Best-selling author Louise Penny launches new novel from Tallahassee
Louise Penny. For many, that name alone brings a little shiver of anticipation. A little rush of danger, of mystery, even of tenderness for the characters Penny has created in 13 award-winning novels.
Now, to introduce her 14th Chief Inspector Armand Gamache book, Louise Penny is coming to Tallahassee on Nov. 27. The appearance at Faith Presbyterian Church will be the first stop on her five-venue tour.
The seven-time recipient of the Agatha Christie Award, the CWA Dagger, Nero, Macavity, Dilys, and Barry Awards, as well as holding the Order of Canada for her contributions to Canadian culture, Penny will be welcomed by many in Florida’s capital city who feel they have developed a personal connection with not only her characters, but with the author herself.
One of those who is particularly excited is Marjorie Turnbull, Director of Prime Meridian Bank and former State Representative. She is also the prime mover in what its members have self-styled, the Tallahassee Louise Penny Fan Club.
“It was after my book group had finished Penny’s eighth novel that we just came up with the idea of going to the little village near Montreal, Quebec where she lives… and meeting her,” Turnbull said. And that they did. With help from Penny’s publicist, Tallahasseeans Patterson Lamb, Martha Ann McCaskill, Sunny Phillips and Turnbull soon found themselves chatting over tea with Penny and her husband in the idyllic Quebecois village that seems to be the inspiration for Three Pines where much of the series takes place.
And in a recent telephone conversation with Penny from Knowlton in Canada’s Eastern Townships, she sounded just as excited to visit Florida.
A warm, chatty voice that would become as friendly as if one were chatting with a girlfriend over family ups and downs, Penny discussed what it was like starting out as a writer at near 40 years old; boredom writing about one central character through 14 books; and the long illness and death of her beloved husband, Michael, who died just before she began writing, "Kingdom of the Blind," her current launch.
Here are a few of her responses:
“I’d always wanted to write books… a series, in fact. But I think I was just afraid to do it. I had taken an auxiliary route into journalism, and it wasn’t until I married and my husband encouraged me to quit my job and begin writing novels that I dared try. Unfortunately, what followed was five years of writer’s block! But writing is not like picking up a tennis racket and winning Wimbledon. It’s a process… of drafts, of editing, of revising, and of getting over the fear of not writing the perfect book. I decided whether they got published or not, to write the kind of books I would want to read.”
Penny is also noted for her disciplined approach to creation.
“I get up every morning, walk and feed the dog, then sit down to write…without exception. Once a book is begun, I write at least 1,000 words, sometimes more, but always 1,000. By 10:30 or so, I’m usually done. And before you know it, with that approach, you have a book.”
Penny says that in the beginning she has a clear idea of what a novel will be about — its general arc, the evolution within the plot, but she is open to shifts that characters might make along the way. “I feel like I’m standing on an island looking at the mainland,” she says of the point of view of the writer, watching, describing and perhaps subtly interpreting what is happening. Her murder mysteries, which critics say are, “suffused with poetry, history, philosophy,” are also filled with “complex plot-twists and a kind of dark magic.”
Since each one of her novels has followed the personal ups and downs of her main character, Inspector Armand Gamache, who she admits, is fashioned after the character of her husband, a gentle, wise man, and noted physician and professor, Penny says she has never become bored with following the character’s life-trajectory. “I understand Agatha Christie said she had become weary of Poirot. But I think that is because he never evolved. Armand Gamache does change over time, affected — as I myself have been — by losses, joys, just living.”
"Kingdom of the Blind" is the first book Penny has written since the death of her husband from dementia in 2016. She at first wrote that she thought she wouldn’t find another novel in her — but then — it was there.
And she says, in a way she doesn’t understand, but is grateful for, it came easily. “There had been so much caregiving, so much anticipatory grief, so much actual grief that I think it grinds you down. But now, there truly is a kind of relief…in the knowledge that Michael is at peace. He is in my head, always. I continue to be inspired by him. He is not lost. He is… immortal.”
Marjorie Turnbull will introduce Louise Penny at Faith Presbyterian Church on Tuesday, Nov. 27, where, in collaboration with Midtown Reader, Penny will speak from 6-8 p.m. Refreshments will be served.
Part of proceeds from tickets will go to Westminster Oaks Memory Care Unit in honor of Penny’s husband’s struggle with dementia.
If you go
What: Best-selling author, Louise Penny at launch of "Kingdom of the Blind"
Where: Faith Presbyterian Church: 2200 N. Meridian St.
When: 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 27
Tickets: One ticket/one signed book, $35; two tickets/one signed book, $50
Tickets: Contact: https://www.midtownreader.com/tickets