Barbara Neely, author of the acclaimed “Blanche Mystery” series, spoke last night at Northeastern University’s Ford Hall Forum regarding her literary success as a socially concerned fiction writer.
“In some ways I feel like a fraud, because I don’t know anything about mystery stories. Writing mystery stories is a mystery to me,” Neely said.
Inspired by legendary black authors Langston Hughes and Zora Neal Hurston, Neely tries to portray black women in an inspiring light.
“I only intended to have one book,” she said. “I only wanted to write about race, class, gender and the absurdity of all three.”
As the divisions between classes widen in our culture, Neely argued that her subjects, reality-based characters who struggle to work in the service industry, are often forgotten as a key element of society.
Neely noted that worldwide, female workers are predominantly subject to service and agricultural work with little access to positions of authority.
She dispelled the American myth that the average woman is a member of the middle class, instead concluding women are continually found — like her literary character Blanche — in the most demanding and underpaid service industries.
She argued that her central character is a depiction of a real black woman.
Blanche works as a maid for a white family and lives in a microcosm of black reality, according to Neely. She solves small crimes and mysteries, revealing through her social interactions that race, class and gender persist to be defining aspects of our interactions.
Her novels include everyday black women who are “frightened and wrong at times, but familiar. I wanted women who looked to their families and to their communities.”
“The poor, working class, resourceful, worldly, intuitive women [of my novels] are behavioral feminists,” in that they may not know of leaders in the feminist movement, but are akin to the need for gender equality in their everyday lives, Neely said.
Even though her character is not autobiographical, she argued that “every chapter that you write is about some part of who you are,” and contains some part of her own experiences.
Neely described the mystery genre, saying she is able to use “serious issues in a funny way that doesn’t frighten anyone, but also doesn’t let anyone off the hook.”
Neely described how she uses issues of modern day importance to enliven the mystery genre.
“Non-fiction teaches facts, whereas fiction teaches how the world works,” she said.
Each of her novels take place in different locations of political, racial and economic adversity. For her third novel, Neely chose local Roxbury to explore pregnancy, gangs, homophobia and the environment.
She chose Boston, accordingly, for its persistent problems with racism, but more importantly she argues is the current societal problem of colorism.
“Boston’s still very much a segregated community and workplace,” she explained
Since her first novel in the series, “Blanche on the Lam” was published, Neely has gone on to write four subsequent mysteries featuring her popular black housekeeper/mystery solver.
Roben Dickerson, a student at the Boston Technical Academy, was one of several students struck by the authenticity of Neely’s work in combating often neglected social problems.
“What she was able to do was express her feelings about the real world,” Dickerson said. “She shows [in her work] how her character interacts with society.”
Neely promised the series, which has recently been optioned for film rights, will definitely have more installments led by her intelligent, independent and inspiring heroine to investigate mysteries while living amid societal prejudice.
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