Susan Kelly

Dominick Dunne's posthumous novel, Too Much Money, will be published on December 1, 2009 by Random House. The lead character is reporter Gus Bailey, whom Dunne's readers will remember from People Like Us, A Season in Purgatory, and Another City, Not My Own, Dunne's memoir in the form of a novel about the O.J. Simpson (more…)

...has died. He had been fighting bladder cancer for quite some time.

Despite his illness, he kept on writing. His posthumous novel, Too Much Money, will be published later this year.

He was a remarkable man, and a truly nice one. I'll be writing more about him later.

If you read my previous blog post, you're aware that "very literary" contemporary novels, at least according to the author of one such work, are by definition "slow and boring."

Another thing that struck me about my conversation with this writer was that she should so casually refer to herself as a writer of (more…)

A few years ago an acquaintance of mine had her first novel published. She and I were talking about the book one day, and she mentioned that her landlord was reading it. Then she remarked that she was very surprised he was doing so. When I asked her why, she replied, "Well, you know, (more…)

Well, this article title--it's from the August 13, 2009, issue of New Scientist--wins my award for Headline of the Day, or possibly of the week, or the year.

I had thought the article would be about some archaeologist exhuming Cleopatra's breast implants, but no...it turns out that boobies are a species of gannet that made (more…)

In 1998, I did an interview with Dominick Dunne, which was published that same year in The Country and Abroad. Following is an excerpt:

Kelly: What was your strangest experience as a reporter? I know you've had a lot of them.

Dunne: A lot. I really had a lot of them.

Kelly: What stands out (more…)

This is an excerpt from an interview I did with author Elinor Lipman. It first appeared in the September, 1999 issue of The Writer.

Susan Kelly: You started as a short story writer and abandoned that form for the novel. Was there any special reason for that?

Elinor Lipman: For me, short stories were developmental. (more…)

A number of people have asked me this question. Let me quote from the preface to the book, since that pretty much answers it:

November 8, 1981, was one of those lead-gray days when the sky seems very close to the earth. I was visiting the Cambridge, Massachusetts, Police Department to do research for what would (more…)

There was once a rule that the three subjects never to be discussed at dinner parties were religion, sex, and politics. Now it seems that the only things discussed at dinner parties are religion, sex, and politics.

With respect to House Hunters, it occurred to me that very few episodes of the show are filmed in New England. (Maybe they have been, and I just haven't seen them.) I wondered why, and the only reason I can think of is that traditional New England residential architecture simply doesn't lend itself to (more…)

I don't have cable. In fact, I no longer have television, since I never bothered to obtain that doohickey that converts analog to digital, or whatever. I do watch a lot of movies on my DVD player, so I'm not that hopelessly out of touch with the zeitgeist, if that's the word I want.

So (more…)