Essays

I have always thought two simple rules of life would carry me through all situations: 1) treat others as you would like to be treated, which includes not lying or stealing or causing physical harm or reciting rude limericks with a megaphone; 2) realize that not everyone lives by that rule and be cautious of everyone until he or she proves they take that rule seriously. Our world is changing so fast, however, that I am compiling a thick notebook full of additional rules.

Never open the door to a delivery person or meter reader or in fact to anyone who is wearing an inflatable animal costume. Yes, such costumes have been widely recognized as being socially acceptable in all venues. However, sadly, most people lack the combination of inspired imagination and reasoned suspicion with which a novelist like me is born. What I anticipate, which most people do not, is that sooner than later a visitor dressed as an enormous duck or frog will intend to slaughter everyone in the house, ransack the place for valuables, and take souvenirs from your underwear drawers. Don’t trust giant inflatable kittens or otters either.

Anyone seen dancing or otherwise joyfully cavorting with people dressed in giant inflatable animal costumes might be a blithe spirit but is not suitable for election to high office, working with nuclear weapons, or babysitting children you actually love.

If you get into a self-driving taxi and the vehicle asks a disturbing question—like “Does anyone know where you are?”—you must realize that you have entered a mobile Faraday box, your phone is now useless, horror is about to ensue, and you should at once try to damage the vehicle to the greatest extent you can. If you insist on using self-driving taxis, you should travel with a battery-powered reciprocating saw capable of carving an escape route through a car door or roof.

If you receive a phone call from someone with a soothing voice—such as a mellow southern accent or Irish brogue—who out of sheer good will wants to help you save money on health insurance, phone service, or anything else, and if you feel so charmed by this person that you are losing a sense of place and time, then be assured you are talking to an AI, not to a human being. You are just four minutes from being persuaded to open your front door to someone in an inflatable animal costume and less than six minutes from a violent death.

They have just removed highly sugared, heavily dyed children’s cereals from the top of the federal government’s recommended healthiest foods pyramid and have elevated meat from its former place near the bottom. What’s next? Are they going to tell us that fake meat made from irradiated decaying swamp vegetation and flavorful insecticide is not as nutritional as they said before? Until stability returns to these food recommendations, one should eat only unsalted soda crackers and chickpeas.

Well, I believe I’ve committed enough social service for this newsletter. Time to move on to the hard sell. On June 9th, Bantam Books will issue the first 3 Jane Hawk novels in trade paperback for the first time. The Silent Corner, The Whispering Room, and The Crooked Staircase will have bold, bright, wonderful new covers. The remaining two in the series, The Forbidden Door and The Night Window will likewise follow in trade paperback in September. In my estimation, Jane Hawk is one of the three best characters I’ve created. These novels will also be available in eBook and audio. Lock the doors, turn on all the lights, and put a crowd-noise tape on your sound system to persuade potential home invaders wearing inflatable animal costumes to bypass your place for a more vulnerable residence.

The last I heard, my new novel, The Friend of the Family, was rated 4.7 on Goodreads, with thousands of reviews. I am more grateful than you can know for your reaction to Alida and her story. Every life is meaningful, and every life has the potential to lift others by example. You have lifted me with your response to the book and with the snail-mail letters, so unusual these days, that have flooded in.