In the late eighties I was addicted to crime novels, basically of any style – police procedure, noir, hard-boilt, single shamus, animal detectives, stuffy British, you name it. Even though I usually had plenty of work as a language traitor, I’d find any excuse to put it down. For example, “Oh, it’s eleven, time for a cup of coffee” … and of course I needed to read while I was sipping the coffee for an hour or so. My office was upstairs. Whenever my wife came up, I’d quickly drop the book and start hammering away on the keyboard. I’d inevitably show up for lunch with the maximum excusable delay, chomp it down and go back to work ASAP. My wife, of course, saw right through my shenanigans. “No need to put on that pretend work routine, my dear,” she said one day. “What’s with all that mystery trash you’re devouring anyway?” “Well,” I said with some hesitation, “I’m planning to write a book about the state of the art of crime fiction. So it’s all studying.” “Ha! I’ll be Agatha Christie if that book ever sees the light of day,” was all she said. Needless to say, I never wrote a single line of such a book. And my wife remained her usual lovable self that put up gracefully with some of my shortcomings.
– Tommy H. (© 2020)
(Tommy H.’s book From the memoirs of an addict, “due out some time this decade” – if we can believe the author –, is a romp through the various addictions he has gone through from the 1980s to now.)
Steer Forth! 