I finished
No Place Safe yesterday, turning the pages as quick as I could. It's a great memoir about a young girl, her little sister and her mother (more about her in a minute), and about a city in crisis...only parts of the city didn't notice. For those who don't know, the crisis is the Atlanta Child Murders. Twenty-nine African Americans, most of them boys, were killed between 1979-1981. Kim's mother, the first black woman investigator in the Fulton County DA's office*, gets assigned to the case. To give you a feel for the book, a few excerpts:
Ma wanted me to watch her clean her gun so I'd learn. I was the oldest, and she'd already given me my first shooting lesson with her personal revolver, which consisted of shooting cans off tree stumps on some family land out in the country. First, I had to get used to the gun's weight, how to steady it when holding it out in front of me. Then, Ma taught me how to use the site on top of the .38's barrel to line up my target. She stood behind me and braced me the first time I experienced the gun's kick from a fired round, and I remember smelling Chanel No 5 and gunpowder, a nauseating mix of sweet and acrid, like burned brown sugar.
Ok, so about "Ma." If ever a woman was born to inhabit a book, it's her! She's tough as hell, yet all girl too. In fact, when Kim moves out and gets her first apartment, her mother gives her ".38 and her first set of crystal wine glasses because 'two things a woman needs to know how to do is protect herself and entertain well.'"
As you can see, there's humor here and heartbreak too:
Soon after the boy's body was found, someone-maybe his mother, an angry and powerless grandfather, or a weeping aunt-placed a white wooden cross on the side of the road, marking the spot. I rode my bike up there, wanted to see if there was any clue that would tell me the boy had not died painfully, that his last place on earth was a good one. I didn't want the kind of clues that cops look for, physical things that told secrets of the flesh. I wanted to feel something move through me in that place, maybe God's presence, or something bigger than me, or the boy, or all of the people whose hearts were broken when his body was found.
I can't say it strongly enough: Read this book. And for a fictionalized exploration of the subject, read Tayari Jone's
Leaving Atlanta. It'll break your heart. In a good way.
Now...on to our chat with Kim Reid (if you have questions for Kim, leave them in the comments):
Pajama Gardener. What was it like to write such a personal story? What were your mother's and the rest of your family's reactions?
Kim Reid: Some memoirists find writing their story cathartic, but I didn’t go through that, maybe because it happened 25 years ago and I had some distance from it. It was more like going home after being away a long while, a mostly enjoyable experience.
After the investigation ended, a writer approached my mother about collaborating on a true-crime book. She was interested, but didn’t connect with the writer. Years later, when I told her I wanted to write the story, she was really open to it. Other family members have cameos, but I kept the story focused on me, my sister and mother, and they both let me tell the story the way I wanted to. They wouldn’t read it until it was sold, though I told them I’d take anything out they didn’t want to share. They didn’t ask for any changes.
PG: A lot of people have family stories that they think about writing, but don't go on to actually pursue them. I applaud you for following through! When did you decide you wanted to write about these experiences? And what made you go from thinking about it to actually doing it?
KR: I grew up wanting to be a writer and wanting to tell my mother’s story in particular, but I didn’t actually start until I read an excerpt from a book about the investigation. It painted cops on the case as unsympathetic, but I knew a different story. I decided to tell it the way I remembered it. It started out as my mother’s story, but as I wrote, it turned into my story and how those two years shaped my coming-of-age.
PG: What was the hardest part of the story to tell?
KR: Though it has true-crime elements, I didn’t write this as true-crime, so I didn’t include the details of the homicides though I read about them during research. That was hard. I used the investigation as my timeline and recalling each case was the most difficult part. Remembering how it was to be a kid during that time – being afraid of watching the news, no more after-dark basketball games in someone’s yard, having your parents freak out if you got home five minutes late because they were scared you’d been snatched – recalling all of that was tough.
PG: What kind of research did this book take? Did you interview your mom? Did you look at old newspaper clips? Read your old journals?
KR: All of the above. I interviewed my mother, plus went through case notes, newspaper clips, and TV interview tapes that she saved. By the time I began writing in 2004, the Freedom of Information Act had made previously closed case files accessible to the public. I read through hundreds of pages of FBI files. My ninth grade English teacher made us keep a personal journal, and luckily I’ve always saved my writing. That helped me recall some of the personal stories in the memoir. I interviewed other members of my family, and of course, relied on my memory for descriptions of places and personal events.
PG: What has surprised you most about getting published?
KR: Getting published! Selling a memoir when you aren’t famous is a long shot. I had something of a platform because it’s about a well-known case, but barely. No Place Safe is my first writing credit – I hadn’t published any short stories or anything.
My agent had the manuscript on submission for a year before it sold, and we came close so many times, including revising on spec and meeting editors in New York who eventually passed because they thought the story was too dated. It was a long year, but it was a great experience in learning about this business, and it is a business the minute you decide to publish. Your ‘baby’ becomes a commodity, and I think that’s an important thing for new writers to know.
I was also surprised by how uncomfortable I became as my publication date drew near. I’m a fairly private person. I know – so I go and write a memoir. Good thing I didn’t think about that while I was writing or I never would have finished it. But I wouldn’t have told the story I wanted to if I’d novelized it.
PG: What's next for you? Will you stick with nonfiction? If you're switching to fiction, will you stay with the same kind of family-drama story?
KR: I won’t say never to nonfiction, but I doubt it. It’s great knowing how the story goes, but I don’t find much freedom in it. The novel I’m working on now does have family drama involved, and I didn’t think about it until you asked the question, but I guess I do like to write family drama. The story explores marriage, infidelity and the violence that can come of it. I’m a cop’s kid, my stepfather is a criminal lawyer, and my husband has worked in a police department or a court system for years. That may be why I’m fascinated by crime and the emotions that drive people to it. Those two elements will likely always flavor my stories.
PG: Thanks Kim!
*A correction.
Cat-o-lantern carved by hubby
Mr. Magnolia is in today's Denver Post
Thirty miles west of Denver.
And because I want those scenes to be authentic
