Baltimore is a city that traps Laura Lippman. The author herself, one of the most renowned crime writers in the United States, recognized this during her visit to Barcelona for the BCNegra festival. A large part of her stories are located in this city, hers, since she has lived there for years. “For me it is easier to talk about a place that I know like the back of my hand,” she confesses to La Vanguardia. In her 23rd novel, The Lady of the Lake, recently arrived in bookstores by Salamandra Black, she does it again and for this she starts from two real crimes that happened in the city at the end of the 60s.
“One of the cases I remembered from my childhood. It marked me quite a bit. A missing white girl. There was a lot of echo in the local and national media to find her whereabouts. On the other hand, I did not know about the victim of the other crime until I started working as a journalist at The Baltimore Sun —where, by the way, she met her husband David Simon, the writer, screenwriter and creator of the hit series The Wire, also set in Baltimore.
The reason for this media inequality? The writer is clear about it: “She was a low-class black woman. She was also a single mother and worked in a nightclub. The newspapers considered that her death did not matter to society. The same thing happened with the Police, who ended up archiving the case and there was not much echo either. It is unfortunate. In her writing, they baptized her as the lady of the lake because her body was found floating in the fountain of the lake of the city zoo ”. In her book, Lippman gives her the name Cleo Sherwood, although her real name was Shirley Parker.
The saddest thing of all is that this is not an isolated case. This classism and silence of the media towards a certain sector of society is something that is still present today. I can't remember the last time a woman of color disappeared and that issue was deemed worthy of national news," she denounces.
The other great protagonist of the novel is Madeline Schwartz, a woman who has been married for almost two decades to one of the representatives of local high society who is the clear incarnation of the perfect woman.
“Maddie is a product of my imagination. But I found it interesting to introduce into the plot a woman who, at thirty-seven years old, decides to give up everything and start a new life. A fact to admire, and more if we take into account that the novel is set in the 60s. She feels that she has wasted her time and wants to shine. Therefore, as soon as she sees the opportunity, she becomes a reporter for the Star newspaper ”. It will be she who sheds light on the facts, despite the general indifference.
Of course, the author warns, “being ambitious is often taken as something positive and I think it is an adjective that is far from being a compliment. But I will let the reader himself give his opinion once he finishes reading ”.
Told from multiple points of view, the novel is not only the story of a criminal investigation, but also the story of a relationship between two women who, although they never met, expressed their commitment to fight against their destiny.
The novel, which was a hit with American readers after its publication, will soon have an adaptation on the small screen. In fact, Lippman advances that it has already been shot and that it is in the post-production phase. "There is no exact date yet, but it is expected to arrive on Apple TV next fall."
