Murder in the Rue St. Ann (36 page)

As the story began to come together, I realized that the theme was very much in evidence; very few of the characters in this book were who they said they were, or were keeping secrets. We find out, for example, one of Paige's deep dark secrets that she never shared with Chanse. After the publisher of the small gay publication was murdered--and Paul became a suspect (hence all the secrets started coming out)--I kept finding the true story of what was going on shifting and becoming more and more labyrinthine.

And of all the books I'd written at that point, this one was by far the most difficult on me emotionally. It was incredibly dark, and Chanse was becoming a much darker character than I'd originally conceived. Going into that dark place that was Chanse's mind, and writing about it, was incredibly taxing and very hard for me to come back from. After working on the book, I found myself going out more frequently than I had in years to the bars in the Quarter because I needed to listen to loud music and be around people laughing and having fun. I was also drinking more than usual, and as the book continued to progress, I realized that the original ending of the book was not dark enough. The book was so dark I couldn’t just switch and have a happy ending.

I knew I was going to have to kill off the character of Paul. Having Chanse rescue him from his kidnapper  and having them either break up or reconcile would be a cheat to the integrity of the story and the character. It absolutely broke my heart. As I progressed deeper and deeper into the story, the more painful it became--and the more I drank. I grew more and more depressed, and it became harder and harder to make myself work on the book. As the deadline drew nearer and nearer, the worse it became. Finally, I made the decision that the only way I was going to be able to finish the book was to have Chanse rescue him in the nick of time and save his life.  Past deadline already, I wrote it--and I realized I had been right to begin with: it
was
an unsatisfying cheat. But I didn't want Paul to die, and my friend Julie Smith gave me the solution—leave the ending ambiguous.

It made sense, and that would give me the time to decide whether or not he actually dies before writing the next book. So, I wrote this absolutely horrible scene (just thinking about it now is making me well up with tears) where Paul is being kept alive by machines. His family, per his wishes, has decided to turn them off, so Chanse goes in to say goodbye--and apologize. He then leaves the hospital
before
the machines are turned off.

And thus the book was finished, and turned in only two months late.

I've always considered
Murder in the Rue St. Ann
the under-appreciated gem of all of my books.  It was submitted to my editor in March of 2004, to be released in November of that same year.

Three months later, my life partner was attacked by a gang of homophobic thugs, beginning a two year nightmare that finally ended when he had his right eye removed in the spring of 2006. I was knocked out of my life and off my career trajectory. The last thing I wanted to think about was promoting a book, doing interviews or public appearances. But the book was released, and I only did one signing--in Atlanta, at the insistence of store owner Philip Rafshoon. I did no interviews, no promotion whatsoever, and the book just kind of came and went. This was also the year Alyson decided not to enter books for the Lambda Awards; authors had to enter theirs book themselves and were responsible for paying the fees. I didn’t really care, to be honest; awards and so forth were the farthest thing from my mind. Ironically, the Lambda folks actually got in touch with me, as their finalists committee was insisting the book be included in the Gay Mystery category. (This was back before they got rid of the finalists committee process, and went to the process they use now.) And while I certainly believed this book had a better shot of winning than
Jackson Square Jazz
, I couldn't be bothered, didn't really give a flying fuck about anything to do with publishing, and so it wasn’t entered.
Jackson Square Jazz
did make the finalist cut, but didn’t win—I believe Anthony Bidulka won that year.

Murder in the Rue St. Ann
 is also the only one of my books I've never gone back and read again—until now. I've often said that I hate reading my own work, and that's certainly true--but this one? Writing that whole death scene for Paul was, to this day, probably the hardest and most difficult thing I've ever written. You see, in order to drum up how Chanse would feel in that situation,
I had to put myself in the same place he was, at the deathbed of my Paul.
It was absolutely horrible, an incredibly dark and horrifying place I never, ever want to go again emotionally.

Ironically, having put myself through that nightmare helped me in real life, when I was confronted with almost exactly the same situation a few months later. Had I not written that book, the real-life situation might have been more than I could have handled. But strangely, by writing the book I'd sort of been preparing myself for what was to come. But if I had to do it all over again, I would not write the book. It still disturbs me on a deeply visceral level. It was the first time I confronted the mortality of someone I love.

They also had wanted me to turn in a proposal for the third Chanse with the manuscript, and so I put together the proposal for them. This one was called
Murder in the Parish
, and was set in a nursing home in Chalmette, where Paul lived on in a coma. I found a nursing home on the St. Bernard Highway, and interviewed some of the staff, and was going to use it as the basis for my fictional one, which had an angel of death nurse. This was the book where I planned for Paul to come out of his coma at the end. Yes, I knew it would be cheesy and
Lifetime
-movie like, but I also knew if I did it well, it would work.

But Hurricane Katrina killed Paul. Alyson was going through a lot of transition after
Rue St. Ann
came out, I was dealing with my own stuff, and so I never pressured them about making an offer.

You can only imagine the horror after the levee failure as the stories about the St. Rose Nursing Home began to surface. The management and owners of the home abandoned their patients to the floodwater; everyone died.

The St. Rose Nursing Home was the place I’d researched.

And I realized that there was no saving Paul now. If he were still in his coma, being kept alive by machines, Hurricane Katrina would have killed him.

My friend Becky has never forgiven me for killing off the character of Paul Maxwell, and I know there are plenty of other readers out there who haven’t, either. I suppose this is my
mea culpa,
my “I didn’t meant to!”

But as I’ve continued to write about Chanse, I know now my initial instincts were right. Hurricane Katrina did me a favor in not allowing me to cop out and let Paul live. It was necessary, if difficult, for Chanse to grow—and that tragedy helped give him the strength and moral character to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

It also made me a better writer.

--Greg Herren

New Orleans, January 2012

Greg Herren is the award-winning author of two mystery series set in New Orleans featuring gay detectives Chanse MacLeod and Scotty Bradley. He has also published two young adult novels,
Sorceress
and
Sleeping Angel,
and co-edited the critically acclaimed anthologies
Men of the Mean Streets
and
Women of the Mean Streets
with the award-winning author of the Mickey Knight mystery series, J. M. Redmann.  He has also published several novels and short stories under various pseudonyms, as well as over fifty short stories in markets as varied as
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine
and the acclaimed anthology
New Orleans Noir.
He works as an editor for Liberty Editions of Bold Strokes Books and lives in the lower Garden District of New Orleans.

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