Tea at Trianon: William Kent Krueger on Milestones

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, September 22, 2024

William Kent Krueger on Milestones

I love the Cork O'Connor novels and am on the 19th or 20th book right now. From CrimeReads:

As dawn breaks, William Kent Krueger can be found hunched over his notebook at the local coffee shop, fueled by the rising of the sun and the promise of a story.
It’s the same routine he’s followed for the entirety of his writing career, from the short fiction of his fledgling younger days to the completion of the twentieth novel in his beloved Cork O’Connor mystery series, Spirit Crossing (August 20, 2024; Atria Books)—and beyond. Despite having achieved the kind of success that most can only imagine—Krueger is the recipient of accolades ranging from the Minnesota Book Award to the Friends of American Writers Prize (not to mention the Anthony, Barry, Dilys, and Edgar Awards) and has had thirteen consecutive New York Times bestsellers—these early morning sessions remind him of a childhood dream, and how he made it come true.

For more than twenty-five years, Cork O’Connor—Aurora, Minnesota’s half-Irish, half-Ojibwe sheriff-turned-PI—has kept the author company, from their debut with Iron Lake through 2025’s as-yet untitled work in progress. (There have been standalones and short stories, also, culminating in sales of more than 1.6 million copies.) As the series and its characters have progressed, so too have the circumstances and crimes within its pages, which range from existential threats against the natural world to the vulnerability of the Native American community. After all, Krueger understands that the potency of fictional stories often resonates more profoundly with readers than the facts that informed them.

In that vein, Spirit Crossing finds O’Connor investigating the murder of a young Ojibwe woman, whose disappearance and death have been overshadowed by that of a teenage girl from a prominent white family. Suspecting a link between the two cases (and others), O’Connor—whose gifted grandson, Waaboo, finds himself the unwitting target of a killer—joins forces with the newly established Iron Lake Ojibwe Tribal Police to seek justice. Meanwhile, his daughter, Annie, has returned home for a family wedding with the intention of revealing a burdensome secret—assuming she lives long enough to tell it as the evil draws near. (Read more.)