Cozies

Racketty Packetty House #9

cozies

I see you every day, hard working, kid loving, community caring people with not enough time for yourselves. Yesterday you all were perfectly manifested in a lovely, tired young mommy of 5 week old twins. All she wanted was something she could read in short increments, a story that would keep her company but not break her heart. There are places in our lives for powerful literature, tales of loss, betrayal and deepest sorrow, novels which examine the bitter and dark places of the human condition. But, sometimes, we need stories that will just keep us company by introducing us to small communities where common life is lived with one or two surprises. These are the books that I call cozies.

Cozy is a very valuable and under-appreciated word. Its origin is unknown, perhaps Norwegian, and its first known date is 1709 meaning: warmth. As a noun it is a covering for a teapot, of either padded or knitted fabric, intended to keep the pot and thus the tea warm. In our post-modern, cynical world, cozy is a suspect term, disingenuous at best and delusional at worst. Well, too bad, because sometimes we need a good cozy to relax us and knit up our frazzled nerves. We need stories of community and difficult relatives and the small comings and goings of basically good people.

Although most cozies are mysteries, there are prominent exceptions in regular fiction. Maeve Binchey weaves tight, clear eyed tapestries of small Irish communities dealing with the friction between traditional and modern life. Circle of Friends is her most famous but Scarlet Feather and Whitethorn Wood are every bit as good. On this side of the pond, the great Fanny Flagg, who does not write fast enough, tells small stories about home towns that call through the years to those who leave. Flagg’s work always carries a single punch that shakes up the reader and pulls the whole book together (dang she is good). Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is Fanny’s best known book but Welcome to the World Baby Girl and all of the rest of her all-too-small oeuvre are Southern treats of the highest quality.

Sometimes, in the genre of cozies, old glories can be regained. Regency Romances can be absolutely terrible, hackneyed with little dialogue and badly drawn characters. But the colossus who invented the genre has returned to remind us just how good Regency romances can be: Georgette Heyer wrote from the middle 1920’s till the early 1950’s and hers are without question the funniest and most lively, with the best drawn characters, of any romances ever written. They are true comedies of manners and Mme. Heyer is second only to Jane Austen in her language. About three months ago a customer and I were bemoaning the absence of Heyer on the open market. I went to the computer and found a miracle. Harlequin, who owns the Heyer rights for the US market, has put out a full, unified edition in trade paperback. What larks, to have the great master back.

For most readers, a true cozy is a mystery. Although Jane Marple may appear cozy to the uninitiated, with her garden and her knitting, don’t be fooled. Dame Christie has one character refer to Miss Marple as Nemesis, meting out justice without mercy. Besides, Christie isn’t happy unless at least three people are dead.

The true cozy is a small mystery, only one corpse and an amateur sleuth to unravel the tale. Cozies come in series and almost always have a female protagonist . Relationships is a hallmark, with the heroine accompanied by a group of friends and relations, willing to help, often getting in the way and continuing from one book to all others. Cozies may have important male characters and the finding of true love by our central character is often a secondary theme for the series. Unlike the gumshoe/shamus mysteries of Chandler/Hammett et al, the women of cozies have jobs and often small businesses that bring them in contact with a larger community. Most of these books take place in small towns that can support the tea shops (Laura Childs), bakeries (Joanne Fluke), quilting and knitting emporia (Mary Danheim) and book stores (Lorna Barrett) that makeup the cozy universe.

In one very fanciful series, a young mother and townie is aided in her investigations by very helpful and loving ghost (Nancy Atherton.) If the setting is a city, our intrepid amateurs stick to one neighborhood where everyone knows them and they can always find parking . Cozies are idealized us, working and living and by the way solving dreadful murders.

This is why we love cozies. The lives of the heroines are not too much different from ours. They are brave and smart and loyal and have friends who love them. They also fight the good fight for justice and often mercy. Lost treasures are found, bad marriages end and the dead find rest. These books are perfect for beaches and pools and any little space of time you might have to yourselves.

Please, enjoy.