as told by Susanne M Dutton
It’s an absolute joy to have this guest post from Susanne Dutton, who channels the remarkable Dr. John Watson. And there’s more! Be sure to read all the way through for information about Susanne’s new book, Sherlock Holmes and the Remaining Improbable, as well as a $50 gift card giveaway.
Advice from Dr. John Watson, the man who has lived, on and off, with my hero, Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock Holmes and the Remaining Improbable is not a long book and yet for nearly three years I immersed myself in the history and the original cases by Conan Doyle. I aimed at a believable Dr. Watson, a comfy type of fellow, and a recognizable Holmes, intriguing and a bit dark, but revealing himself in new ways. Giving a character the key to 221B Baker Street doesn’t make him Holmes. Asking some bloke to bring the revolver (after opening the telegram) doesn’t make him Watson. Poet W. H. Auden wrote, “You shall love your crooked neighbor with your crooked heart.” I think right on characters have right on hearts, even if, as in Holmes’ case, it’s hard to find.
I want my reader to nod, thinking, “Yes. That’s Watson, all right,” when you read my book—or, “That’s definitely Holmes.” I hope you say to yourself, “That’s Watson’s big crooked heart and that’s Holmes’s (absolutely unacknowledged) crooked heart moving him in that story, doing its best by its crooked neighbor.”
Invited to share advice from a character, I tried a mind meld with Dr. Watson and channeled the following. If you can think of other pieces of Watson’s guidance, I’ll add them to the list and feature them on my blog, Inside221B.com. You can email me at Susanne@inside221b.com
1) If you find yourself sharing rooms with a stranger who takes dangerous drugs when he’s bored, adores the queen and sets up toxic chemistry experiments in the one common area you share, adapt as best you can.
2) If that same fellow claims to be the only consulting detective in London, humor him.
3) Agree to help your detective friend on his cases and write them up. You will share in his success. His glory will be mistaken for yours and you will find yourself meeting attractive, grateful women.
4) If you find yourself marrying any of these women, be sure it’s well known what happened to each of them before you marry again. Otherwise, history—and millions of Sherlockians—will wonder.
5) Don’t quit your day job. Living up close with Holmes, you will see the good in him, and you may find detective work inspiring. The truth is, he finds both your work as a physician and your gentle human courage as inspiring as you find his genius-driven adventurous detecting.
The game is not afoot. The Better-Every-Day world of 1895 is gone, even hard to recall as WWI ends. From his rural cottage, Holmes no longer provokes Scotland Yard’s envy or his landlady’s impatience, but neither is he content with the study of bees. August 1920 finds him filling out entry papers at a nearly defunct psychiatric clinic on the Normandy coast. England’s new Dangerous Drugs Act declares his cocaine use illegal and he aims to quit entirely. Confronted by a question as to his “treatment goal,” Holmes hesitates, aware that his real goal far exceeds the capacity of any clinic. His scribbled response, “no more solutions, but one true resolution,” seems more a vow than a goal to his psychiatrist, Pierre Joubert. The doctor is right. Like a tiny explosion unaccountably shifting a far-reaching landscape, the simple words churn desperate action and interlocking mystery into the lives of Holmes’ friends and enemies both.
An excerpt from Sherlock Holmes and the Remaining Improbable:
Watson speaks:
“For God’s sake, then, I must be the one to venture out to him! I know Holmes like no one else. He will not be surprised, or at least not angered, to see me here. He will be relieved. You must trust me on this.”
Joubert’s shook his head. “That was my plan. Just so, mon ami. That is exactly what I believed, and why I sent for you, John. But my speculation did not extend to this.” He gestured toward the windows. The only remaining piece of window glass, a shard big enough to slice off a foot, fell and shattered on the brick floor. I granted myself a sideways glance at Joubert as we both put our chins down and covered our heads again.
An uneasy suspicion took root in my mind, only a seed at first, but an idea that sprouted quickly. If Holmes was angry with this Joubert, then Holmes had reason to be. The detective, as I knew him, was disinclined to speak of his family. It was not impossible that a sister existed or had existed, though I had not seen one in the genealogy upstairs.
Further, how was I to know that the man next to me in the dark was truly the Pierre Joubert of high repute? Even if Holmes had returned to the cocaine, hadn’t I better treat this fellow’s explanations with wariness? Holmes’ addiction had never before affected his ability to adjudge good and evil. Unerringly, Sherlock Holmes recognized the enemy of the just.
Susanne Dutton is the one who hid during high school gym, produced an alternative newspaper and exchanged notes in Tolkien’s Elfish language with her few friends. While earning her B.A. in English, she drove a shabby Ford Falcon with a changing array of homemade bumper strips: Art for Art’s Sake, Forgive Us Our Trespasses, Free Bosie from the Scorn of History. Later, her interests in myth and depth psychology led to graduate and postgraduate degrees in counseling.
Nowadays, having outlived her mortgage and her professional counseling life, she aims herself at her desk most days; where she tangles with whatever story she can’t get out of her head. Those stories tend to seat readers within pinching distance of her characters, who, like most of us, slide at times from real life to fantasy and back. A man with Alzheimer’s sets out alone for his childhood home. A girl realizes she’s happier throwing away her meals than eating them. A woman burgles her neighbors in order to stay in the neighborhood.
Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Susanne grew up in the SF Bay Area, has two grown children, and lives with her husband in an old Philadelphia house, built of the stones dug from the ground where it sits.
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