I noticed something the other day about my writing. I don’t usually analyze my writing. My wife does that for me. However, I was thinking about the novel that got me my agent (the one that died on sub - someday I’ll write about that whole process). I remember when I wrote that novel that I considered it a love story compared to my prior novel. My prior novel, I thought, was about hate.
Upon reflection, I’m not sure I was honest with myself on that prior novel. And as I look back across my crime stories, I see a very clear theme. Love is a powerful motivator for people to do stupid, violent, and criminal things.
Let’s take a story that might find its way here as a Friday Read eventually. This story was one of the two I had to write during the summer before my MFA program began. The goal was to have two stories from each member of the cohort so that when we had our first residency, we’d be able to spend the week workshopping. For some reason, I can only remember one of the two stories I submitted. But that story is a love story. It’s also a coming of age story. I think I have typecast myself as the coming-of-age-love-story-crime-writer. If so, I’ll take it. Anyways, back to this story.
The story is about a high school couple taking what seems to be a joy ride. The boy is helping a friend pull off an auto insurance fraud scheme where they will steal the car, destroy it in a remote area, and collect the insurance money. However, as the boy in the story drives and thinks about his girlfriend riding shotgun, things turn tragic. The violence in this story comes from the decisions these young people make and mother nature. The crime is the tragedy. It’s also fueled by love. The boy may have done this regardless, but the girlfriend wanted an adventure. Wanted to be the boy’s Bonnie to his Clyde. It is in that stupid, young love that the two of them lost track of reality and fell into the dark pull of the crime they were committing. And the results were not kind.
As I look through my stories and my novels, that theme—love as a propellant toward crime and/or violence—runs deep. A brother protecting his younger brother from a meth-addicted mother, two friends stupidly robbing a gas station out of loyalty, a father helping his son run to Mexico after the son killed another man. These stories are powered by love.
I am not unique in this type of storytelling. Shakespeare did it. Homer did it. John Steinbeck and Stephen King too. There are countless examples, but there are also countless counter-examples. Plenty of crime fiction, detective novels, noir, and more that don’t use (or need) love to pull the crime through.
I wonder why I’m drawn to this type of writing, and I think it’s because of the path not traveled. Better stated, it’s possibly because of the path avoided. When I ask “what if” to many of the situations in my life, things could have gone a completely different direction. The things we do or could do because of love—the love of our friends or family or a romantic partner—is a fascinating study of the human condition. I like to explore that version of what if.
I will leave you with this because I’ve been enjoying her music a lot and because it’s fitting. As the singer/songwriter Kami Kehoe says, Love is a Weapon.