An Interview With Ellen Byerrum

by Grace Topping

 

Years ago, I read and thoroughly enjoyed Ellen Byerrum’s Crime of Fashion mystery series, featuring Lacey Smithsonian and the trunk of vintage clothing she inherited from her Aunt Mimi. I was so excited that Ellen had written a prequel to her series, The Brief Luminous Flight of the Firefly, which tells Aunt Mimi’s story, that I discovered later I’d bought it in both digital and print. I enjoyed it immensely and was pleased to talk to Ellen about Mimi and her trunk full of clothing. 

 

THE BRIEF LUMINOUS FLIGHT OF THE FIREFLY

 

The Twelfth Crime of Fashion Mystery 

The 1940s Prequel to the Series 

 

Stolen sugar, illegal moonshine, and ladies of the evening converge in murder in wartime Washington, D.C.

 

Young Mimi Smith has gone to Washington for the war effort. She's a mere stenographer at the agency that regulates rationing and black markets. But when "magdalens" begin being murdered, she discovers a black-market connection no one suspected.

 

Few care about these women except Mimi. One of the victims was her friend. With the woman's ex-boyfriend and a skeptical cop, she finds a way to trap an elusive figure everyone had been happy to see—until he became a killer.

 

 

Welcome, Ellen, to Writers Who Kill.

 

Thanks for having me, Grace. I’m delighted to be here.

 It’s been a number of years since your last Lacey Smithsonian Crime of Fashion mystery and this prequel to the series. Who was Mimi Smith, and what inspired you to tell her story?

 

Mimi Smith is the great aunt of Lacey Smithsonian, and she left her trunk of fashion and materials and dreams to her great niece. Mimi and Lacey have some traits in common, and a lot of readers had questions about where the trunk originated. Mimi also made a guest appearance in the book Designer Knockoff, which switches back and forth between mysteries set during the 1940s and today. But I do plan to write a couple more Crime of Fashion Mysteries. Lacey will rise again.

 

The Brief Luminous Flight of the Firefly is a much darker story than your lighter and humorous Crime of Fashion series. What prompted you to write a more serious book to tell Mimi’s story? Was it the time period when Mimi lived?

 

Mimi’s is a story that full of hopes and dreams, set against a lot of darkness, and while it has some light moments, it’s very difficult to deviate from the background of World War II. With people dying and privations on the home front, it didn’t seem like a lot of humor was necessary. And I find that stories have their own rhythms; some are more serious. In this book, I concentrated a lot on Kitty’s story and character because I wanted readers to understand her.

 

As you mention in your book, Mimi has a light inside of her, which may account for her generous nature—traveling to West Virginia to personally deliver sad news to a family, offering a gown she painstakingly made as a burial gown for a young victim. What accounts for Mimi’s spirit of helpfulness and caring?

 

I’m pretty sure Mimi would never see it that way, but I’m so glad you do! Mimi simply does what she believes she has to do, whether the world thinks she’s right or not. Her big influence is her Irish grandmother, who was the first person who had the trunk and gifted it to Mimi. Her grandmother is always looking for the good, or at least the more interesting, aspects of people and Mimi picked up that trait. Also, Mimi comes from the West, from Denver, where she learned to be more open-minded about people, such as the “magdalens.” There were simply different attitudes in the West. Women won the vote much earlier in the West, before national suffrage was granted. The Wyoming territory gave women the vote in 1869, and when it became a state in 1893 it upheld the decision. Colorado gave women the vote in 1893. Nevertheless, Mimi adores the East Coast.

 

There appear to be some parallels between Lacey and Mimi. Both of them have a strong interest in fashion and beautifully crafted clothing and their need to solve a mystery. Did Lacey know her Aunt Mimi? Are there any other parallels between them?

 

Yes, Lacey knew her Great-aunt Mimi and visited her in Washington, D.C., during Lacey’s teen and college years. We get a hint of that relationship in Designer Knockoff. And I have thought about writing a short story about one of those visits, called “She Always Wore Pearls.” It’s a mysterious death set in Mimi’s apartment building.

 

You are known for the vintage clothing you wear. Do you own any of the outfits you describe in your book? Where did your interest in vintage clothing come from? Did you have an Aunt Mimi?

 

While I can’t name any outfits off the top of my head that Mimi wears and I share, Lacey has worn several dresses in my closet. I do check magazines of the time to dress my character. I have always loved classic clothes that you can wear season after season, and I love vintage clothing for various reasons. First, they tend to fit my shape; second, the dresses and suits you find in vintage stores are the items that people cherished and kept in good condition; and third, they are unique pieces and you won’t see them coming and going. I didn’t have an aunt like Mimi, but I had a Great Aunt Ruth who was an independent woman during the war. She ran an office and was always irritated that she had to train a man to be her manager and take her position after the war. I suspect she had suffragette leanings. 

 

You said that what we wear (and sew) tells a story. How so?

 

You can tell a lot about people by what they wear and how they wear it. A teenager into Goth and tattoos is very different from her parents who don preppy clothes and sweaters around their necks to take the yacht out for a spin. People wear clothes, but they can also wear attitudes. You can guess at people’s professions and socioeconomic backgrounds by what they wear. Are they expensive or cheap, classic cuts or fast fashion? We say a lot without ever opening our mouths.

 

Fireflies appear frequently throughout the book. What does the firefly represent to you and the story?

 

Until I moved to Alexandria, Virginia, I had never even seen a firefly, and I simply didn’t know what I had been missing. I used to take walks after work at twilight at Jones Point near my apartment building. One day I spotted flashing lights in front of my face. My first reaction was that something was wrong with my eyes. Looking closer I finally saw what they were: fireflies! I tried to see them every night after that. Fireflies are beautiful and ephemeral, they live only a short time, but while they live, they light up the skies. I would never try to capture them in a jar. Kitty in the story is like a firefly. 

 

Mimi worked for the Office of Price Control. Was there such an organization? Why was there such stringent rationing?

 

Yes, there was an office of Price Administration (OPA), and it was housed in what is now the very boring Gerald Ford House Office Building. I think there were a couple reasons for rationing and price controls. First, to avoid hoarding of goods, so that everyone could meet their basic needs and prevent war profiteering and black marketeering. The second reason, in my opinion, was to bring the country together in these efforts, so that citizens could feel as if they had a real effect and voice in the war efforts. Rationing was also patriotic and showed that people could do their part. 

 

Mimi traveled to West Virginia to keep a promise and discovers grinding poverty there. Did the war help people escape that poverty? 

 

I don’t have a definitive answer. There were men and woman who left the state and joined the Armed Services, thereby raising themselves out of poverty and witnessing a different way of life, one that wasn’t as harsh (except perhaps in combat). I have also read that during those years and after the war, people left West Virginia and took to the “Hillbilly Highway” to get to industrial cities in the north or Midwest in pursuit of better paying jobs.

 

One of Mimi’s friends experienced what she calls “the quivers.” What exactly are the quivers?

 

The “quivers” are simply Kitty’s name for an overwhelming feeling of dread. 

 

Richard, the son of Mimi’s landlady, who sounds like he is on the high end of the autism spectrum, delivers messages to Mimi from a deceased young woman. What does Mimi make of those messages? Does she think he is able to receive messages from the Other Side?

 

Let’s say Mimi is open to the possibility. Half of her comes from Irish stock, so she might very well believe in the possibility of banshees and leprechauns and other mystical phenomena. She also is curious and willing to listen to just about anyone about anything.

 

I particularly enjoy books where I learn something new. Who knew moonshine requires large amounts of sugar and that bees need to be fed sugar water over the winter? The research you did must have been interesting, especially about "magdalens." Can you tell us about that?

 

Research is seductive and can be wonderful, but writers know it can also lead you down never-ending trails. I conducted lots of research: in the Alexandria Library historic records, the National Archives at Denver (which is not in Denver at all, but in Broomfield), and I went to sessions with beekeepers and got stung on my nose! I interviewed people who lived through the war and through rationing, and more. 

 

I have read about magdalens for years, especially those in Denver and the West. Many were famous, or infamous. One Denver madam in particular, Mattie Silks, called her bordello “The House of Mirrors.” The house is still there, and the last I heard, was a place to hold events. I even wrote a play about a pistol duel between Mattie and another madam over a man, in which they ended up shooting him! However, I want to note that the duel is part of local legend, and even though the duel has a supposed date of August 1877, I never found a shred of evidence to back it up. The Western states seem to be more open to discussing those original businesswomen than in the East. In many cases, those “soiled doves” were the first women on the Frontier. Because they had children, they were the ones who brought in schools and churches. 

 

Before I moved to Virginia, I also happened to meet a former call girl who had married a Denver vice cop and was in the process of divorcing him. Her name was Carol and she was very sweet. We became friends of a sort, occasionally meeting for lunch at a local dive bar. She’d run away at age 14 and met a pimp. It’s an old story. In Alexandria, Virginia, I was lucky enough to find out about the floating bordellos that were once running on the Potomac. The most famous madam was known as Madam Rosa. What I find fascinating is that my husband and I regularly walked along the river and past a building that we thought was a park service office. It turned out to be the last floating bordello, or ark, in Alexandria. It was given to the Alexandria Seaport Foundation and restored. I’m not sure if it is still docked in Old Town, but it was for a while.

 

You use the term “Butter Bar” to describe an Army officer. Where does that term come from?

Butter Bars are second lieutenants in the Army, Air Force or Marines. The term comes from the rank insignia they wear on their shoulders, which looks like a stick of butter. My father was a second lieutenant in the Army Air Corps during World War II, and my cousin who retired from the Navy pointed it out to me.

You’ve had experience with a wide range of publishing, including having two of your Lacey Smithsonian books made into TV movies. What have you found has been the biggest change in publishing since you first started writing?

 

That is not an easy question to answer because publishing changes constantly, like sand shifting under your feet (or in that hourglass), and it’s hard to know where anyone stands. Obviously, the biggest changes include e-publishing, self-publishing, and the changing bookstores. When I started out, Borders was the big bookstore chain, next to Barnes & Noble, and both stores carried all my books. When Borders went out of business, B&N suddenly had much less competition and began buying far fewer books. This had a serious effect on many writers, including me. Writers who independently publish have also changed the landscape. Independent publishers and self-publishing have flooded Amazon and other entities. It gets harder and harder every year to reach readers. 

 

You have been reissuing your Crime of Fashion mystery series. How has that been going?

 

Not fast enough! I have two more books, Death on Heels and Veiled Revenge, to reissue and I am slower than I like. I have to say that I reread them carefully and re-edit the books, along with my copy editor and husband, Bob Williams. Some things have to be changed just to keep up with technology. For instance, I had written Blackberrys into the first book. They were huge at the time, but how many people now remember them? “Phone” or cell phone is much easier and we’ve been using the word phone for over a century. Also, it is rewarding to change the covers to something that I consider more stylish, dangerous, and in keeping with the books. I also love the control you have when you publish your own books. 

 

I loved your children’s book, Sherlocktopus Holmes: Eight Arms of the Law, and gave a copy to my grandson. What inspired you to write a children’s book—and one in rhyme?

 

Thank you so much! The idea for Sherlocktopus came to me in a dream, as so many things do. Really. In the dream, I had turned in my second manuscript and my editor at the time told me it was fine, but what the publisher really wanted was a crime-fighting octopus! An octopus?! I was so annoyed by this plot twist that I woke up, shook my husband Bob awake and complained, “Now they want books about a crime-fighting octopus.” Bob, who is always clever, even while asleep, turned over and said, “I guess that’s Sherlocktopus Holmes.” 

 

The idea—and the name—stayed with me for years before I wrote it. However, I had tried a version of the story some years before, in prose. It simply didn’t work—it needed the rhymes. Kids love rhymes and meter; they help them learn and remember. Oddly enough, it was almost as difficult to write as a one-hundred-thousand-word novel.

 

Now that you’ve written Mimi’s story, will we be seeing more stories about Mimi? 

 

I honestly don’t know. Some readers have told me they’d like to see more books about Mimi, and I really love her and her resilience. The Brief Luminous Flight of the Firefly was a labor of love for me, and it took me a long time to write and research. However, before I return to Mimi, I have some other books on my list to write, including a couple more Lacey Smithsonian novels, another new play, and a brand-new book—a fun comedy-mystery-romance set in 1934, right after Prohibition. This one is just for me. So far. One thing is sure, I’ll be happily writing for a long, long time. 

 

Thank you, Ellen. It’s great to know we may hear more about Mimi Smith and that Lacey Smithsonian will rise again. 

 

For more information about Ellen and links to purchase her books, check out http://www.ellenbyerrum.com/