Grandma Blessings

Like you, I’m counting my blessings this week. . .naming them one by one. Near the top of my I THANK YOU LORD FOR ___ list, I’ve written: THE PERFECT JOB FOR ME.

I don’t take for granted the prized gift I’ve been given by Barbour. I mean, they actually PAY me to read the kind of books I love most—mysteries!

I enjoy trying to solve a story’s puzzle long before the conclusion, and I reward myself if my skills of deduction prove accurate. Another thing I love about the cozy mystery genre is the fact that I can often relate to the protagonists. A traditional cozy often relies on an, er-hum, “more mature” heroine to solve the mystery. And as much as I’d like to ignore the obvious, I eased across that invisible line of demarcation years ago.

A look around Barbour’s editorial and marketing departments emphasizes this generation gap. I’m definitely the grandma of the group. I’ve got kids older than most of the employees in our wing of the company. But you know what? I’m okay with that. (At least today.) Riding on the tailgate of the Baby-boomer Generation brings its share of benefits—and I’m definitely not riding alone.

In an online article entitled “Shades of gray in fiction,” Los Angeles Times Staff Writer Maria L. La Ganga writes:

Since America's 78 million baby boomers started turning 60 last year, dozens of novels with graying protagonists and late-life themes have hit the nation's bookstores, adding a few new wrinkles to the face of contemporary fiction and underscoring a sobering fact about readers in America: The most avid book-lovers are 50 and older.

Increasingly, so are the characters they're reading about. And "the novelists are getting older" too, said Jane Friedman, president and CEO of HarperCollins Worldwide. "It's really the graying of America. . . . This is not a trend. I think it's the zeitgeist."

Novels "are going to now have to have characters that the aging population recognizes," she said, and "you're going to start seeing all of those books in larger print."

(read the full article at: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-boomlit15nov15,1,781908.story?ctrack=1&cset=true)

The lyrics to that traditional Thanksgiving song hold new meaning for me now. “Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house we go. . .” now that means they are coming to see ME.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Count your blessings, name them one by one!

Susan Downs