THE BLUE PLACE by Nicola Griffith

Reviewed by Blase DiStefano

[This interview ran in OutSmart magazine, September 1998.]


"People often say to me, 'Aud, how can you stand the heat?' but I love it. I love to feel the sun rub up against my pale northern skin, love its fingers reaching down into muscle and bone. I grew up with subzero fjord winds edged with spicules of ice.... The American South suits me just fine."

THE BLUE PLACE suits me just fine.

Griffith's heroine is an ex-cop, Aud Torvingen, born in Norway and transplanted to Atlanta, Georgia. One April night while strolling the sidewalks, taking in Atlanta's lush atmosphere, she bumps into a running woman; within seconds a nearby house explodes. Soon after, the woman, Julia Lyons-Bennett, contacts Aud for protection, at which point Aud is drawn back into a world of drugs and murder. It's a world that Aud finds irresistible. The danger is appealing to Julia as well, and the two women come together in more ways than one.

In THE BLUE PLACE, Griffith--whose two previous works, AMMONITE and SLOW RIVER, have both received Lambda Literary Awards--gives us a three-dimensional character in the highly intelligent and remarkably fit Aud Torvingen.

For some of you women out there, she would be a fantasy come true. For this gay male, there's no erotic appeal; however, her strength is exceedingly appealing. She's a strong, self-assured woman who I would love to have on my side in even a slightly rough, semi-tough situation. Torvingen apparently has these same traits in common with the author, who taught women's self-defense to groups as diverse as the Equal Opportunities Training Unit and the Union of Catholic Mothers!

But in the end, THE BLUE PLACE is about the well-written story. Griffith pulls you into a world unlike yours (or so I would imagine) and maintains your interest through the solution to the murders and the resolution of the relationship between the book's two fascinating femme lead characters.

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