George's Command Of The Mystery Plot example essay topic

A Brief Biography of Elizabeth George (with a smidgen of literary criticism -- and a short bibliography) Susan Elizabeth George was born on February 26, 1949, in Warren, Ohio, to Robert Edwin and Anne (Riv elle) George. She married Ira Toi bin, an education administrator, on May 28, 1971; they divorced in November, 1995. She received an A.A. from Foothill Community College (Los Altos, CA) in 1969, a B.A. in 1970 from the University of California at Riverside, and an M.S. from California State University in 1979. She lists her political affiliation as Democratic and her religion as 'recovering from Catholicism. ' Marjorie Rosen writes of her: 'Growing up the only daughter of Robert George, an estimator for a conveyor company, and his wife, Anne, a nurse, George was influenced early by her parents' enthusiasm for literature. 'When my older brother, Rob, was 6, he was struck in the eye by an arrow and had his eyes bandaged.

My parents spent hours reading to him, and I listened,' she Ms. George and Titch -- photo credit Patty Smiley says. 'We weren't a family that had a lot of money. We turned to the world of imagination. ' At 7, George knew she wanted to write. She began turning out short stories in elementary school after her mother gave her an old '30's typewriter, and she wrote her first unpublished novel by the time she graduated from Holy Cross High School in Mountain View.

' She taught English at several California high schools and has conducted creative writing courses at Coastline College (Costa Mesa, CA), Irvine Valley College (Irvine, CA), and the University of California, Irvine. She was selected Teacher of the Year by the Orange County Department of Education in 1981. Contemporary Authors quotes Ms. George, 'I'm often asked why I write about England. The answer lies in my philosophy: 'Write about what interests you; write about what you love; write about what gives you joy.

' Writing is such a lovely torture, it seems silly to engage in it if it's not directed towards something you love. ' Ms. George states that her love of things British dates from a 1966 Shakespeare study trip to England when she was 16. However, she told Valerie Takahama, 'There's a part of writing these novels that I really can't explain... When the plane comes down in England, I feel as if I'm coming home. ' (She recently purchased a flat near Hyde Park in South Kensington, London.) Her first published novel, A Great Deliverance, won the prestigious Anthony and Agatha awards, was nominated for an Edgar and a Ma cavity, and received the French Le Grande prix de Literature Policiere. Well-Schooled in Murder won the German MIMI, which recognizes outstanding international mystery books.

Great Women Mystery Writers has four particularly astute paragraphs in its Georgian entry: She has frequently been compared to P.D. James and Ruth Rendell as a mystery writer whose focus is psychological as well as, but the association which pleases her most is with Dorothy L. Sayers. George, like Sayers, has a keen interest in her major characters aside from their involvement in the mystery plot, and she places great emphasis on elements such as setting, style, and atmosphere. In each novel there are subplots which resonate with the main one; there are social, psychological, and romantic tensions between and within the characters; there are symbols and themes which reverberate both on the mystery level and in the lives of the continuing characters. In all the novels George's plots are multilayered, the group of suspects large and varied, and the relationships between the characters extraordinarily complex.

The crimes are violent and the depiction of them realistic, so that, while George's milieu x are often reminiscent of the English "cozy" tradition, her subjects and her sexual, social, and psychological concerns put her work in a much more modern, more intense subgenre. She is skilled in shifting suspicion from one character to another, but, in the end, those who turn out not to be the chief villain are nevertheless guilty of secondary offenses so that their earlier positions as potential candidates for the role of major criminal do not seem artificially contrived. Without George's command of the mystery plot and all that that implies, her work would doubtless not receive the respect and popularity that it does; but, actually, the cast of continuing characters, the relationships between and among them, and the ways in which their lives and problems are interwoven with the main plot, may well be an equally strong element in her appeal... In addition to everything else, Elizabeth George is a consummate, highly literate stylist. The books are rich in vocabulary and allusion; description and dialogue are handled masterfully. What is perhaps most impressive throughout the series is the way in which, with symbols and multiple variations, themes emerge that grow out of, but are more universal then, the plot itself.

Thus, George's books are far more than mere solve-the-mystery whodunits; they are literary works of a very high caliber. They are rich in humor, in their probing of human nature, and in their superb capturing of the British landscape. This same book suggests that 'S.T. Harmon and Caroline Graham are younger authors whose characters, plots, and settings bear similarity to George's. ' Elizabeth George's novels are published in 21 languages.

Playing for the Ashes was her first New York Times bestseller. Her latest book, Deception on His Mind, is the Main Selection of both the Book of the Month Club and the British Book of the Month Club. She wrote A Great Deliverance in 21 days (several sources say 40-plus days) but now spends up to 15 months on each new book. Her agent is Robert Gottlieb at the William Morris agency.

The above is compiled from: Contemporary Authors, vs. 137, c. 1992, pp. 154-5. Klein, Kathleen Gregory, ed. Great Women Mystery Writers. c.

1994, pp. 121-4. Manning, Anita. 'Elizabeth George Mysteries Take a Literary Path. ' USA Today, June 18, 1997 Rosen, Marjorie. 'No True Brit. ' People Weekly, Aug. 23, 1993, pp. 59-60.

See, Lisa. 'Elizabeth George: an American in Scotland Yard. ' Publishers Weekly, March 11, 1996, pp. 38-9. Takahama, Valerie.

'George Acquires Feel for Britain in California Home. ' Albany Times Union, April 9, 1996, p. C 2. Additional sources (unseen by me, though I'd like to read them very much): Stone, Nancy-Stephanie.

'Well-Schooled in Murder' [Interview]. The Armchair Detective, 25, c. 1992, pp. 260-9. Westheimer, Linda. 'Elizabeth George' [Interview]. All Things Considered (radio program transcript), August 3, 1992, pp. 32-33.

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