In defense of the cozy

Wow, Clea Simon, guestblogger, here on Linda’s website and it feels a bit odd. After all, her hotly anticipated fourth crime novel (Death Was the Other Woman, which will be featured on my blog next month) is a damned sight tougher than my own new Cries and Whiskers. I mean, what’s a cat cozy doing up here with these hard-boiled dames?

I could make a sort of case for fitting in (in addition to friendship and mutual respect, that is). I mean, the website blurb posted by Partners and Crime, called my Cries “cat-friendly tough-girl crime fiction.” And I loved that. It’s true that I always make a point of telling people that my books aren’t cutesy, my cats don’t talk, and they don’t solve the crimes. Punny titles and cute cat covers aside, I’m not one of those people who refers to her pets as her “furbabies.”

But it’s time to give up the pretence and come clean. So let's start over: Hi, I’m Clea Simon, and I write cozies. Classic cozies. My books feature an amateur sleuth (a rock critic, rather than a nosy old lady). They take place in a small self-contained community (the club scene, rather than an English village). The crimes involved tend to come about because of human nature, not psychopathology, and the sex and violence are pretty much out of sight (I rather like the description that “the blood is dry before it hits the page”). And while some of my peers may be using the label “traditional” to distinguish ourselves from the treacly side of the genre, I’m ready to stand up and admit it. Hell, I’m sick of apologizing. I want to reclaim the cozy.

I fully expect Linda’s regular readers to wince and turn away now, but I hope you stay with me a little further. Yes, cozies have fallen out of critical favor. They are now looked down upon as vaguely embarrassing. Nursery lit. Some of it is our own damned fault: a trend in the subgenre toward humor, crafts, and cutesiness has helped bring down our reputation. And even when we aren’t self-destructively winsome, transgressive styles always attract more attention from critics and from those outside the field. This is what’s new, what is edgy. What is, in some form, outrageous

I have nothing against transgressive art. Not that long ago, I found my soul in punk rock. The energy of the music - not just anger, but a pure, visceral cry - gave voice to my own inchoate emotions. I believe it literally saved my sanity, giving me a means of expressing that which had been choking me. I will never deny what this music, what this art form, did for me, and I reject, as well, the idea that this music - or any art - is of a particular stage or age. Don’t give me your adolescent angst; emotion is eternal.

But so is the best writing. That’s why I believe a stylist with the skill of a Linda Richards or a Megan Abbott will continue to be read. Denise Mina, too, and doubtless many others.

Along the same lines, and for the same reasons, so will the best of the traditional mystery authors – the cozy writers. I don't pretend I can claim to be in the upper tiers, not yet, but I want to make a statement of solidarity here anyway. Don't knock us cozy writers. We’re the ones who focus on character development, rather than action or atmosphere, writing about people we know rather than the ones we dream – or have nightmares – about. We’re the ones who go for subtlety over shock value, for the human resolution over the bloody denouement. For a bit of humor, maybe even a bit of romance. You know, the stuff of life. We don’t hit you over the head with our craft, and these days particularly, we don’t get the credit for what we can – and reliably do – provide. It’s a different palette, sure, like working in watercolors in an age of high-gloss graphics, but I think it’s time to quit apologizing for that difference. To reclaim our own genre.

I write traditional mysteries, with characters I want you to believe in, with cats that don’t talk, with settings you’ll recognize and motives you may share. Guess what? I write cozies.