A look at women's rights over a lifetime with Sara Paretsky

My Q&A with the author and fervent feminist about empowerment

Jul 23, 2024

Photo credit: Shauna Bittle/Chicago Tribune

Sara Paretsky revolutionized the mystery world in 1982 when she introduced V.I. Warshawski in Indemnity Only. By creating a detective with the grit and smarts to take on the mean streets, Paretsky challenged a genre in which women historically were vamps or victims. V.I. struck a chord with readers and critics; Indemnity Only was followed by twenty more V.I. novels. Her voice and her world remain vital to readers; the New York Times calls V.I., “a proper hero for these times,” adding, “to us, V.I. is perfect.”

While Paretsky’s fiction changed the narrative about women, her work also opened doors for other writers. In 1986 she created Sisters in Crime, a worldwide organization to advocate for women crime writers, which earned her Ms. Magazine’s 1987 Woman of the Year award. More accolades followed: the British Crime Writers awarded her the Cartier Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement; Blacklist won the Gold Dagger from the British Crime Writers for best novel of 2004, and she has received the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from a number of universities.

Paretsky detailed her journey from Kansas farm-girl to New York Times bestseller in her 2007 memoir, Writing in an Age of Silence, which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. In addition, Paretsky has written two stand-alone novels, Ghost Country, and Bleeding Kansas, set in the part of rural Kansas where Paretsky grew up. She has published several short story collections, most recently Love & Other Crimes, and has edited numerous other anthologies.

As the creator of a beloved detective in V.I. Warshawski, now featured in over 20 novels, why was it important to you to have a character who was a woman challenging the typical character arcs of the time?

I’ve been writing stories since I was a child, but for a long time, I didn’t think about showing them to anyone else, let alone publishing them. Then, around the time I turned thirty, I realized that I really wanted to write a novel.

I loved detective fiction, but I was troubled by the way women were traditionally portrayed in that genre. Typically, they were either vamps, who used their bodies to try to get good boys to do bad things, or they were sexually chaste, but unable to solve their own problems. All the women I knew could have sex lives and still be moral human beings, capable of solving not just their personal problems, but also thornier problems in the world at large. I felt it was time to have a woman detective who reflected that reality.

What response did you receive from the media? And how has your work helped to open the door for other women mystery writers?

The first book was published in 1982, when print was the dominant medium for books. Although my sales were modest, the reviews came from all over the country and were very strong.

As for what I’ve done to support other women writers, I started Sisters in Crime in 1986 in response to a range of problems facing women mystery writers. Some were issues of attitude, but others had a direct negative effect on our careers. Many of us encountered both fans and male writers at crime conferences who assumed we did this as a hobby, not as a serious vocation.

These attitudes so permeated the publishing and reading worlds that books by women received short shrift from reviewers, libraries, and booksellers. Books with women protagonists were often marginalized if they were published at all. As a result, women’s books stayed in print for shorter periods than books by men, which meant women had a harder time getting subsequent books published.

Sisters in Crime began addressing these serious professional issues. We started a Book Review Project to track reviews, and we found that—adjusting for the male/female ratio in books published—books by men were reviewed 7 times as often as books by women (this all refers to crime fiction). We found that books by women writers stayed in print on average for a third the length of time that books by men did. These data points severely affected women’s ability to earn a living as writers. With the Book Review Project, with books in print, and with our presence at ALA and Book Expo, we have gone a long way to eradicate this discrimination.

Every time we stop our vigilance with the Book Review Project, we find that discrimination re-emerges. It is therefore critical that we continue this work.

To join Sisters in Crime, go to www.sistersincrime.org and you will get all the information you need about local chapters and how to become a member.

You’ve been a fervent feminist your entire life. How do you view this activism in the context of your lifetime?

The overriding themes of my life and work have to do with voice and voicelessness. When you speak, and speak forcefully enough to be heard, you are committing a political act. Speech in our country in many arenas continues largely to be the purview of men. Even today, young women doctors report that attending physicians ignore their diagnoses and wait to hear the same words spoken by a man while making rounds. My detective is a physical actor, but her main function is to speak forcefully for people on society’s margins.

What advice do you have for younger generations of women activists?

I love the work that young women are doing. I love the way they’re using social media and the political strategies that they’re designing. I don’t think I have advice for them at the detail level, because they understand how to work with modern media in a way that I don’t . My main advice is to form communities that support each other because the way is rough and steep; you need good friends at your side to keep from getting discouraged and quitting.

What do you hope your legacy will be?

I hope that we can deal with our serious climate crisis in a way that makes it possible for future generations to continue to enjoy books and storytelling.