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But to do that, I had to build the entire seventh century, and to do that, I had to know what was known. So I researched every single fucking thing about the late sixth and early seventh centuries I could find; I research for 15 years. Climate data, analysis of skeletal remains (human and animal), jewellery, metallurgy, agriculture, flora and fauna, building techniques, charcoal manufacture, and textile production. Especially textile production. Fairly late in the process I learned that, by one estimate, Anglo-Saxon women spent 65% of their time on textile production. Think about that: more time on cloth than on sleeping, childcare, and food preparation combined.
Textile production was the tech industry of the seventh century: it lay at the heart of everything. And given the evidence of language, women owned it, in every settlement from farmstead to royal vill. That single fact must have influenced every aspect of life, just as it influenced the novel.
Smith
I felt the same way with Aud—who is in many ways the model of the noir detective, but whose relationships—especially with other women—suggest questions about the sexism that permeates some detective fiction. Aud seems baffled by women who don’t claim their own agency, but you subtly turn notions of women as the weaker sex on their heads throughout the series. Can you talk about what it was like creating Aud as a character in a long line of mostly male detectives? What questions, if any, did the process bring up for you about the genre?
Griffith
So much crime fiction, whether mysteries, police procedurals, hardboiled, noir, cozies, or thrillers, is about the status quo: restoring it by solving a murder; operating outside it, in the case of maverick PIs; shoring it up in terms of the international order for spy
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