Early next month, my second novel, Graffiti Creek, will come out (August 8th ... pre-order your copy now). I have alluded to some of the reasons I wrote this book in a few different blog posts, but I have avoided coming right out and saying it for fear of sounding overly political. We live in a very polarized society. When thoughts of political posts cross my mind I am often reminded of a story my friend, Matt Lyle, tells about getting his first haircut upon moving to Chicago. He admitted to being a Dallas Cowboys fan while getting a shave, and worried for more than a minute it might get his throat slit (his telling of it is far better than that). Sometimes it's best to say "I don't really keep up with football." As an author, it is critical to remember that Chicago Bears fans buy books, too, if you catch my drift. However, in an effort to explain my reasoning behind this little thriller of mine, I find it necessary to take a stroll through the mine field as best I can.
Let me begin by stating, emphatically, this is not a political post. I have absolutely zero intention to alienate or impress anyone with thoughts or leanings. I, in fact, am not writing about political matters. I am writing about human matters.
I wrote Graffiti Creek in early 2017. After Michael Brown and Tamir Rice and Eric Garner and Freddie Gray and Walter Scott and so many more I can't even begin to list them. Names I sadly can't even remember. That's how it all started, actually. I found myself being deeply affected by events like these, but then life would go on and whatever empathy I felt got buried beneath all of the mundane activities from a life of, dare I say, privilege. I came to a realization that I was attempting empathy, but coming away with nothing more than sympathy.
But the good news is ... I am a writer.
Regardless of our political affiliation or our beliefs or views or opinions, writers have a weapon in common. We have a finely sharpened sense of empathy. Without it, we would never be able to crawl into the minds of characters and give them life. We, as writers, find in ourselves the keys to unlocking some deeper ability to "walk in another's shoes," so to speak. So I made the realization that I had a valuable weapon which I was not using to its full ability.
As a writer, many would say that to properly use my talent in political discourse, I would need to write overtly about my own political leanings or opinions. I call total bullshit on this claim. For me to dive into any political dialogue, I could be easily dismissed by one side or the other. At best. At worst, I'm getting sliced up by a Chicago barber. So, no. In my opinion, that is not the way to use my writing to advance the social dialogue. The true weapon is empathy.
By now, I am sure you have seen the news of a rather insensitive (to put it nicely ... horribly racist, to put it less so) tweet by a former presidential candidate referring to a photo of tattooed young men as if they are nothing more than inanimate pawns in the middle of a political debate. That politician is from my home town. I could tell stories about him. Some positive stories. I could tell about people I know whose lives he has touched. I could tell about some not-so-great things, too. I could tell you about the time I shot one of his sons in the ass with an air rifle. But any and all of those stories could get whipped around and flipped on their heads until I am coming across as something very easy to label, categorize, and, for almost exactly half of my readers, dismiss.
I choose, instead, to write about characters with empathy. To use my weapon in a way that does not (hopefully) offend anyone, but rather helps everyone to see characters in a human light. In Graffiti Creek, my goal was to take multiple marginalized characters and portray them in a very human light. I want to make people feel deeply for characters in a thriller. To care. Because, I believe not in a conservative or liberal agenda. I believe in the human ability to care for other humans. And I believe writers (possibly especially crime writers) have an obligation to help us see all humans as humans.
I was recently in Napa, California, when a disturbance took place. In fact, I walked right by the location minutes before it happened. In a nutshell, a local man with diagnosed mental health problems pulled out a gun and fired at police officers. He was a person of color and he had tattoos on his face. These scenarios don't usually have a happy ending. But, in this instance, the Napa police responded with a bean bag gun. They disarmed him and got him medical attention. Although I am quite certain he was arrested, I have every reason to believe that he is currently receiving mental health services and is very much alive. The story will not get much coverage beyond local papers, but I bore witness to some very, very brave police officers handling a horribly dangerous situation efficiently, effectively, and with an admirable dose of empathy. And because of it, everyone walked away.
It's an unrelated event. Not related in any way to my book, or anyone's, for that matter. But it is a brilliant display of what I want to have an impact on in life. I do not want to influence political discourse. Not my bag. But I do want to influence the treatment of humans. I want to use my weapon. Empathy. I want to use it in such a way maybe others will see their own empathy as a much more useful weapon than any of the more horrific options we all have available to us.