My guest today is Laurie Hanan, author of the Louise Golden Mysteries
and a personal friend of mine here in Honolulu. Laurie recently published her
third novel in the series, Another Day in Paradise. Each novel is set in
Hawaii, and more specifically, on the island of O’ahu. By the third novel, many
of the questions have already been asked and answered, so I dug deep to ask
more obscure but interesting questions of Laurie.
GAIL: Welcome, and thank you for joining us today, Laurie. Each of
your novels offers the reader a closer look at your protagonist and an opportunity
for you to showcase your evolution as a writer. One of the joys of reading an
ongoing series is the anticipation of revisiting familiar characters and
sharing another adventure with them. An added bonus with your series is for
readers to also experience real-time life in Hawaii. While it may not be the
same as that portrayed on Hawaii 5-0, that is mainly because Steve MacGarrett
doesn’t pop up in our lives all that often! You do have one supporting
character in particular, a polo player, who does offer that special dazzle in Another
Day in Paradise. What’s the back story on him?
LAURIE HANAN: I assume you are referring to the blond Brazilian,
Felipe. My method is to start with a tight outline, but stay open to allowing
scenes and characters to detour from the original outline as I write. Felipe is
a good example of how that happens. First, let me say Felipe is an entirely
fictional character, created in my imagination. I intended for him to be a
minor character. But as I wrote him into the story, he grew into a much more
interesting and complicated fellow. I went with the flow and let Felipe
develop. In fact, at the end of the story, Felipe caught me by surprise. Now
I'm sure he'll have to come back as a regular.
GAIL: One of the top questions asked of authors is, “Where do you
get your ideas?” It is also one of the most difficult to answer because of its
broad scope, in the vein of “What do you want out of life?” To narrow the focus
of the question, let me pick a specific area of your latest Louise Golden
mystery. Louise takes the neighbor children to a polo match where she meets a
rather sexy man. Why did you choose to set scenes at a polo match in Hawaii?
LAURIE HANAN: My sixteen-year-old daughter has been working as a
groom's apprentice at the Mokulēia polo field on the North Shore for about two
years now. She also takes polo lessons and plays in off-season skirmishes with
the professional polo team members. Naturally, I've spent a good deal of my
time at the polo field and have gotten to know many of the regulars there. I
absolutely love horses, and Mokulēia is one of the most beautiful parts of
O'ahu. It seemed natural to have part of my book take place in that setting. I
also wanted to share with my readers who may not be aware that polo is a popular
sport in Hawaii and very much a part of the culture and history of the islands.
And I will reiterate, the sexy Brazilian polo player is purely a figment of my
imagination--so girls, don't go out to the polo field hoping to find someone
like Felipe.
GAIL: Your protagonist, Louise Golden, is a mail carrier. Ever
since the term “going postal” surfaced, it is not so difficult to suspend
disbelief that a mail carrier can become involved in a mystery of murder. You
were a postal worker also, and while I don’t believe you have ever been
involved in a murder, can you tell us some of the experiences you did have on
the job?
LAURIE HANAN: For eighteen years I worked at the Honolulu Airport
facility as a distribution clerk. That means I worked inside the building sorting
letters, magazines, and parcels. Tempers flared from time to time. Supervisors
were occasionally threatened with bodily harm. But as far as I know, nobody
ever brought a gun to work. There was one stabbing while I worked there, but
that was a lover's quarrel. Just like in my first book, Almost Paradise, there
was said to be a ghost or two residing in the building. There were a few eerie occurrences.
For the most part, the situations Louise encounters in my books are made up.
GAIL: One of my favorite subjects is food, an eclectic variation
of foods such as chicken katsu, deep-fried lake perch, sashimi, and pie. What
are some of the Hawaiian favorites that receive mention in Another Day in
Paradise and why do they have enough importance in your life to warrant
mention in the novel?
LAURIE HANAN: Like myself, Louise is an animal lover and therefore
a vegetarian. This means her enjoyment of local foods is somewhat limited, as
mine is. There is less focus on food in the third book in the series. She does
have a lychee and li hing flavored shave ice at the polo field. This is one of
my favorite indulgences. For lunch she stops to pick up sushi one time and
vegetable manapua another time.
GAIL: Religious tolerance is a vital foundation of our “One nation
under God.” Recently, I read a newspaper article stressing the idea that we do
not have to believe the teachings of another’s faith to respect each other’s
faith. Ideology is often an evolution of ideas that even President Obama and
Governor Romney exhibit in their lives. In your novels, the protagonist
reflects this tolerance. Were your personal ideas about religious tolerance
formed early, or were they influenced by life experiences such as travel?
LAURIE HANAN: I grew up in Hawaii and the Mariana Islands.
Especially here in Hawaii, we are surrounded by a wonderful smorgasbord of
cultures and religions. All my life I've been exposed to people from all
religious backgrounds. Only as an adult, though, I have opened my mind to the
possibility that there is something to be learned from all religions. Maybe
some of that understanding has come through my travels, but much of it I've
discovered right here at home. While I practice a conservative form of the
Jewish faith, I have come to believe that religion is merely man's attempt to
explain the unexplainable, to grasp the untouchable. Religion is the proverbial
finger pointing to the moon. Too many people, sadly, have mistaken the finger
for the moon. I believe Truth resonates with our souls, if we would only pay
attention. Truth can come to us from many sources. Each of us would do well to
embrace Truth when we come across it, regardless of the source of that Truth. I
intentionally created my protagonist, Louise, as someone who grew up with no
religious background, and had little use for religion. In the first book, Almost
Paradise, religion doesn't enter her thoughts. In the second book, How
Far is Heaven?, Louise is forced to confront her Jewish heritage for the
first time at her father's funeral. She discovers she was baptized in the
Catholic church as an infant. She also gets to know Freddy, who is a Jew-Bu, a
follower of both the Jewish and Buddhist faiths. It isn't until the third book,
Another Day in Paradise, that Louise begins to explore her own religious
path. I hope many readers will relate to Louise's search for Truth, and her
quest to understand herself.
Look for Laurie Hanan on the Internet at these sites:
ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE:
