Written by:
Diane Anderson-Minshall
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this Issue of Curve:
Vol. 17#2
It doesn’t take a fellow Idahoan to know that author Joan Opyr is one of a kind. A humor columnist and Northern Idaho editor of New West Magazine, Opyr’s still basking in acclaim for her first mystery novel, Idaho Code (deliciously subtitled Where Family Therapy Comes with a Shovel and an Alibi). This cheery tale of murder, set in small town Idaho, made it to the hard-to-crack ReviewingTheEvidence.com’s Top Ten list and garnered a rare glow from Val McDermid: “Joan Opyr is the most entertaining new voice in lesbian mystery.” We caught up with Opyr to find out what love, life and liberty in a “state that values individuality more than common sense.”
Idaho Code is the first in a series. Did you know it’d be an ongoing series when you started it?
I had no idea. The first person who told me it should or rather would be a series was the owner of the local bookstore. Now I say trilogy, and he says quartet. He’s probably right. I’ve grown very attached to the characters. Some have grown and changed in ways I never anticipated. In writing the second book, I was surprised to find how interested I became in a character named Donny Smith. He’s gay, he’s Mormon, and he’s a cop. He appears on the periphery in Idaho Code, but he really blossoms in this second book.
How did you find your main character, a baby dyke named Bil? Did you develop her as you went along, did you have a fully mapped character when you started or somewhere in between?
Bil began talking to me in 1992, after my first visit to Idaho. I saw her very clearly, and I never had trouble with her voice. As a character, Bil sprang fully-formed from my unconscious. So did Emma, Bil’s mother. Emma is overbearing, charming, and larger than life. She’s a force of nature. Oddly enough, she wasn’t hard to write.
You’d think that writing about a human volcano would be tough, but Emma came easily to me. The character who was hardest to write was Sylvie, Bil’s love interest. I wanted her to be multi-dimensional and very real, and that’s hard to do in a first person narrative. In the end, though, I was pleased with the result. I think Bil does Sylvie justice in her narration.
Did you know the outcome when you began the book?
Nope. I wrote at least three different endings for Idaho Code. I re-wrote the entire book several times, but the early endings were all too conventional. I don’t like to outline unless I absolutely have to. I want to make the journey with my characters and be as surprised as they are by what happens. It was a long process. I wrote about 1500 pages to get the 350 or so that made it to the final version, but I knew when I’d reached the perfect ending. Unfortunately, it meant that I had to go back and re-write the beginning.
When is the sequel out and what can you tell me about it?
The sequel, From Hell to Breakfast, should be out in March. I’m finishing the revision right now. I’ve gotten a bit behind schedule because the characters have again grown and developed in ways I didn’t anticipate, and subplots have threatened to take over. I go off on tangents, and I have a hard time reigning myself in. In some ways, From Hell to Breakfast is a continuation of Idaho Code; in others, it’s a very different book. I’ve got a morbid sense of humor, and I think that’s even more evident in From Hell to Breakfast than in the first book. In this one, I have a family coping with profound grief, but they’re each doing it in their own weird way.
Some, like Bil, have fallen to pieces. She’s an emotional wreck.
Emma, by contrast, has gone all prairie stoic. The humor lies in the tension between them. This is a very functional dysfunctional family. They’re all crazy, and in a place like Idaho, that serves them well.
I love that you describe it as a "folksy tale of murder in a small Idaho town." Now, as Idahoans, we both know Moscow is not exactly "small town" when it comes from Idaho. I’m from Payette (population 4,500) and my partner is from Inkom (population 800). Are you from Idaho originally?
I’m not originally from Idaho, though I should probably stop telling people that. Idaho feels like home to me. In truth, however, I’m a Southern transplant. I was born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina. I have a BA and MA from N. C. State. Fourteen years ago, I fell in love with an Idaho girl, and she talked constantly about how much she wanted to be back here. I’d never known anyone so homesick. In August of 1992, I let her talk me into coming out for a visit. I was dubious about Idaho. I knew the state was famous for its potatoes, but I didn’t know much else. I wasn’t expecting the wide open spaces, the moose, the bear, and the elk, or the sparse population. Once you get outside of Boise, Idaho is big, wild and untamed. It’s all the things Montana is famous for -- we’re just more modest.
Anyhow, on that first visit, it was love at first sight. You’re right; Moscow is not small by Idaho standards. The population is about 23,000, and this is a liberal, progressive college town. It’s home to the University of Idaho. There’s a lot going on here -- good restaurants, a thriving arts scene -- but Moscow still seems small to me. The greater Raleigh area, including Durham, Chapell Hill, and the Research Triangle, has a population of 1.5 million. They’ve built an outer loop to the outer loop of the Raleigh’s beltline. I go back now, and I don’t recognize the place. In Moscow, you can’t walk down Main Street without meeting at least a dozen friends or acquaintances, and people here complain about traffic when there are five cars stopped at a light. I used to laugh about that, but now I think we’re lucky. Still, I do have to climb to the top of the hill behind my house in order to get cell phone reception.
So, yes, Moscow is big by Idaho standards, but to me, it sometimes feels like that old TV show "Green Acres." In case you’re wondering, I’m a very butch Lisa, and my girlfriend is a very femme Oliver.
Most of your action takes place in fictional Cowslip, which is a lot like Moscow. Do you plan to take the action on the road in future books?
I may. I’ve begun plotting the third book, which I’m tentatively calling Wish in One Hand. That’s the first part of an old Idaho saying that I’m sure you’re familiar with: Wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which fills up first. We’re rough out here, aren’t we? I would be interested to see how my characters, Bil and Sylvie, might deal with something like an Olivia cruise. They’re small town lesbians. The women of The L Word and Dinah Shore are so far removed from the fictional women of Cowslip and the real women of Moscow that they’re unrecognizable. What’s hip to us? We wear Carhartt clothes, or Filson, or Dickies, and we buy our sensible shoes at a combination sporting goods and hardware store called Tri-State. No one but no one would spend a couple of hundred bucks on a pair of Seven jeans. We wouldn’t spend a couple of hundred bucks on seven pairs of jeans.
You know what The L Word needs? A real Idaho lesbian to come in and slap them all silly. Just wreak havoc on their world. I’m picturing a butch in a buffalo plaid Pendleton. She drives a 1976 Chevy truck with fog lights and a gun rack. She hunts, she fishes, and she puzzles the hell out of The L Word lesbians because she’s a die-hard feminist, and she always votes Democrat. Oh, and she won’t let Shane cut her hair. She cuts it herself with a Flowbee, one of those clipper things that attaches to the vacuum cleaner.
Val McDermid (my hero) called you the most entertaining new voice in lesbian mystery. How’s that make you feel?
Thrilled to bits. I feel very grateful and very lucky. I’ve been reading Val’s work for years. I had no idea that she would ever blurb one of my books. It was a jackpot moment, better than winning the lottery. I should tell you, though, that Val threatened to write, "Joan Opyr put the ’ho’ in Idaho." I was nervous for a bit there -- she’s got a wicked sense of humor.
You’re right that Idahoans often value individuality more than common sense. How’d you feel about the recent elections?
Nationally, I was elated. Locally, I was very pleased. Latah County went solidly blue. The Democratic candidates for governor, congress and statewide office won by ten percentage points up here, and we soundly defeated HJR2, the anti-gay marriage amendment. Unfortunately, our votes weren’t enough to make up for the heavily Republican south, which isn’t so much Idaho anymore as it is Utah North. But I feel good about living in Moscow. I’ve always felt safe here -- safe, valued, and welcome. I am also hopeful. Montana has gone Democrat, and Idaho wasn’t always a Republican stronghold. When I moved here, the Democratic idol Cecil Andrus was a four-term governor. The pendulum will swing back, and at some point the libertarians in this state will wake up and realize that the Republican party is not conservative. It’s in thrall to the religious right. That’s when the worm will turn.
What would surprise readers most to know about Joan Opyr?
I can sing the Zambian National Anthem. I can swear in eleven different languages. My childhood ambition was to become a nun, a veterinarian, and a U. S. Marine -- all at once. But I don’t know how surprising any of that is. My mother-in-law, Rose, says I should tell you that I really like the taste of Creomulsion cough syrup.
Whenever I have a cold, I drink it straight from the bottle. God knows what’s in it. I think it’s made out of alcohol and pine tar.
Delicious!
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