Why I Write Funny Feminist Noir

When I was in grad school, I dated a guy who would dress me up in skimpy outfits, lock me in handcuffs, and put me in a box. No, not like that! He was a magician and I was his assistant.

My kitten, Merlin, was his magic rabbit. He would pull Merlin from a hat to the oooohs and awwws of old ladies in nursing homes and children at birthday parties. For bigger occasions, we’d do a Houdini trick where I’d chain him up, put a bag over his head, and guide him into a giant wooden box. Then, eerie music and smoke would conceal his exit through a trap door in the box.  To the delight of the audience, he would run out from behind the curtain and open the box, where I’d taken his place, panting from exertion, mascara stinging my eyes.

Once, during halftime at a college football game, he made a live tiger disappear. Luckily for me, we’d broken up by then.

Now, I can’t even remember his name. I often wonder if he’s a famous magician on a big stage in Vegas. When I see billboards for magic acts, I wonder if maybe that’s him.

His disappearing act inspired my latest novel JACKAL where feisty amateur sleuth Jessica James is sent on a mission by her mother to find the Mesmerizer, a washed up magician working in Vegas. Her mom claims this Mesmerizer dude is Jessica’s biological father. Searching for him, Jessica discovers that in Vegas the stakes are high and everyone’s an illusionist.

Penniless, Jessica looks up an old high school friend, Mackenzie Czarnowski whose Facebook page says she’s made it big dancing for Cirque du Soleil. Mackenzie is a dancer all right, but her belt-trick is not exactly Cirque du Soleil material. The tattoo parlor is her happy place. And her driving ambition is to get enough money for a fat transfer.

In the entire Jessica James Mystery series, Mackenzie is one of my favorite characters… maybe because she is inspired by my niece, who really does work as an exotic dancer in Las Vegas. She’s got some amazing stories. If only I could get her to tell all! They say write what you know. Luckily for me, growing up in the woods of Montana, my family is filled with characters.

In addition to colorful characters, it is important for me to deal with women’s issues in my novels. I’m a philosophy professor by day, and much of my scholarly writing has been about feminist issues.

My suspense novels are Feminist Noir. And, they’re based on research that I’ve done for my nonfiction books on campus rape, new reproductive technologies, women and the media, sexual harassment, domestic violence, human trafficking, prostitution, and other contemporary problems. My novels take up these ripped from the headlines women’s issues in the context of (hopefully) entertaining page-turners.

My goal is to create a good read that also brings attention to women’s issues. My hope is that weaving these issues into a compelling story can helps us face up to them instead of avoiding them because they are too difficult. I use humor to make facing these problems more bearable.

Sometimes people think that feminists are killjoys and lack a sense of humor. The Jessica James Mysteries break that stereotype—and more—to imagine a world where feminist justice prevails through quick wit and snappy one-liners along with expert gunplay and black-belt karate. Most importantly, my novels imagine a world where strong young women work together and female solidarity is the true source of their strength and their triumphs.

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Kelly Oliver is the award-winning (and best-selling in Oklahoma!) author of The Jessica James Mystery Series, including WOLF, COYOTE, FOX, and JACKAL. Her debut novel, WOLF: A Jessica James Mystery, won the Independent Publisher’s Gold Medal for best Thriller/Mystery and was a finalist for the Foreward Magazine award for best mystery. Her second novel, COYOTE won a Silver Falchion Award for Best Mystery. And, the third, FOX was a finalist for both the Claymore and Silver Falchion Awards.  JACKAL, A Jessica James Mystery, and the fourth in the series, just launched.

When she’s not writing novels, Kelly is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, and the author of fifteen nonfiction books, and over 100 articles, on issues such as the refugee crisis, campus rape, women and the media, animals and the environment. Her latest nonfiction book, Hunting Girls: Sexual Violence from the Hunger Games to Campus Rape won a Choice Magazine Award for Outstanding title. She has published in The New York Times and The Los Angeles Review of Books, and has been featured on ABC news, CSPAN books, the Canadian Broadcasting Network, and various radio programs.

Learn more about Kelly and her books at www.kellyoliverbooks.com

About JACKAL

From master of suspense, Kelly Oliver. Take a trip to Vegas that you’ll never forget.

Working as a maid at the luxury Napoli hotel on the Vegas strip, Jessica James finds a naked man unconscious in a bathtub with a note to call 911. That’s when the fun begins…

With only an old photograph to go on, Jessica James is sent on a mission by her dying mother to find a washed-up magician called the Mesmerizer. Along the way, Jessica gets way more than she bargained for when she stumbles into a black market organ ring and learns secrets about her mother that will change her own life forever.

Jessica is shocked by her mother’s “deathbed” confession that the man Jessica thought was her father is not. Her biological father is some magician dude that passed through Whitefish twenty-five years ago. Why does Jessica’s mother insist on seeing him again? How far will Jessica go to find him and bring him back?

Jessica arrives in Las Vegas penniless and with nowhere to turn. She tracks down an old high school friend, Mackenzie, and crashes on her couch. But Kennie Czarnowski is not what she seems. And the price of a place to sleep may cost Jessica everything. Jessica learns the hard way that in Vegas, the stakes are high and everyone is an illusionist.

With wit and grit, Jessica and her posse take on the seamy underbelly of Vegas. Dauntless, determined, and awkwardly endearing, Jessica James continues to delight readers.

Once JACKAL gets its hooks into you, you won’t be able to put it down.
Kelly Oliver knows how to get your heartpounding!

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing