Karen Dukess, WELCOME TO MURDER WEEK: A Novel
[0:00]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Book to Zibi.
[0:06]Formerly, moms don't have time to read books.
[0:08]In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors
[0:14]and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time.
[0:18]As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously a podcaster, I get a comprehensive
[0:24]look at everything that's coming up and spend my time curating the best books, so you
[0:29]don't have to.
[0:30]Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests, like I do, every single
[0:35]day.
[0:36]For more information, go to zibimedia.com and follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens.
[0:45]Karen Duke-S is back on the podcast for her new book, Welcome to Murder Week, a novel.
[0:50]Karen is also the author of the last book party, which we talked about on our podcast
[0:54]last time.
[0:55]Karen has been a newspaper reporter in Florida, a magazine publisher in Russia, and a speech
[1:00]writer on gender equality for the United Nations.
[1:02]She has a degree in Russian studies from Brown University and a master's in journalism
[1:06]from Columbia University.
[1:08]She lives outside of New York City and in Truro on Cape Cod, where she interviews
[1:12]some of today's most acclaimed writers as host of the Castle Hill Author Talks for the
[1:17]Truro Center for the Arts.
[1:19]Welcome, Karen.
[1:20]Thanks so much for coming back on, totally bucked with Zibi.
[1:22]Now to talk about Welcome to Murder Week.
[1:25]Congratulations.
[1:26]Thank you so much.
[1:27]It's great to be here.
[1:28]Okay, so when did the last book party come out?
[1:31]When did we last talk?
[1:33]The last book party came out in 2019.
[1:35]Oh my gosh.
[1:36]It's been a while.
[1:37]It's been a little while.
[1:38]But that's okay.
[1:39]It feels like yesterday.
[1:40]I don't.
[1:41]Okay.
[1:42]Okay, so what has happened between the last book party and now, and how did you arrive
[1:48]at this book and this story?
[1:49]Well, between the last book party and now there was another book, I spent several years
[1:55]living in Russia and working as a journalist.
[1:58]And I tackled that book, which wasn't honestly a lot of fun to write.
[2:02]It was hard.
[2:03]It was hard to write.
[2:04]I had like second book syndrome.
[2:06]And this is my Russia book syndrome.
[2:08]And then I think as you know, I was submitting the story shortly after Russian beta
[2:12]Ukraine and Russia wasn't anyone's favorite topic, including mine at that point.
[2:18]And the story felt anachronistic to me.
[2:21]I was nervous about submitting it.
[2:22]But I'm like, okay, I worked on this for two and a half years.
[2:25]I give it a go.
[2:26]And it did not go so well.
[2:27]And after one round of submissions, I said to my agent, you know what, I don't want to
[2:31]revise.
[2:32]I don't want to keep, I don't want to keep trying.
[2:34]Let's just set this aside, just kind of, you know, upsetting.
[2:38]But I had sort of like a reverse career.
[2:41]My first novel just like flew through the whole process and it was amazing.
[2:46]And so I remember thinking when this one didn't succeed, I thought, okay, well, most
[2:51]people get the rejection first and then have the success.
[2:55]So now this is why this is where I'm going to figure out, like, am I really right or am
[2:59]I going to get up and keep going or am I going to buckle?
[3:02]And not only did I get up and keep going, but I think because of my experience writing
[3:09]that novel, I felt like, okay, if I'm doing another novel, I have to have fun.
[3:15]If I'm just been, you know, a couple years writing a novel, it has to be just what
[3:18]I truly want to do.
[3:20]And I had just taken a trip with my sister to the Peak District in England.
[3:25]I didn't go there for research.
[3:26]I went there for fun, but I had such a great time there.
[3:29]I felt like I had walked into the pages of like all the British novels I had read
[3:34]and all the, and into the sets of a million mystery TV shows that I had watched and even
[3:41]the British baking show.
[3:42]I had never been in the English countryside before, I've been to London.
[3:46]I came back and I wrote Welcome to Murder Week, which is a story about a young woman,
[3:51]34.
[3:52]My kids don't think that's young, but I do.
[3:55]These covers after strange mother died that she, then her mother had bought two of them
[4:01]tickets to go on a week-long adventure in the English countryside to solve a fake English
[4:06]village murder mystery.
[4:08]And off she goes and while she's there, she teams up with two roommates, very unlike
[4:12]herself, two college mates, and they not only solved the fake mystery, but they
[4:17]solved the real mystery of why her mother wanted to go.
[4:20]And I have to say that I don't think I would have written this novel if I hadn't failed
[4:23]with the Russia one.
[4:25]It was really liberating.
[4:26]It was really like, I'm doing this for me.
[4:29]I'm just going to have fun.
[4:30]I want to write a book that's fun and captures the sort of joyous experience I had with
[4:36]my sister in England where everything just was funny to us.
[4:40]And I wrote this book in a little over a year and it was actually fun.
[4:45]And here it is.
[4:46]Wow.
[4:47]Well, it was also fun to read and a total adventure in so many ways.
[4:52]The murder week concept itself is so unique.
[4:55]I mean, are these things actual trips?
[4:57]Like do they have these?
[4:58]I don't think so.
[4:59]I've heard of mystery weekends where you book a stay like in a castle or some fancy
[5:04]house.
[5:05]I know there are mystery murder mystery dinners you can book, but I think in England
[5:09]they also have weekends.
[5:10]So you can go and there are actors there that stage of mystery while you're staying in
[5:13]a grand country house.
[5:15]I totally made this up.
[5:17]I haven't heard of one.
[5:18]I'd love to know if there is, but in mind, it's like the whole village comes together
[5:22]and some of the villages are participating, playing roles, some are playing themselves,
[5:25]but they're part of the game and some are just there kind of tolerating this invasion
[5:29]of Americans who are living out their mystery solving fantasies.
[5:33]So I don't know.
[5:34]Oh my gosh.
[5:36]What a cool concept.
[5:37]I mean, I could see why it's fun to write because you basically get to Trump through
[5:43]a village.
[5:44]You get to enlist whatever characters you want to be part of it or not.
[5:48]There's always the is this person an actor in the thing or not.
[5:53]And so at every corner, there's like a plot twist essentially.
[5:57]Yeah.
[5:58]And that was kind of like, I mean, when I was with my sister, I didn't know that England
[6:01]had like public footpaths all through the countryside.
[6:04]So you can walk.
[6:05]You walk across people's property.
[6:07]You walked all over and I mean, I just loved sort of playing with this idea, this
[6:13]experience that we had where like we'd see somebody and would be like, oh my god, look
[6:17]a vicar.
[6:18]You know, and like, I would only see a vicar in like mid summer murders or a grandchildren
[6:21]or something on brick box.
[6:23]So everything was seeing it through the lens of fiction.
[6:26]Like maybe some people go to England and they see it through history.
[6:28]You know, they know their wives have had me the eighth and all of that or what happened
[6:32]in the Tower of London.
[6:33]For me, it was all like, I'm walking across the field like Elizabeth Bennett and Pride
[6:36]and prejudice.
[6:37]Or I'm throwing myself into the moors like Jane Eyre and it was really, yeah, that's
[6:42]the kind of thing that I wanted to play with in the novel with these Americans there.
[6:47]Sort of, you know, just playing with American views of Britain and also, you know, how
[6:52]much we learn about a place through fiction and not knowing what's real and what's not.
[6:58]So.
[6:59]And you have one of her cottagemates as a romance writer.
[7:01]So of course, she's seeing things through that lens.
[7:04]Yeah.
[7:05]Yeah.
[7:06]My original idea was I just wanted some Americans to go to England and I love the idea
[7:11]when you bring people together who wouldn't ordinarily be together.
[7:14]So I have Kath who's 34 and she lives kind of a quiet life, a lot in reaction to her sort
[7:20]of flaky mother.
[7:22]And then 40 year old Wyatt who is unhappily working in his husband's birthing store and
[7:27]his husband sends him on the trip, he's unsure why.
[7:31]And then Amity who's 50 year old recently divorced romance writer.
[7:35]And I love the idea that like these people never would have met.
[7:38]They never would have come together if not for this mystery.
[7:43]But they they work together and they live in a cottage together and they become like unlikely
[7:47]friends.
[7:48]And I just love that kind of scenario.
[7:50]So my original idea was a writing group.
[7:53]They remember it's a writing group because that same kind of thing can happen in a writing
[7:56]group and come together.
[7:58]You're from different walks of life, but you get to know each other really well when you're
[8:01]sharing your writing.
[8:03]And I was actually talking to a friend when I first had the idea and I said, I think
[8:06]I'm going to send these this writing group to the English countryside and they're going
[8:10]to have this experience there.
[8:11]And she said, okay, but what are they going to do there?
[8:15]You're right.
[8:16]That's not going to be very interesting.
[8:18]And then that's how I hit on the mystery idea.
[8:21]Wow.
[8:22]Very good question.
[8:24]Wow.
[8:25]Yeah.
[8:26]I hope they they she gets an advanced copy, you know, frames and framed covers have done so many.
[8:32]There's a lot about the role of grandparents.
[8:35]And I think it was so interesting how you said that Kath is essentially an orphan.
[8:41]And she's like, can I be an orphan?
[8:43]When can you stop being an orphan at what age type of because I think that so many people
[8:49]you can feel like an orphan losing your parents in middle age in whatever age.
[8:54]And of course, Kath is raised by her dad's mom after her dad is killed by a drunk driver
[9:00]which is so sad.
[9:02]And then her mom leaves her at age nine.
[9:03]And so you have that relationship.
[9:06]You have relationships that unfold throughout the narrative, which we don't we won't talk
[9:10]about.
[9:11]But the role of a grandparent and sort of an elder statesman and picking up the pieces plays
[9:16]a big role.
[9:17]So tell me a little bit about grandparents, the role of a grandparents, your own grandparents,
[9:22]all of that.
[9:23]Yeah.
[9:24]That's interesting that you asked that no one has asked about that specifically yet.
[9:27]But yeah, I liked writing.
[9:28]So Kath is a very solitary person.
[9:30]She doesn't have family because she was an only child.
[9:33]Her father died when she was young.
[9:35]And she and her mother moved in with her father's parents and then her grandfather
[9:39]died.
[9:40]And this is all like, you know, you learn this all after the fact.
[9:44]And I, the grandmother is sort of this presence only in her memories and very nice
[9:49]memories.
[9:50]I think the grandmother really stepped in to do her best, but it's left path very much
[9:54]alone.
[9:55]I don't know.
[9:56]Like I, I, I think grandmother's not a strong like.
[10:00]You don't get to know her in great detail the novel,
[10:03]but you get a sense that she was a good parent,
[10:05]a wise parent, she raised Kathwell.
[10:07]And I always seem to write about,
[10:10]like, I always have an older woman in my book.
[10:12]I like these sort of wise older characters.
[10:15]And I think that's sort of what I think
[10:16]of more than even a grandparent.
[10:17]I mean, I love my grandparents.
[10:19]They didn't raise me, you know.
[10:20]But I've always, even when I was little,
[10:23]like I was like talking to the older people,
[10:25]you know, I always, maybe it's sort of like
[10:28]the grandparent figure or the older friend
[10:32]can be sort of like the ideal, idealized parent
[10:35]or something, you know, that unconditional love you get
[10:38]less complicated because her relationship with her mother
[10:40]was really complicated.
[10:41]Her mother was, you know, not out of her life,
[10:44]but not in it, would float in and out.
[10:46]Would come to visit, would leave early, would make promises,
[10:49]let's take trips, and then they wouldn't happen.
[10:52]So when Kath finds out that her mother bought this trip
[10:55]to England, it seems like another flaky thing,
[10:58]but she goes and ends up changing a lot for her
[11:01]in a good way.
[11:02]That feeling though of being abandoned by a parent,
[11:05]like you have a scene where she gives Kath a badminton set
[11:08]and then the next day, you know, she's gone.
[11:11]And just though logging and there's one part
[11:13]where you just say, you know, she didn't, you know,
[11:15]she didn't want to give, she just wanted her not to leave,
[11:17]not to keep leaving.
[11:19]Where did all that come from?
[11:21]It's a really good question.
[11:22]You know, this book, my mother was very present.
[11:25]So this book was really more fictional
[11:29]than anything I've written.
[11:30]You know, obviously there's me and all of these characters,
[11:32]but maybe least so Kath.
[11:34]And what I was interested in exploring with Kath
[11:37]is the fact that she thought she didn't have to grieve
[11:39]her mother, as she felt like my mother left me a long time ago.
[11:44]Like when she tells her new cottagemates,
[11:46]Amity and Wyatt, that her mother was dead,
[11:49]that she booked this trip and then she died,
[11:51]it feels so bad for her.
[11:53]And Amity says to her, you know,
[11:54]that must have been so terrible to lose a mother
[11:57]at such a young age.
[11:59]And Kath says you have no idea.
[12:01]She really lost her when she was nine.
[12:03]So she feels like she doesn't really have to grieve her
[12:05]because she's grieved her so much.
[12:07]But I think that grief is often more complicated
[12:11]when the relationship isn't good.
[12:13]When the relationship is good,
[12:15]you obviously are really sad,
[12:17]but there's a sort of beauty to that sadness
[12:20]because you're missing, you know,
[12:22]the wonderful person that was there in your life
[12:24]and now how do you go on without them?
[12:26]But I think grief can be even more difficult
[12:28]when it's not resolved.
[12:30]And that is sort of what this story,
[12:33]I mean, I set out to write this really fun story
[12:35]and I did have a lot of fun with it.
[12:37]But I also like a story that has like an emotional heart
[12:40]to it and, you know, after the first draft,
[12:42]I kind of realized, well, the real story
[12:44]has to be the heart of the story.
[12:46]Like the fake murder is fun,
[12:48]but, you know, talk about low stakes, it's fake.
[12:51]And that the real story is sort of her grief journey.
[12:54]So, which makes it sound depressing.
[12:56]I don't think it is, but.
[12:58]No, it's really coming to terms with who you are as a daughter
[13:01]and what your family background means
[13:05]and the ability to shift how she thinks about it.
[13:10]Right?
[13:10]Like the narrative you tell yourself about your relationships
[13:13]is one of you.
[13:14]And that's very much what this is about
[13:16]because Kath has lived her life in a very narrow way.
[13:19]She has a same job that essentially
[13:21]that she's had since high school.
[13:22]She lives in the same house where her grandmother raised her
[13:26]and she's kind of living that way
[13:27]because she has this idea of her mother
[13:30]as like my mother was always chasing passion.
[13:32]She was splitting from man to man.
[13:34]She was changing what she was doing all the time.
[13:36]And it never worked out and I'm not going to do that.
[13:38]You know, I'm not going to make a fool of myself
[13:40]chasing after some fantasy life.
[13:42]I'm going to like stay in this lane,
[13:45]which is pretty narrow.
[13:46]And on this trip, she learns something about her.
[13:49]She's what she learns about her mother
[13:51]is completely different than what she thought
[13:54]and she gives, you know, by getting a new understanding
[13:56]of what made her mother tick.
[13:58]She realizes she doesn't have to live in reaction to that
[14:01]anymore.
[14:02]And that's something I feel like I'm often writing about
[14:04]is sort of the narratives we tell ourselves
[14:07]about our families or our role in the family
[14:10]or why we are the way we are.
[14:12]They're not always right.
[14:13]You know, we can base them on emotional things
[14:17]that can be very limiting and also can be wrong.
[14:20]And it can be very liberating to be able
[14:22]to like give yourself a new narrative.
[14:24]So that's sort of what I felt like I was giving cast.
[14:27]And you gave Kath a new opportunity emotionally
[14:30]to be open to the love relationships that she had just
[14:33]been rejecting from the start in a very blatant way.
[14:37]She was like, I'm not interested in romance, you know,
[14:39]but of course there's romance in there.
[14:42]On to right.
[14:43]It was just fun.
[14:44]I just had fun with this book.
[14:45]Oh my gosh, I love it.
[14:46]So just now do you want to start going
[14:48]on more of these ventures?
[14:49]Are you going to organize a murder week?
[14:51]And I am not going to organize a murder week.
[14:53]So the last book party there was like a big costume party
[14:56]or people dressed up at authors and people
[14:58]were like, have you been to a party like that?
[15:00]I'm like, I actually don't like costume parties.
[15:02]I would like to go and I've never even done
[15:05]like a murder dinner, you know.
[15:06]I would like to do what?
[15:07]Not organize it.
[15:08]Just paid in one.
[15:10]They're really good one though.
[15:11]Not a hokey one.
[15:12]No, but I am going to continue with,
[15:14]well, I think I'm working on a book now
[15:16]which sort of continues, but it's, it's Amity's story.
[15:19]So it's taking interesting character.
[15:21]So, you know, in this book,
[15:23]Kath, Wyatt and Amity all have their own arc,
[15:25]but it's really Kath's story.
[15:26]So in the next book, it will really be Amity's story
[15:29]because she's changed in this one
[15:30]and she's going to change further.
[15:32]So that's plan.
[15:34]I love that.
[15:35]Okay.
[15:36]And Amity of course is divorce.
[15:38]Her kids are grown in flow and she,
[15:42]I like how you include the book she doesn't write in here too.
[15:45]Like the plots that,
[15:47]were those plots you had thought about writing
[15:48]as books yourself?
[15:49]No, no, no.
[15:50]No, it was just fun thinking about them.
[15:52]It was just fun.
[15:53]Yeah, she was, I don't know.
[15:55]I just like these three characters together.
[15:57]I mean, it's just fun putting these three
[15:59]such different characters together.
[16:00]There's also, I think there's something about like
[16:02]when you, you go away and you meet people
[16:06]who know nothing about you.
[16:07]Like they literally only know like what you tell them
[16:10]and you are as you present yourself to be
[16:12]and it can be very freeing.
[16:13]And I think that's sort of what I hope I captured
[16:17]in this book that they just kind of arrive in the cottage.
[16:19]Like here I am, who I am right now
[16:22]and they get very close very quickly
[16:25]because at home they might've been more of like,
[16:28]you know, where are you where do you fit into my life
[16:31]or in the social world or whatever?
[16:34]And how did you pick these backstories?
[16:36]Kath works in an eyeglass store
[16:39]and is helping people try on it.
[16:41]He had some joke in the beginning.
[16:42]Like she was in such a bad mood or she was so distracted
[16:46]that she almost let some woman like wear the glasses
[16:49]that she knew like terrible on her.
[16:50]And I was like, do people do that?
[16:52]Like, you know, that character is actually,
[16:55]so there's a woman who, it was an optician
[16:58]in a town near me, town where I grew up
[17:00]and she's been there for really, really long time.
[17:03]And I think I got glasses around the time
[17:06]when I was writing the last book party
[17:09]and I told her about it and she said to me,
[17:10]you know, she's the only person there.
[17:12]Like she runs the store, she owns the store.
[17:15]And she said, I always have a book under my desk here
[17:17]and I'm always reading when the store is quiet.
[17:19]I'm reading and so you've got to, you know,
[17:21]give me a copy of the last book party and I did.
[17:23]And so I, and she told me we were chatting once
[17:26]and she told me how she had started working there.
[17:29]I should tell her name is Josie Finelli
[17:30]and it's Kurt Sauer, Opticians in Large,
[17:34]she gave me this character.
[17:35]She started working there in high school
[17:37]as a part-time job and I was owned by an older man
[17:40]and she worked there and started learning
[17:42]about being an optician, which involves cutting lenses
[17:45]as well as like fitting people and figuring things out.
[17:48]And she eventually went to school to learn
[17:51]to be an optician and then when he wanted to retire,
[17:54]he basically gave her no interest alone
[17:58]and she could work there and pay off the loan
[18:01]until she owned it and now she runs it.
[18:05]I think he's died and she's been there
[18:07]for, you know, since she was in high school.
[18:09]So I went in and I talked to her
[18:11]and got more details on the story.
[18:13]And I'm like, okay, basic character
[18:14]and you're just at this part.
[18:16]So I have to bring her to the book.
[18:17]I have a part of the book yet.
[18:18]Aw.
[18:19]So I borrowed her story and gave her a little adventure
[18:22]in romance.
[18:23]I mean, the character is not her.
[18:24]Just the career set up as her.
[18:27]Yeah.
[18:28]I just, I don't know.
[18:29]I wanted something that was sort of, you know,
[18:30]she'd been there a long time and I liked the story.
[18:34]And then was it easy to then sell this one?
[18:37]Did you, was it like you finished it?
[18:39]Were you worried after the last one
[18:41]or were you just felt really good?
[18:42]I mean, I was, I was not, well, you always worried
[18:45]because, you know, once you have the experience of not,
[18:47]like my first experience was like,
[18:49]well, you're age and love sit
[18:50]and then whoa, you sell it at auction?
[18:51]Well, that's how it goes.
[18:53]And then the second one was not like that.
[18:54]So now I'm like, okay, mom, age and like,
[18:57]it's like great, but we'll see.
[18:58]It wasn't easy to sell, but it wasn't hard.
[19:00]It was pretty quick.
[19:01]It was interesting though.
[19:02]Some editors were like, it's fun,
[19:06]but I don't really know what it is.
[19:07]Like, I'm not sure where it places.
[19:09]It's not a straight up mystery because it's fake.
[19:11]It's like people want their fictional mystery,
[19:13]their fictional murders to be real.
[19:15]It's very mad.
[19:16]I didn't get breaking music about that.
[19:18]It's a little romance.
[19:19]It's a little like personal grief story.
[19:22]It's a little mystery.
[19:23]And so the exact reason that some editors
[19:26]didn't want it, my editor loved it.
[19:28]You know, she was like, I love this
[19:29]because I feel like it could be in mystery
[19:31]but then people who don't read mysteries
[19:32]could also read it.
[19:34]So it was pretty quick.
[19:35]But I was unsure.
[19:36]I think because I was really indulging myself
[19:39]and writing this novel, it was like,
[19:41]I'm not writing the novel.
[19:42]I think I should write.
[19:44]I'm not trying to impress anybody.
[19:46]I'm not, you know, like the Russia one.
[19:49]I felt like I've got to say something about Russia,
[19:51]even though it wasn't purely about Russia.
[19:53]I just felt like, I think it's funny.
[19:56]So I'm gonna hope other people did and I do
[19:58]and I didn't know the...
[20:00]they would, you know? So it was a good lesson to me to just like, you know, play your natural
[20:05]game. That's all you can do. And hopefully there'll be other people there who want to play that
[20:09]game too. Totally. Yeah. Were you always going to call it Welcome to Murder Week or what were some
[20:14]other options? No, you know, it's so funny. It seems like such a, I love the title. And it seems
[20:21]like, why didn't I think of that right away? I had an enormous list of titles. And the phrase
[20:26]murder week was in there. I can't even remember what it was now. It was something like
[20:31]your English village murder week or I don't know, something not great. And I agonized over it. And then
[20:38]after my agent read it and liked it, he was like, but we need a better title. And I was going over
[20:43]so many of the titles. And then I don't even remember it was if he suggested or I it was just like,
[20:48]well, we like the murder week part. And then I think I said, well, how about Welcome to Murder Week? And
[20:52]it was like, oh my God, finally, like you brainstorm a list of 50 titles. And there it was. And then
[20:58]everybody loved it was never changed. So destiny. And I think it's the right tone because it's like,
[21:04]yeah, you know, it's not going to be really dark. Exactly. Oh my gosh. Well, I love it. It's funny.
[21:12]I had it on next to the current issue of town and country. I should I left it in the other room.
[21:18]But actually the cover of town and country has the same like girl with her head off to the side,
[21:23]a really color background. And I had them next to each other. And I was like, oh, look at this,
[21:26]welcome to murder week is so on Trent. So amazing. Well, and congratulations. I really love the
[21:34]wig ride. And this was such a fun book. And thank you for sharing it. Thank you. Thank you for
[21:40]helping me. It's nice to be back after all this time. Yeah. Okay, take care. Bye bye.
[21:47]Thank you for listening to totally booked with Zibi, formerly mom's don't have time to read books.
[21:52]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens
[21:58]and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and bye the books.