Author: paretsky
November 1, 2018
Courtenay Wright at 95
In between touring for Shell Game, mourning Pittsburgh, trying to do some election work, I celebrated my husband Courtenay’s 95th birthday. Kee Young-Kim, chair of the Department of Physics at the University of Chicago — where Courtenay taught and did research for 44 years — and her husband, physicist Sid Nagel — organized a wonderful celebration for Courtenay on October 30.
READ MORENovember 1, 2018
On Shell Game
“Clever and devilishly complicated”—The Oklahoman “Shell Game could hardly be more timely with its pointed riffs on #MeToo, the brutality of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the long reach of […]
READ MORESeptember 21, 2018
An Open Letter to Senators Hatch and Grassley: It’s Not too late to leave your gang
When Trish McReynolds’s beautiful husky was shot by a macho, gun-toting neighbor, she sobbed “Why”? to her mother, who replied helplessly, “Because he could. He had the power.”
That hard answer came back to us as we listened to Sen. Grassley and the Con-Avenue Gang try to bully Dr. Ford into silence, just as Judge Kavanaugh tried to silence her 36 years ago, (allegedly) lying on top of her with his hands over her mouth.
May 18, 2018
And once again, the backroom deals reign supreme
As most people know, Barack Obama is planning his presidential legacy center for the part of Chicago’s south side where he lived and taught law before become a U.S. Senator and then President. This isn’t a presidential library, which will be built in some other, as yet undisclosed location, but a private facility.
READ MOREMay 7, 2018
Out-take from Shell Game
When I started writing Shell Game 20 months ago, I imagined at first that it would center on a Syrian poet. My poet was called Tarik Kataba and he was in the U.S. illegally. He had been imprisoned and tortured by Bashar. When he was released, he fled and made his way here through what John le Carré called “the soft routes.”
READ MOREMay 1, 2018
Agency
When Dorothy Salisbury Davis turned eighty, I flew to New York for her birthday. She wasn’t feeling well, and during the three days I spent with her she finally admitted to some bleeding and a low-grade fever. I urged her to let me take her to her doctor but she was adamantly opposed.
READ MOREMarch 24, 2018
Remarks at the ACLU Lunch
March 23 the Illinois ACLU held a fundraising lunch, where we were reminded how close to the edge of losing our Constitutional protections the current occupant is pushing us. We get caught in the daily battles for reproductive health care or protecting immigrants and forget that Congress is abrogating its right and its duty to uphold the separation of powers.
READ MOREFebruary 6, 2018
Head trip
You ever have conversations in your head with important people where you get to change the course of events? Here’s one of mine: So I’m on the phone with my girl Angie and I say, girlfriend, we gotta send one back to you. The Drumpf family from Kallstadt, you know?
READ MOREJanuary 4, 2018
It Occurs to Me that I am America
Lotty Herschel is in prison in my short story, “Safety First.” This story is one of many original stories and pieces of art created for the anthology It Occurs to Me that I am America. All royalties from the sale of this book will go to the ACLU as they fight for our Constitutional rights.
READ MOREOctober 31, 2017
Chiara’s Third Anniversary
It was three years ago today that Chiara came into our lives, courtesy of Christina Yohe in Missouri. In May, we had lost our beautiful girl, Callie, to a bone tumor that pressed into her brain, and I was not ready for another dog.
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