Family Reunion at Malice Domestic

by Leigh Perry

My mother was a Reece, and when I was younger, our family would try to attend the Reece Family Reunion every year. It was a typical Southern-style family reunion, as far as I can tell. Everybody would bring a dish: a ham, a green bean casserole, or a apple pie made from scratch. Though there was nothing official, there was always a sense of competition to see whose dish got emptied first. (Since we had to come from a distance--from Florida to North Carolina--we were usually the ones with a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. But it got eaten, too.) There would be prizes for youngest attendee, oldest attendee, and the family that had come the furthest. (Since we came up from Florida, we almost always got that one. I seem to recall that it was usually an ashtray.) We'd try to catch up on each other's lives: kids, jobs, homes, and so on. And there was a whole lot of hugging.

I spent this past weekend at Malice Domestic, and it occurred to me that it was an awful lot like those family reunions.

Okay, we didn't have the covered dish dinner, but it does feel as if I spent half the time eating. Dinner with Karen Olson and her husband, lunch with my former editor Ginjer Buchanan, dinner with my agent Joshua Bilmes, lunch with Janet Hutchings of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, the Agatha banquet, breakfast with Dina Wilner and other friends, the Agatha tea... And while there was no particular competition on the food, there's always a bit of a contest for most interesting swag, either at the Malice-Go-Round event or as party favors at the Agatha Banquet.

Just like at a reunion there were awards, though the Agatha Awards, which are considerably more prestigious than the Furthest Traveled award. And the Agatha teapot is a much better prize than an ashtray.

The catching up with people took most of the weekend. Panels about upcoming books and series; hall conversations about the television show Vera; shared photos of kids and pets; and plenty of gossip about the industry.

And of course there was hugging. So much hugging.

Now that I think about it, there was one other big similarity between the Reece Family Reunion and Malice Domestic. You see, there were a lot of Reeces, and I didn't always know who everybody was or how I was related to them. My mother could usually explain it, but every once in a while, Mama was stumped, too. So she'd just say, "Well, they're family." That's how it is at Malice. I don't know everybody, or whether we like the same books or not, but we're still family.

 

 

Comments

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

What wonderful memories! Thank you for this!