In her first novel for adults Word HunterTrue crime expert Stella Sands presents readers with an unusual and unique character: Maggie Moore, a brilliant nervous breakdown who also happens to be gifted with language. Not a common protagonist in crime novels, Maggie was originally created as a “morbidly obese woman who never left her bedroom. She solved crimes with her brain and the computer.” But over time, says Sands, “as I spent more and more time with her, she began to transform into a completely different person: a tattooed, pierced, motorcycle-riding, chain-smoking, mezcal-drinking, moon pie-eating, vulgar, compulsive daredevil.”
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(“I owe this turnaround to the fact that I have become friends with my alter ego,” Sands notes cheekily.)
Maggie, 21 years old and an outsider indeed, is studying forensic linguistics at a small-town college in Rosedale, a remote place in Florida. She is haunted by the disappearance of her childhood best friend Lucy when they were seven, and is generally a pretty tortured soul. Except that she is a genius when it comes to all things language, and that includes a love – an obsessive love – for such linguistic exercises as diagramming sentences, like here, Marlon Brando from the film, On the water:
Her favorite class is “The Language of Film,” taught by Professor Ditmire, a legendary film critic and author who Maggie also finds attractive. One day after class, he asks Maggie to come to his office because he has been contacted by the local police chief, who saw a documentary about the Unabomber and how he was eventually identified through word analysis with the help of family members. A cyber stalker is terrorizing a young woman, and the chief has sent a police officer named Silas Jackson “to investigate the matter in Rosedale in the hopes that someone here might do the same.”
Ditmire praises Maggie’s academic work and she impresses him with her knowledge of the Unabomber investigation and the linguistic details surrounding his capture. Interested, he asks? “Sure!” Maggie exclaims. The professor also asks Maggie to be his research assistant. This must be what heaven is like for Maggie.
She meets Jackson, who is a quiet guy to say the least – not exactly a match for Maggie’s intellectual loquacity in her inner life, let alone her outer life. An unlikely pair, but over time they manage to work together on the case.
Sands is both a playful and serious author who is deeply concerned with the nuances of language. Her extensive knowledge of her obviously beloved subject – the power of words – is impressive. The novel is full of schematic sentences – Maggie compulsively creates them in her head, and we learn that even the literary great Gertrude Stein was a schematic artist. She is quoted with the words: “I really don’t know if there has ever been anything more exciting than making sentence diagrams.”
***
Sands began writing true crime stories in a very atypical way. She explains what happened.
“When my daughter was little, we would go to Central Park… where dozens of children would play in what we called “our backyard.” When the group was about five years old, everyone dispersed and went to kindergarten at different schools, so the park no longer served as a daily retreat. 11 years later, I read this Daphne Abdellah was accused of disemboweling a man in Central Park. I wondered: Could this be the same two-year-old Daphne who played (there)?
And? “It turned out that it was. I was obsessed. How could a sweet little kid who lived on our block become a brutal killer? After months of thinking about it, I sent a synopsis of a book I wanted to write about the murder, along with a first chapter, to five true crime agents whose names I found online. Within a few days, I got four responses. I chose one agent. That’s how I came to the conclusion that there was nothing more I could do. Butchers with baby faces and how I started writing true crime stories.”
Why did a successful true crime author write a novel?
“Writing novels is a wonderful way to spend time—when the writing itself isn’t excruciating. I love my characters. I mean, I really, really love them. I’d rather spend time with them than most people I know. I love finding out what they’re going to do next. Is Maggie going to walk into a restaurant and yell, ‘Fuck you all,’ or is she going to sneak up on some single guy and grab his dick? In fiction, anything’s possible.” (Well, when you put it that way… absolutely.)
You set the story in Florida, which is actually quite fitting, because Florida is in many ways as crazy a place as Maggie is a person!
“Well, I was born there and have spent a lot of time there. I love this place. I am endlessly fascinated by the diversity of the people, the geography, the wildlife and almost every other aspect of life there. From the richest of the rich on the glittering coasts to the poorest of the poor picking tomatoes inland; from the subtropical pine forests to the swamps and bogs; from potentially deadly red ants, diamondback rattlesnakes and black widows to friendly, curious manatees and one of the oldest species on earth, the gopher tortoise… Florida has it all. And I haven’t even mentioned the ocean!”
And why a linguist as a heroine?
“I am fascinated by how words work in a sentence and how they can express exactly what we intend if we are careful with word choice, diction and syntax.
“I’m also fascinated by the order of words in a sentence. How, for example, starting with an adverbial clause instead of a subject can change the entire meaning, rhythm, and emphasis of a sentence: In other words, nuance. (Whether you like it or not, you’re going to the library. vs: You’re going to the library whether you like it or not. The former is stronger and starts with the admonition.)
“On a more academic level, linguistics is an introduction to phonetics, syntax, semantics and the like. These aspects give us the know-how to communicate effectively.”
OK, let’s look at the whole concept of sentence diagramming. Honestly, isn’t that just an outdated teaching method now? You and I both did it in seventh grade. And that was quite a while ago, at least for me!
“I fell in love with diagramming in middle school when my teacher asked us to create these ‘weird’ visual diagrams of sentences. As I Word HunterMaggie’s teacher said, “You’re not going to get anywhere, be nobody, if you can’t take sentences apart and put them back together.” My Ms. Barker told us kids the same thing. And since I wanted to be somebody and get somewhere… As it turns out, I was good at SD…”
Yes, but what do we learn by diagramming sentences?
“Basically, we learn how a sentence is constructed and how each word in a sentence relates to every other word. SD is a visual representation of that arrangement. A figure of speech, so to speak. As Willie Loman’s wife Linda said, ‘You have to pay attention,’ and that is definitely the case when diagramming. Every word, every single word, has its specific place in a diagram.”
Has your background in true crime influenced your crime writing?
“For a decade, writing about true crime stories gave me insight into the mindset, motives, and methods of murderers/serial killers. I also knew what my fictional villains shouldn’t do – mostly based on the mistakes the real guys made. I incorporated a lot of details from the psyche and methods of the villains into my crime stories.”
After six true crime books, you decided to stop. You mention several difficult – heartbreaking – events in your life that led you to this decision. Can you elaborate on what happened?
“While I was writing my sixth true crime book, my only sister died unexpectedly. A few months earlier, my husband had died. And in the two years before that, both my mother and father had died. I had felt I needed a change even before my sister died, but this event sealed my fate. I could no longer live in such total darkness, both in my life as a writer and in my personal day-to-day life.”
Yes, it must be very exhausting to be involved in the shameful deeds of such mentally ill people.
“Writing about true crime is difficult, at least for me, because I get involved in the lives of the victims’ families. I listen to their stories about their loved ones. I become their friends and their grief is heartbreaking.”
One aspect of Thought Hunter I was pleased to note (and I don’t think this is a spoiler) that you left some important loose ends unanswered at the end of the story… is a sequel in the works?
“Yup. I’m already in the middle of it. I can’t let Maggie go yet. She’s my best friend.”
Your readers might find the same thing true of her, Stella – her love of language, with all its beauty, strange rules and vocal quirks, is highly infectious, and of course Maggie is simply an unforgettable character.
