The mystery writer Sue Grafton died. She was famous for her alphabet series of private detective stories. Her titles started with "A is for Alibi" and went on from there. She got as far as "Y" before cancer stopped her short.
Her daughter said that Grafton would never allow a ghost writer to write in her name. So "Z" , in her writing career, remains untouched. I hope her family finds that as satisfying as I do. The final letter remains open to the imaginations of those she left behind.
And maybe she'll start all over again with "A is for Afterlife."
Very nice. Speaking of alphabets, Joan, this comes to mind, from Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse." She is writing of a man with a splendid mind who only got so far: "For if thought is like the keyboard of a piano, divided into so many notes, or like the alphabet is arranged in 26 letters all in order, then his splendid mind had no sort of difficulty in running over those letters one by one, firmly and accurately, until it had reached, say, the letter Q. He reached Q. Very few people in the whole of England ever reach Q… But after Q? What comes next? After Q there are a number of letters the last of which is scarcely visible to mortal eyes, but glimmers red in the distance."
ReplyDeleteHi Joan, thank you for introducing me to Sue Grafton and her alphabet series. I hope that rests in peace.
ReplyDeleteLovely, Joan.
ReplyDeleteNicely written. Melinda Power
ReplyDelete