriness that kicked off the festivities the night before with a lavish dinner at a fine French restaurant, followed by visits to a series of bars and clubs. After they closed down a speakeasy at 3:30am, they'd gone to the beach for sunrise bonfire. At five, they headed back to their dorm rooms and the old mansion that housed the North American Butler Academy, which according to the marketing materials was in the business of creating specialists in domestic excellence. They clean themselves up for the early morning photoshoot, which would involve group shots and individual portraits to be used for their professional profiles on butler.com and the school's advertising materials. Helen didn't drink, and had quietly put herself in charge of keeping the rest of the butler's from being roof feed, or otherwise coming to harm. No Butler left behind, she'd said to the youngest of them, a girl from Virginia by way of Ireland named Marie, whom Helen had retrieved from behind a leatherette coach in the quiet room of a dance club filled with music that sounded like multiple emergency vehicles converging on a construction site. I love you, Helen Marie had said everyone loves you. You're so relaxing. All night the other graduates gave versions of the same speech to Helen. She smiled enjoying the feeling of caring for them. They were Butler's so they were easy to love. Helen knew not everyone in her new career would be so easy. Her job would be filled with difficult people the way most jobs were. One shot with all of you smiling, said the photographer who had slicked back hair and a face that was faintly haggard under his tan. He gave them a strange little smile as though to demonstrate what a smile was. The hungover Butler's gave indistinct smiles in return. Yes, yeah, that's right. Everyone likes a butler who could smile my right he muttered. His he clicked away. Okay, now he said standing and nearly running backward to get a new angle. Beautiful, beautiful. But before he could finish, his heel hit the lip of the dock and he pitched back. His body went rigid, and he began to windmill his arms. The camera flew into the air like a brick hurled in a riot. Helen reacted instantly. She took four giant steps and caught the device before it could smash onto the dock. Then she said it down and stepped over to the photographer who is thrashing around in the oily water. Help these screams coming up for air. Can you swim? She asked as though it was although it was obvious he could. He'd already started turning his way toward a ladder hanging off the side of the dock, moving with all the ease of a pug in a pool, which is to say without much ease at all. What he spluttered. Are you okay, said Helen slowly. Yes, he spit out a mouthful of water, my camera, my damn camera, my life is ruined. It's here. She said holding it up. Don't worry. I've got it. It's safe. He reached the ladder and scrambled up trying to catch his breath. You save my camera instead of me. He stared at her. Before Helen could respond. He went on your Goddess. I spent the rest of my money on that lens for this gig I could kiss you. He gazed up at her calm face. And something about it caused him to revise his words. But I won't obviously, Helens going to be the best Butler since God said Gavin, the Moxie the elegant man who'd come to stand behind beside Helen. He reached out a handheld photographer back onto the deck. So this is the kind of thing that Helen does is she she handles things. And she has part of the fun of Helen is that she has this ability to understand what's important to people from paying really, really careful attention to them. And yeah, and she's a she's a bit of a day saver as Helen. And she's

Amy Mair: 14:09

surrounded by the kookiest people, but she's not, she's not. And that's another thing I have to say one of the things that I really like about your book books is that the side characters that you create, I guess she's kind of this, would you call her the straight man? And is that correct? And then these allows these other people just to kind of go off the rails and I have a question. What role you seem to have a lot of side characters are very special ones. Like in this book. I was really taken with Nigel, who's a local person who I really feel if he was in a big town. I don't know what would happen to him if he was but I think he's what role do the side characters play for you.

Unknown: 15:01

Oh, they're you know, they're a great part of the joy of creating characters. So they all have sort of florid personality disorders they've got, they've got issues all of them. And that's, you know, I love writing weirdos like, I absolutely love a good weirdo. And so usually in my book, there'll be a couple of people who are, in Helen's case, she's got very, she's emotionally calm. She's like a balanced personality. She's a very stable individual. And she's only a stable individual could deal with these people. And so for me, the side characters are just part of the joy. Like, I've always got my eye out for people who are a little bit off. I love them. I really like they're my people. And I really love people who are off in such a way that you can tell that, like, that's just who they are. And I sort of admire people who don't let all the edges get, you know, smoothed off by expectations, who managed to retain some quirks, and I've always loved eccentrics, in books, and in life.

Amy Mair: 16:08

You have said in your interview that people should not be afraid to write unlikable characters. And also in this book, you have some people that just they don't seem very nice, or at least that's how they appear to start. And they seem greedy and snobby. And what can you say about writing an unlikable character?

Unknown: 16:34

Well, they're a quite a bit more fun to write than likeable characters. I mean, there's, you know, eccentrics, and then there's like genuinely unpleasant people, but they're quite I find that unpleasant people really, like interesting. And in this case, they're all you know, there are a number of people who are like, overtly unpleasant, they're not polite, they're not kind, they're sarcastic. But over the course of the book, we discover that there are reasons for each of those sort of character flaws that they have. And in fact, because the book has a bit of a Buddhist undertone, they're all modeled on what are called the hindrances in Buddhism. So the hindrances are sloth, ill will doubt like there's a whole set of hindrances. And each of those people, including one of the characters, who doesn't come to the lodge, is one of the hindrances. And so the hindrances in Buddhism are the things that stop us from living our full life. Like they're the problems we have that make it difficult to meditate or make it difficult to, like, achieve some kind of, like, you know, the good qualities of life where you're present, and you're happy, and you've got joy in your heart, those things. So in this case, those people are actually and we see underneath the hindrances, they do have things that are positive.

Amy Mair: 17:58

What What role does meditation play? Or did it play? And you coming up with this book?

Unknown: 18:05

Yes. So I was working on the book for a number of a number of years, like just, you know, I had other books, and I was like, I would really like to write a murder mystery. But it's got to be funny. And I needed a detective who's kind of a fresh kind of approach to the detective. And it just wasn't gelling. I had a detective who was a former police officer who was, you know, kicked off the floors. And I have no real connection to that. I was like, Oh, well, it just felt very, yeah, I couldn't get a handle on her. And I was at a retreat. So I do a fair bit of retreating. And I was at a meditation retreat. And I was paying attention to the teachers, and in particular, my relationship to those teachers. So I sit, as we say, with a couple of like very advanced teachers who've been studying seriously since the 70s. And met lots of really important people in, in the sort of Western Buddhism movement and all the rest of that stuff. And so when I would go to have a sit an interview with them, which happens at retreats, you know, the your interviews are like 10 or 15 minutes every couple of days just to make sure you're okay as you sit in silence for two weeks or however long. So as I would get ready to go to these interviews, I would start to like, oh my god, I really hope they think I'm amazing. A very advanced Buddhist, and I'm not an advanced who does not remotely and then I would go to talk to them and I have all my kind of I wouldn't want to but I would catch myself like oh, I want to make myself look this way and I want to look fantastic and or come across as perhaps more advanced than I am and I would get there and there would be a quality did that teacher where I would think and all the defenses would come down. And I would just tell the truth. And I thought that would make a great detective is a person who had who was a very For a skilled meditation practitioner, because there's people who have some attainment in Buddhism often seem like they see things in a really clear way. And it feels like you feel like a presence that makes you want to open up. So that's where she came from is my experience of meditation teachers and you know, often what happens when I go into interviews is, I'll tell some truth and it just sort of cry. Not there. They don't, I don't think they probably enjoy that very much. But that's what happens. And so I thought, and, you know, the interview is the basic beat of the mystery, right? So there's no mystery without people talking to other people. And there's a particular way it happens in Buddhism and in on retreat.

Amy Mair: 20:46

That gave, that's great. So it had that authenticity for you, that allowed you to kind of it was it was that was your springboard. Okay, I have a couple of some other questions. You talk a lot about food in this book, or I thought you did. And I think there are mysteries that kind of focus on that as well. Like maybe close your mysteries. Is that what, what what caused you to do that, or did you see it? Was that intentional?

Unknown: 21:16

Yeah, it was absolutely intentional. A lot of my favorite writers have always focused on food. So James Herriot like I loved everything about James Harriet, the animals, the funny etc. But when he would stop for a description of Yorkshire pudding, I was absolutely there for it. Even you know, like Louise Penny, in the cafe, I, my favorite is to go into the cafe and with ganache and have some croissants and that sort of thing. So I thought that's a favorite part of it. And so I wanted to talk about food. And also when you go on retreat, food takes on an absolutely extreme importance for somebody like me. So I ended up thinking, Oh, what are we going to have for lunch? I know I'm supposed to be meditating, but I'm sitting. I'm thinking about this lunch. That's gonna happen. So that's why

Amy Mair: 22:08

Okay, and one other in that vein, what who else are your literary influences would you say?

Unknown: 22:15

Well, there's a lot of comic writers that I admire. PG Woodhouse, James Harriet. David Niven, Sue Townsend, like a lot of British writers of a certain era. And then I you know, I very much admire Louise Penny and John Sanford and Tana French and Osman, with the Thursday murder club. There's Yeah, I love you know, murder mysteries as particularly ones that have a little element of humor in them. That's my favorite is when somebody can pull that off.

Amy Mair: 22:49

Do you think that you will? Are you going to reprise this, this is going to be a sequel. It sort of seems like it could be. Yeah,

Unknown: 22:57

that I wrote it, hoping to come up with a character that I could put into different situations. And so the idea is that Helen Thorpe will go from the situation she's in her initial post Butler school murder situation. And then she'll be put into different situations. So she's going to go to the people who have hired her, a very well established, really wealthy family. And my idea is that they're going to essentially seconded her out to their friends now. And then when people really need an advanced Butler, she'll go and they will be crimes, and she will have to solve them. So I've got two outlines for other books. And I've started the second one, I'm sort of fairly far into the second one. It's a very different kind of world, but it's a world of, you know, wealth and privilege and criminality.

Amy Mair: 23:49

And then another thing I felt when I was reading this impact, I think you refer to it, it reminded me of Willy Wonka in the Chocolate Factory. Is was that an influence for you? This book? Well, I

Unknown: 24:02

love the role Tao. And I have a niece who's completely obsessed with Roald Dahl. So that's what we do is we listen to audio, Roald Dahl over and over and everything except for the adult stuff. So we spent a lot of time listening to Roald Dahl. So maybe it got in there. I didn't think about you know, the the ticket or any of that sort of stuff. But yeah, you're right. There were probably some resonances there. It seemed

Amy Mair: 24:25

like there was a you know, because there's a test that all these relatives have to go through. And then he's looking for things and there's something in a way. Well, I don't know. I think the movie is darker than the book. It's been a while, but I

Unknown: 24:40

haven't seen the movie. The movies really dark. Is it okay,

Amy Mair: 24:45

like kind of creepy and I think there's been a couple of them but they but I think that there's also what's your kind of pulling out the humanity and Oh, another one of my last questions is about you seem to really be attracted to the underdog in that, and so what's that about? Oh, well,

Unknown: 25:10

you know, I don't think it's, I'm particularly unusual in that there's something about seeing people who don't fit comfortably into the mainstream, I find there's something emotionally so satisfying about seeing them find a place with other people who don't fit into the mainstream. And so all of my books have that as one of their themes. And so this is part of what's going on with all these side characters is just finding that place to belong. I was a, as a kid, you know, I wrote about it in the memoir, not like, very peculiar, like, just powerfully on child. And I had no idea that was a problem until high school. And it was like, Oh, this is very hard to be odd. And in my case, what I did was I just, you know, if the devil had come by, I would have just said, Oh, my soul, I would like to fit in, please. And I started did a version of that. And but there's still this, like, inner weirdo, who is calling the shots. And so I so much admire people who allow their inner weirdo. I mean, not if it's, you know, unpleasant or whatever. But people who are a little off kilter, like I don't like the flattening effect of sort of our social structures.

Amy Mair: 26:31

And you wouldn't, and the irony is, is that you would not be the successful writer, you were, if you didn't have me if you if you weren't unusual in some way, because then it wouldn't be special and unique. So I actually just having raised well raised children, you tried to tell them that, but I just have to figure that.

Unknown: 26:52

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I teach at a university. So I see a lot of students in the creative writing program in particular, who really held on to that, and then, you know, I, and often they have a history in the school of, you know, having a hard time. And then they come in there, oh, my people. And it's so beautiful to see that connection, and all that flourishing of creativity and peculiarity. And anyway, I find it endlessly. Yeah, I feel really, really good about that.

Amy Mair: 27:24

Well, that's great. Well, that's, that's all I have to ask you. And I just, I just want to thank you so much for coming on. And I really encourage people to read this book it. It was, I think, for me, and I don't know exactly, I mean, there's probably a number of reasons why it's doing so well. But when I picked it up, I knew that you were funny, but kind of smart funny. And that's a kind of a hard spot sometimes to find. And I think with all that we've been through as a, as a unit as a society, I just wanted to laugh, and enjoy. And so I recommend that this book haul. Well, thank

Unknown: 28:03

you very much. It's been a pleasure talking to you.

Amy Mair: 28:05

Thank you. Thanks so much. Thanks so much to Susan GB for coming on the podcast. And I just wanted to remind everyone that her book is part of a very special book subscription box that I've put together with book warehouse. And you can find it at book warehouse.ca. And it's available for delivery or pickup in Vancouver, and delivery anywhere else in Canada. And the book box includes a copy a signed copy of mindful of murder, a review by me, a tote bag, a notepad and a bookmark. So it's kind of the perfect gift could be perfect for Mother's Day, which is right around the corner, or birthday or if you want to treat yourself. And I just want to thank everyone so much for tuning in. And come back on May 13. When I'm going to be looking at screenplays as reading material. And my good friend Miriam is going to review lost in translation. And once upon a time in America or Hollywood. Sorry, that's a different movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. So I'll talk with you then. Thanks so much.