Suzanna Kamata Interviews Crime Writer Lea O’Harra

Authors Interviewing Authors

Suzanna Kamata Interviews Crime Writer Lea O’Harra

I first met crime writer Lea O’Harra over twenty years ago. She contacted me after reading a short story I had published in a journal in Japan and realizing that we lived on the same Japanese island. We quickly discovered that we had much in common. We had both grown up in the Midwest (me, in Michigan), spent time in France, come to the island of Shikoku to teach English and married Japanese men, were both mothers of bi-cultural children, and both aspiring novelists. Since that time, I have published several novels including, most recently The Baseball Widow, and O’Harra has published three crime novels set in Japan. Dead Reckoning, her latest, just out, is set partially in Indiana. I thought I’d catch up with O’Harra who is now living in England, and find out more about her newest release.

Kamata: For those readers who don’t know you, could you please tell a bit about your background?

O’Harra: From the age of three until I graduated from high school at eighteen I lived in a tiny town in northwest Indiana called Rolling Prairie – population 500. A student at Indiana University majoring in English, I spent my “Junior Year Abroad” at Lancaster University in England. On graduating with a BA with special departmental honors, I lived near Paris for a year, working for three months as an au pair. I then set up a kind of private school to teach English conversation to French housewives and businessmen. I returned to Lancaster to do an MA in 18thcentury English literature and subsequently got a scholarship to do a doctorate at Edinburgh University on the contemporary context of Alexander Pope’s published letters. As an Edinburgh graduate, I was invited to apply for a post at a newly opened university on the island of Shikoku in southwestern Japan: its dean had spent a sabbatical year at Edinburgh and wanted to establish a link between the two universities. I was employed full-time as an English professor for the next thirty-six years. I married a Japanese farmer and we had three sons. On retiring from my position in the spring of 2020, I moved back to Lancaster in the UK and alternate my time between my home here and the one I share with my husband in Takamatsu.

Kamata: You earned a doctorate degree in 18th century literature at Edinburgh University in Scotland, while studying alongside the likes of Philippa Gregory and Ian Rankin. Those writers also veered from academia into popular fiction. How did you go from writing academic articles to writing crime fiction?

O’Harra: I suppose anyone who studies English literature harbors a hankering to write. This is especially true, perhaps, of individuals who study literature at graduate level and go on to teach and engage in literary research. Philippa Gregory was a year above me, working on a doctorate on early novels of the eighteenth century, and we shared the same tutor, Geoffrey Carnall. I used to see her sitting on the floor by his office in the David Hume Tower, always wearing yellow dungarees. Ian Rankin was several years below me and often submitted stories he’d written to Cencrastus, a university literary journal founded in the wake of Scotland’s failed bid for devolution in 1979. I was an assistant editor for three years and regret to say we often rejected his stories! I didn’t know either Ian or Philippa – known then as ‘Pippa’ – well. I admire and applaud their great success! As for me, on moving to Japan, I published widely – articles, essays, book reviews and academic monographs – on English and Japanese literature. But at a certain point, I felt dissatisfied. I wanted to do something different! I was undoubtedly influenced by the example posed by my former fellow Edinburgh postgrads. I began a story about a murder at my university campus in Japan.

Kamata: Your previous three novels were set in Japan and featured Inspector Inoue, a male Japanese protagonist, which makes Dead Reckoning a bit of a departure. Why did you decide to set a novel in small town America?

O’Harra: My Inspector Inoue mystery series consists of three novels, each linked to a season. The first, Imperfect Strangers, published in 2015, is set in the summer; the second, Progeny, published in 2016, is set in the winter; and the third, Lady First, published in 2017, is set in the spring. On completing Lady First, I wanted to let some time elapse before I published a fourth and final book of the series, that would be set in the autumn, contemplating it would involve the aging and the deaths of several of the key figures. In 2018, I initially set myself the task of writing a family memoir. This eventually evolved into a crime fiction novel set in my hometown in Indiana: Dead Reckoning. It is more autobiographical than I’d like, to be honest. But in writing it, I think I’ve achieved the sort of catharsis I’d envisaged when originally embarking on a more straightforwardly confessional kind of novel.

Kamata: You are one of the most cheerful and positive people that I know. How do you account for the darkness in your novels?

O’Harra: I sometimes think that comedians are the saddest of individuals: that you must know intense grief to feel great joy, and that it is those who have experienced most keenly life’s ‘slings and arrows’ who are able to make the best jokes about disappointment and loss and sorrow.

Kamata: Who are some of your favorite crime writers?

O’Harra: Of course, I adore Agatha Christie. I admire the brisk efficiency of her characterization, the fiendishly clever ingenuity of her plots, and the many surprises she springs on her readers. I am not a fan of the explicit violence and gore of much recent crime fiction. Christie is described as a proponent of what is called “cozy crime” as opposed to “hard-boiled crime,” which is brutal and unsentimental. But I reject this categorization. Christie believed evil exists and portrayed thoroughly evil characters. Reading about their crimes and misdemeanors does not at all make for a “cozy” or “comfortable” experience.

Kamata: You recently retired from teaching at a Japanese university and relocated to Lancaster, England. How has that affected your writing? Any ideas for a novel set in the United Kingdom?

O’Harra: I love change! I’m very grateful to have been granted the opportunity to embark on a new phase of life. Here in the UK, I have faced many challenges and difficulties. In general, I welcome them, particularly as they are accompanied by many delights and pleasures. I believe we start dying when we stop learning. As for the effect my transition from Japan to Britain has had on my writing, I regret to admit it’s resulted in my not devoting myself to it as much as I should. There are so many distractions! I’m a volunteer at a nature reserve and at a theatre/cinema. I belong to a speech club and to a bowling club. I attend lectures and meetings on a variety of academic topics provided by the ‘u3a’ group here in Lancaster. I take long walks and cycle rides: the scenery around here is quite spectacular. I belong to a local gym that I visit three or four times a week. Having said all that, I am working on a fifth novel, but it will be a standalone crime fiction book set in Japan. If, in future, I write something about the UK, I think it will be a ‘slice of life’ novel rather than a murder mystery.

Kamata: Any advice for aspiring crime writers?

O’Harra: As for advice to aspiring crime writers, I think I would simply suggest they be “true to themselves.” That is, they should be conversant with the work of many mystery authors but, ultimately, they need to find the style and content that suits them best. It’s no good trying to copy or to imitate.

Kamata: What are you working on now?

O’Harra: As I’ve mentioned above, I’m working on one more murder mystery set in Japan, but it’s in the very early stages of composition, so I won’t say anything more about it!

Kamata: Anything else you’d like to add?

O’Harra: Finally, I would like to note down a few thoughts about crime fiction. Apparently, it is now the most popular literary genre in the western world, making up to 25 – 40% of all fiction sales. Why? Before making any generalizations, it is important to observe that, of course, crime fiction takes many forms, including the detective story, the courtroom procedural, the mystery novel, and the police novel. It is also an ancient genre, with The Arabian Nights (composed in the late 1200s) containing a story related by Scheherazade called “The Three Apples” that is a ‘whodunit’ with multiple plot twists. There are some who are attracted to the ‘puzzle’ aspect of crime fiction; others who simply like a ‘pageturner’ full of excitement and adventure; and still others who find in the murder mystery an investigation of human psychology. It is said that crime fiction can offer a vicarious relief, an escape from everyday life. As for me, I think its prime attraction is its investigation of the individual psyche and what motivates us to do what we do. I find that aspect of crime fiction fascinating!

Kamata: Thank you so much for your time and good luck with Dead Reckoning!

Suzanne Kamata was born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She is most recently from Lexington, South Carolina, and now lives in Tokushima Prefecture, Japan with her husband and two cats.

Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications including Real Simple, Brain, Child, Cicada, and The Japan Times. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award, an SCBWI Crystal Kite Award, an APALA YA Honor Award, and many others.