Downstream by Betty Jean Craige
Thanks, Marilyn, for inviting me
to contribute to your Musings today. I just ordered your book Final Respects, and I am excited to get
into your mystery series.
Ever since my childhood in El
Paso, Texas, I have read mysteries. I started with Nancy Drew, Judy Bolton, and
the Hardy Boys, and went on to Perry Mason as I grew older. When I finished all
of the Perry Mason books at the age of thirteen I worried that I'd never find
another series I liked as much. Then I got busy studying literature and
teaching literature—difficult literature, like "The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock"—and forgot the pleasure I'd once had figuring out who dunnit in
mysteries that engage the reader in the sleuthing.
In 2011, after thirty-eight
wonderful years, I retired from the University of Georgia as professor of
comparative literature and director of the Willson Center for Humanities and
Arts. While writing a biography of the ecosystem ecologist Eugene Odum, I had
become interested in the effect our environment has upon the health of us
humans and our fellow creatures. When time allowed me to resume reading
mysteries and to write one of my own I decided to explore the effects of
pharmaceutical pollution upon all of us who drink our planet's water.
So I wrote Downstream, the original title of which was "We All Live
Downstream." Because I live in Athens, Georgia, and love the north Georgia
mountains, I situated my novel in a town I called Witherston, about a half hour
north of Dahlonega. Dahlonega was the site of the Georgia Gold Rush in 1828,
and north Georgia was the home of the Cherokees people whom the government
force-marched to Indian Territory (in present-day Oklahoma) in 1838 because
white settlers wanted their gold and land.
In Downstream, the centenarian billionaire Francis Hearty Withers has
benefitted from the crimes committed against the Cherokees here almost two
centuries ago. He has inherited his wealth. His great, great grandfather got
rich panning for gold on Cherokee land and got lucky winning forty acres of
Cherokee land in the Georgia Land Lottery. He passed his wealth down through
four generations of Withers men. No male Withers ever had to work.
At the celebration of his
hundredth birthday, Withers announces to the people gathered on the front lawn
of Witherston Baptist Church that he has finalized his will. In it he bequeaths
$1 billion to his north Georgia hometown of Witherston and another $1 billion
to be divided up equally among the town's 4,000 residents in recognition of
their support of a Senextra pharmaceutical factory. Senextra is a drug that enables
individuals taking it, such as Withers himself, to lead healthy lives well into
their second century. But it has some unanticipated consequences. The group
assembled to hear Withers's announcement do not all applaud. One person carries
a sign that says SENEXTRA VIOLATES MOTHER NATURE. Another, KEEP SENEXTRA OUT OF
OUR SYSTEM. A third, WE DON'T NEED MORE OLD MEN. Withers flies into a rage. He
vows to change his will and disinherit the community. Two days later he is
found dead.
That's the beginning of the story.
The obvious question the reader
will ask is: Who dunnit? The less obvious question is: What will happen to our
whole society if individuals keep themselves alive indefinitely? As one
character asks, "Which do you prefer: old-growth forests or old-growth
men?"
I had a whale of a good time
writing Downstream. I liked inventing
the town of Witherston, imagining all its slightly odd but nonetheless
delightful residents, seeing what those characters would do when confronted
with perplexing problems—such as the dead body, the five-legged frog, and the
pregnant middle-aged women—and developing the story. I hope that my readers
smile a lot when they read my novel, but I also hope that they think a lot too.
Blurb:
At the celebration of his hundredth birthday, local billionaire
Francis Hearty Withers announces to the people gathered on the front lawn of
Witherston Baptist Church that he has finalized his will. In it he bequeaths $1
billion to his north Georgia hometown of Witherston and another $1 billion to
be divided up equally among the town's 4,000 residents—in recognition of their
support of a Senextra pharmaceutical factory. Senextra is a drug that enables
individuals to lead healthy lives well into their second century, but it has
some unanticipated consequences.
The group assembled
to hear Withers's announcement do not all applaud. One person carries a sign
that says SENEXTRA VIOLATES MOTHER NATURE. Another, KEEP SENEXTRA OUT OF OUR
SYSTEM. A third, WE DON'T NEED MORE OLD MEN.
Withers flies into
a rage. He vows to change his will and disinherit the community. Two days later
he is found dead.
In Betty Jean
Craige's first murder mystery a few humans die in unusual circumstances. (A few
others live in unusual circumstances.) Who dunnit?
 |
| Betty Jean Craige |
Bio:
Betty Jean Craige is
University Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature and Director Emerita of
the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts at the University of Georgia.
She received her B.A. in Spanish Literature from Pomona
College (1968) and her M.A. (1970) and Ph.D. (1974) in Comparative Literature
from the University
of Washington
Dr. Craige has published books in the fields of Spanish
poetry, modern literature, history of ideas, politics, ecology, and art. She is a scholar, a translator, a teacher,
and a novelist.
In 2010, Dr. Craige published in both hardback and
audiobook Conversations with Cosmo: At
Home with an African Grey Parrot. In 2011 and 2012 she published a weekly
Sunday column in the Athens Banner-Herald
titled “Cosmo Talks.”
Dr. Craige’s essays have appeared in PMLA, The Chronicle of Higher
Education, The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution, and The Athens
Banner Herald.
Dr. Craige has received the University of Georgia Alumni
Society Faculty Service Award (1994), the Albert Christ-Janer Award for
Creativity in Research (2003), the Blue Key Service Award (2010), and the
Women's Studies Faculty Award (2011).
She has also received awards for teaching, including the Honoratus Medal
from the Honors Program. The title
“University Professor” was granted to her in 1995 as “highest recognition for
significant impact on The University of Georgia.” On May 13, 2004, she received
the Governor’s Award in the Humanities.
On December 20, 2003, Dr. Craige delivered the graduate and
professional schools’ commencement address at the University of Georgia. On
January 27, 2012, she gave the University’s Founders Day Lecture. On September
17, 2013, she accepted the Jeannette Rankin Fund Founders' Award. In March of
2014, UGA's Comparative Literature Department honored her by establishing an
annual lecture in her name.
Dr. Craige was Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Delta
Prize for Global Understanding.
Most
recently she has written a murder mystery titled Downstream, published by Black Opal Books on November 26, 2014.
Dr. Craige's website is under construction
Downstream is available here: http://www.amazon.com/Downstream-Witherston-Murder-Mystery-Mysteries/dp/1626942013/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1417798995&sr=8-1&keywords=downstream+craige
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