THE LAURIE LYNN DRUMMOND INTERVIEW:

ANYTHING YOU SAY CAN AND WILL

BE USED AGAINST YOU

McDonald: The book is getting great reviews. How are you receiving the attention?

Drummond: I'm astounded and grateful and thrilled and giddy. It all doesn't seem quite real.

McDonald: I understand it was 12 years getting this book published. Now you've gone from obscurity to having all this material being raved about. It's got to be a little disorienting.

Drummond: It's rewarding. It shows that if you put in the time and really work at it you can come up with something that people like, or, at least, connect to. That's important to a writer. You're on your own for so long and you have this kind of anonymous reader that you're writing for. Then, to be suddenly meeting the people and reading what the readers have to say — it's really very gratifying.

McDonald: Have you been surprised by any particular reaction or something that is being interpreted or taken in a way that really disarmed you?

Drummond: A couple of things. There have been some reviews that have talked about how some of the stories are "sketchy" or not really stories. I find that interesting, especially the way the book is set up. It's really inviting you in to each one of these women, so some of the stories would be more bridges. They are more reflections on the part of the characters. The other thing that has been very interesting for me is how some reviews will say, "the weakest story in the collection is '"Keeping the Dead Alive," and others will say, "the strongest story in the collection is "Keeping the Dead Alive." It's like, well, it just drives home the point that readers are subjective. You bring certain criteria or desires to your reading and get different things out of it. That's been real interesting for me, to see what people identify as the strongest or weakest area in the collection.

McDonald: When I received the initial offer to read the book or to review it — and maybe this is just a function of the publicity, but I couldn't tell if it was deliberate — I couldn't tell if it was a work of fiction or if it was being presented as a collection of essays. It wasn't until I held the book in my hands that I could discern that, "no, this is a work of fiction."

Drummond: Yes. I think that's part of the publicity — that they are stressing that this comes out of my experiences. I've heard from a lot of people that there seems to be a strong nonfiction narrative, because these women seem to be "real" in the sense of talking about their experiences. I think some of it is the publicity, and I think some of it is just the nature of the book.

McDonald: I wondered if you were bothered by the fact — and I guess enough of your biography is starting to get out there to invite it — that the stories would be perceived as roman à clefs?

Drummond: No, because for the most part I at least have the opportunity to say, "These come out of my experiences, but they are fiction." For instance, in "Keeping the Dead Alive," the only thing that is nonfiction there is that crime scene. I saw that photograph when I was in the police academy and never forgot it. The story grew out of that. On the other hand, a story like "Finding A Place" — the fatality accident that I describe is word-for-word pretty much an accident that I worked that I could just never shake.

McDonald: Was that something you wrote contemporaneously, or perhaps you had journals to look back over, or was that just a complete, years-later reimagining of that scene?

Drummond: That's a funny story. When I left police work and went back to finish my undergraduate work at LSU they said, "You've never taken composition. We have to put you in a composition class," which, at age 30 to be put in with a bunch of 18-year-olds — I was not a happy puppy. I ended up in a class taught by a graduate student in the MSA program and the first essay we had to write was a personal experience about some event that had impacted you. I wrote about this fatality wreck. When I got the paper back from my teacher she said two things. First, she said you have to learn how to control semicolons. And, "Why aren't you writing? You have these incredible stories to tell and this blew me away." That was when I went, "Oh! That's what I could do with the rest of my life." So, then I very deliberately began thinking about my experiences and how I could work with that in a fictional way.

McDonald: The character, I think it is Liz, whose career is ended by a car accident —

Drummond: Correct.

McDonald: That happened to you as well, more or less.

Drummond: That, and "Taste, Touch, Sight, Sound, Smell" are probably the most autobiographical.

McDonald: Do you think that you would actually have stayed in police work if the decision had not been made for you by the accident?

Drummond: No. I think I would have gone back. What saved me was I'd been wanting to leave police work for about six months. Things were just horrible within the department. There were a lot of veteran officers — people who had been there 12, 15 years — who were leaving because the situation was just so horrible. I had been trying to get transferred off the streets, but we were too short-handed so that wasn't going to happen. I couldn't figure out what an ex-cop with a couple of years undergraduate work in theatre was going to do with the rest of her life.

McDonald: It's a heady mix, yeah.

Drummond: I mean, how do you parlay than into another career? Then, the wreck happened, and I ended up taking some classes — workers' comp and the department approved it — I was in this class and found writing. About six months later, the police chief left, along with the mayor and the man who was made police chief I had worked under and worked very closely with and respected him tremendously — I know he would have transferred me anywhere I wanted to go…. If that had happened earlier, I don't think I would have left police work. So I find that real curious, too.

McDonald: On the publicity sheet you're quoted as saying, "I write about stuff that cops don't even think about in the middle of the night because if they did, they would never be able to go to work the next day." In putting this out there are you mindful of the effect it could have on still-active officers reading it? Have you gotten reactions?

Drummond: Actually, I have, and the reactions have all been enormously positive. Along the lines of "thank you for writing our stories…. You brought up things that I haven't thought about in years and I realize I have to deal with it — it's not healthy…. I laughed, I cried." In particular from the female officers, I'm getting enormously positive comments. I was very nervous about the level of emotional depth that I kind of reveal. That some officers would feel that I reveal too much or there would be this knee-jerk reaction of, "that's so scary, what she's writing about." The reaction that "That doesn't happen!" That they would have that kind of defensive reaction.

McDonald: I was going to say that if people are predisposed not to like police officers, this book does humanize them, but it's funny to think that that might be something that some segment of law enforcement might not want to see done.

Drummond: Yet, on the other hand, that's really what we want. It was so frustrating for me, and for every officer I've ever talked to — this sense that they see the badge and the gun but they don't see you. I can understand why that happens, but it's incredibly frustrating that you're automatically stereotyped as "the police." There's relief I've heard expressed that maybe people will realize we aren't horrific and we aren't saints, we're human beings. Because, truly, in any police department, about one-percent of the officers are bad. And about 1 percent are these saints that you don't quite understand. You just don't understand them. The other 98-percent of us are just these human beings trying to do an incredibly hard job.

McDonald: Did you notice any commonalties among the women who are drawn to law enforcement?

Drummond: There are some people who have always wanted to do it, who were always interested in it. I know some women who needed a secure, stable job because they were single moms and the job offered that in terms of unless you really screw up, you're not going to get fired — they always need police officers. The health benefits are very good. In many departments now you can pick your shift, a straight shift, so that childcare becomes much easier. Some people kind of fell into it, like me. I didn't grow up wanting to be a police officer. I thought I wanted to be a neurosurgeon for a while. Then I wanted to be an actress. I'd say if there's a common characteristic, it is at our core we are enormously strong, and either we don't discover that until we're in the work, as was my case, or they come into the job being incredibly strong. And, I mean, in terms of character and integrity and those things that make someone a strong human being and able to cope with the kinds of things you see.

McDonald: I read an interview where you mentioned that you had nearly shot someone in the line of duty. Did you ever fire your gun in the line of duty?

Drummond: Oh yes. More than once. On that occasion I actually did — I pulled the gun up at the last second and it went into the ceiling. There were places — I can think of one in particular, where we were ambushed on a call. We returned fire then. Another time I was attacked by a dog. I had a German Shepherd using my leg as chew toy. It all happened very quickly, but initially I was afraid to shoot the dog because…I didn’t want to shoot the dog. I mean, the dog was doing what the dog was trained to do. The visual of putting my gun up to his head and blowing his brains out was just too horrific, and, then, I realized even if I shot the dog — that because I was being jerked around — I could miss and shoot myself. So what I tried first was shooting into the ground. That was incredibly successful: There was a trail of pee back across the carport. So that worked.

McDonald: Do you still own a gun?

Drummond: I gave up all guns about three-and-a-half years ago. So, no.

McDonald: Now, that's quite a while after you left police work….

Drummond: Yes. It took me a long time. And then it was very deliberate decision partly that come out of my belief and strong yearning for peace in the world. I figured that one of the small things I could do was give up something that was not peaceful and that was my gun.

McDonald: I saw on your Web site you're working on a memoir called Losing My Gun. Is that decision you just talked about going to the heart of what the memoir is about?

Drummond: Yeah, and it works on a couple of levels. Losing my gun as in leaving the police department. Losing my gun as in giving up all guns. Losing my gun as in, there's actually a story about something that happened a couple of months before I decided to give up all guns. I actually lost my gun in my house. I have nephews and when they would come to visit I would break down my gun and the gun would go one place and the bullets would go another. It had been about a week and I realized, "Gee, my gun is not in my nightstand. Isn't that interesting?" Normally, as soon as they left, I retrieved the gun, loaded the bullets and it went back into the nightstand. I thought, "I'm losing some element of fear." But I had hidden the gun so well I couldn't find the damned thing. Then, what really struck me, was how much it didn’t bother me. Eventually, I found it. I had put it up in the attic and I have no idea why. So that's where that title comes from. When I had for so many years slept with a gun under my pillow — just always with a gun — just to suddenly lose it was a fascinating thing to me. And it told me something about the evolution of myself.

McDonald: So many years after leaving the career, would you react differently to a siren than I would?

Drummond: Oh yeah. Yeah. I react differently to a lot of things. I'm hyper aware and alert, much more than other people. I tend to still watch people's hands, I watch the face. I just have an extra hyper alertness that I don't think you ever lose. I've talked to other police officers who have either retired or left the department. Even after six or seven years they say, "Yeah, it's always there."

McDonald: You have these blurbs on your book from Wambaugh and Elmore Leonard. Is it a concern that you might be typed as "crime fiction writer?" I get the sense that that's not really something that maybe interests you.

Drummond: Yes. That would kind of horrify me. I had somebody tell me that they thought I might be creating a whole new genre. I thought, "Well, that's cool." It's literary fiction, but it's about police work. There is the element of mystery and the suspense. I don't see anything wrong with that. When I started writing, one of the writers who impacted me the most was Tim O'Brien. And in reading The Things They Carried, I realized you can write about horrific things in a literary way and he did that with Vietnam. That really taught me about how I could write about police work.

McDonald: You’re also working on a novel, Mother Blind. Can you tell me a little about that? Is it something that will fall into this new genre?

Drummond: Probably so. It's set in Baton Rouge and the main character is a police officer. When she was four-years-old, her mother was murdered — burned to death. A black man was arrested for it and incarcerated right about the time the Supreme Court said that capital punishment was cruel and unusual. He committed a murder in jail right after they appealed that, so he is now on death row and my character, Anna, has come to believe that this man was not responsible for her mother's death. She's come back to Baton Rouge, she's joined the police department so she can have access to records and crime reports and that kind of thing, and she is going to try and solve the mystery of her mother's death. It's a lot about family, about generational secrets. There's a lot about racism. South Louisiana is so rich with culture — the Cajuns, the black Creoles, the white Creoles, the African Americans…the Anglos. There's a lot of that in there. It's a lot about family.

McDonald: Are there particular short story writers whom you admire?

Drummond: Tim O'Brien — in particular his story "How To Tell A True War Story," my story, "Absolutes" kind of comes out of that. I think Alice Munroe is wonderful. I love André Dubus, I love his work — senior, although I like junior's books, too. Those three come to mind right away in terms of having learned a lot from them. Of course, Chekov and I like Edith Wharton's stories a great deal.

McDonald: In the collection the women acknowledge this rush or adrenaline high they associate with the police work. Is that something you had?

Drummond: Oh yes, absolutely.

McDonald: What do you replace that with when you leave law enforcement?

Drummond: This is such an interesting question. I've gotten it three or four times.

McDonald: Sorry….

Drummond: No, I mean, each time I'm asked it, I think, "That is such an interesting question" and I'm not sure I've given a really good answer yet. Certainly, in writing these stories I relive it. Teaching can be a real adrenaline rush — to get up in front of students and be conducting a class and kind of shaping those minds and talking about things and classroom management. Trying to bring examples to mind very quickly. There is a performance aspect that is very similar to police work in that you're trying to convince people to do what you want them to do, or learn what you want them to learn and it's also similar to the theater. The other piece of it for me is the adrenaline can come from trying new things. I like to try new things. Whether it's yoga, or a cooking class in Italian. "Okay, let's move to Austin without a job!" Yeah, that's a rush. In some ways, the way I live my life…I'm willing to take risks. But I miss it. There was nothing more exciting to me than something where I could step in and help — I knew what to do.

McDonald: When you were in student mode, studying writing, was there a particular piece of advice that was really powerful or useful for you?

Drummond: Yes, my mentor Jim Bennett said, "Quit trying to write about this other stuff. Write about police work. That is where your writing is just crackerjack." For about a year I started writing other things and I got them published, but it was partly a response to, "Oh gee, I don't want to be a one-note writer and just write about police work." I think at a deeper level I was a little scared about some of the stuff it was bringing up…to be exploring some of those stories. So that was great advice to me. The other piece of advice from the same teacher was to take three years rather than two (it was a two-year MSA program). He said to take some classes outside of writing and take the time to learn and experience and that was great advice.

McDonald: You have a post-it on your Web site, something to the effect "never a day without a line." You do write every day?

Drummond: Yes, yes. Even if it is only an hour, I sit down and even if it is five hours and I only get a paragraph, I've come to learn and experience that it really is like exercise. If you set up an every day routine that, "I'm going to do this," it becomes easier to sit down and reimmerse yourself. It may not mean that you write more, but that process becomes easier. It is hard work, it is solitary work and it is so easy to find eight million other things to do. At least for me. I'm a pretty social person and I'm interested in a lot of different things, and "Hey, the baseboards are dirty!"

McDonald: I was stunned to see with all of these powerful female characters in your work that you've been translated in Farsi and published in Iran, perhaps one of the more misogynistic societies on the face of the earth.

Drummond: I know. I was stunned when I was contacted about that. I talked to a couple of people and asked, "Are they going to put out a Fatwa on me?" I thought it was very interesting, but the editor is really part of that group over there really trying to break out of the conservative religious tradition. It's exciting. I was pleased to be contacted.

© — Craig McDonald, February 2004

HOME