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My Blessed Life ? Sue Grafton, Stephen King et al
Without Prejudice
This is a blog about family. How managing a large Family, for me, is the most daunting of tasks, the scariest of roles. But given I am not sport mad, a good singer or a scientist, I figured a long time ago I would be ideal as a Manager of a Large Family. I come from a large family, seven or eight of us or even nine of us. I have half brothers and sisters. My Dad was a randy old sod.
There are seven main siblings. Ian Lachlan Bruckshaw, James Stuart Bruckshaw ( dec ) Jacqueline Ann Benton, née Bruckshaw, George Ernest Bruckshaw, Janette Lucille Bruckshaw née Hancock, ( divorced ) David Alistair Bruckshaw and coming along as a sweet surprise when I was a teenager, Helen Lorraine Quelch née Bruckshaw.
My Dad was married 12 months at around 18 and had a child, Joyce, who was raised by my Grand Mother, Marion McKenzie and Grandfather, Ian Bruckshaw. My Dad had an affair when my Mum was pregnant with Helen, and that lady produced a Son, John . He looks exactly like my Dad and can sing just like him. I doubt whether he can play a 24 string Hawaiian guitar, but he runs a tattoo business in the U. K. And does very well for himself.
My half Sister, Joyce was an accomplished band concert cabaret singer, married to Composer Arranger John Fox. I've lost touch with John as according to scuttlebutt he married a " lady of colour " only 18 months after my half Sister, Joyce died from breast cancer. She had beaten it once and had survived the five years after safety net. She was on Tamoxofen for a long time to prevent reoccurrence, but it came back.
So, back to Family.
2018 was a crap year for the fam. As there are now 14 grandkids added to the family, ( my family ) and about 8 great grandkids. The more kids the more likely the drama I always say.
( I am sure My oldest Grandson is trying to populate the entire South Eastern Suburbs as we speak ) I joke about this to him and he said he is done with more kids, some of the girls just wanted to have him Father a child with them? DW I have seen the correspondence!
2018 for me began sadly with the death of my favourite Author, Sue Grafton at only 77. Sue wrote the Alphabet Murders, A is for Alibi, B is for Burglar, right down to Y and didn't finish Zed is for Zero.p
Mystery writer Sue Grafton dies; ‘the alphabet now ends at Y’
In this Oct. 15, 2002 file photo, mystery writer Sue Grafton poses for a portrait in New York. Grafton has died in Santa Barbara, Calif., at the age of 77. Her daughter, Jamie Clark says her mother passed away Thursday night, Dec. 28, 2017, after a two-year battle with cancer and was surrounded by family. (Gino Domenico/AP)
Sue Grafton was the author of the so-called Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Series in which each book title begins with a letter from the alphabet. The last was “Y is for Yesterday.”
LOS ANGELES — Sue Grafton, author of the best-selling “alphabet series” of mystery novels, has died in Santa Barbara. She was 77.
Grafton was surrounded by family, including husband Steven Humphrey, when she died Thursday after a two-year battle with cancer, her daughter, Jamie Clark, posted on the author’s website.
“Although we knew this was coming, it was unexpected and fast. She had been fine up until just a few days ago, and then things moved quickly,” the posting said.
Grafton began her “alphabet series” in 1982 with “A is for Alibi.” Her most recent book, “Y is for Yesterday,” was published in August.
“Many of you also know that she was adamant that her books would never be turned into movies or TV shows, and in that same vein, she would never allow a ghost writer to write in her name,” her daughter wrote. “Because of all of those things, and out of the deep abiding love and respect for our dear sweet Sue, as far as we in the family are concerned, the alphabet now ends at Y.”
Humphrey said Grafton had been struggling to find an idea for “Z” while undergoing treatment and losing weight.
“Nothing’s been written,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “There is no Z.”
He added with a laugh, “Nobody in this family will ever use the letter Z again.”
The fictional heroine of the series, Southern California private detective Kinsey Millhone, was Grafton’s alter ego, she told The Seattle Times earlier this year.
“I’m an introvert, so doing half of what Kinsey is beyond my poor capabilities,” Grafton said. “But it’s fun to get to live her life without penalty.”
Her husband agreed that Grafton was Kinsey.
“Yes, as Sue said, ‘We’re one spirit in two bodies, and she got the good one,’ ” Humphrey said.
While Grafton aged, her heroine didn’t quite as much.
“So when I started, she was 32, and I was 42. Now, she is 39, and I am 77. So there’s a little bit of injustice there, but she is single,” she told NPR in an interview earlier this year. “She’s been married twice. She has no kids, no pets, no house plants.”
She said she was looking forward to reaching the end of the alphabet with “Z is for Zero.”
Grafton began writing at 18, and wrote her first novel at 22. “A is for Alibi” was the eighth novel she wrote, and the third she had published.
