by admin | Jan 9, 2012 | LadyKillers
Dorothy Parker Didn’t Go Bowling By J.J. Murphy, author of the Algonquin Round Table Mysteries “Write what you know”—that’s the advice people give you when you say you want to write a book. Bad advice (for me, anyway). To keep my sanity, I had to write about something far, far different from what I knew. Why, you ask? Because all I knew about when I started writing was baby stuff—Cheerios, The Wiggles, Pampers and peepee. You see, I was (and am) the parent of young identical twins. (We sometimes went through 16 Pampers a day, if my memory serves—though it rarely does anymore.) I loved my little identical blond babies (still do, of course), but I had to get away! So, I checked out. I didn’t have the time to write, but I couldn’t help myself. I went on vacation…I left for New York City in the Roaring 20s. How? I started writing a mystery series featuring Dorothy Parker and the members of the Algonquin Round Table. These people and their daily lives—their witty banter over long lunches and sparkling cocktails—were about as far removed as possible from my long days full of Teletubbies and temper tantrums. Dorothy Parker, as you may know, was a Jazz Age writer and poet who was as well known for her clever wisecracks as for her writing. (Even if you don’t know her, you’ve probably heard something she said or wrote, such as “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses,” or “Brevity is the soul of lingerie.”) She was a charter member of the Algonquin Round Table, which was a group...
