[Note from Steve: If you’ve downloaded “Mayhem, Murder, and Music,” the free collection of short crime fiction—see the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page if you haven’t—you know that music often inspires me. It’s always been part of my life. I even attempted once to write a Broadway-style musical based on Huxley’s Ape and Essence (it’s now shredded—I didn’t get much further than a rousing march, “Seventy-Six Trombones” in an apocalyptic setting). This series of posts was also inspired by music. I might even repeat some of the songs from that collection! Enjoy.]

You might recognize the snippet of the title as lyrics from a Janis Joplin song? I prefer the Kris Kristofferson version of “Me and Bobby McGee”; after all, he wrote the song! And his C&W mellow baritone belting out the song is much more satisfying than Joplin’s screechy, cat-fighting rendition. (Janet, not one to respect copyrights, unfortunately changed the lyrics too, including the snippet in the title.) I’ve always seen the song as unrequited love, something hard to see with the Joplin version.

What! Author Steven M. Moore is a romantic? You’re justified in thinking just the opposite, of course. I don’t, won’t, and can’t write fluffy romances or erotica. The sci-fi rom-com Time Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse came the closest. And the love between the main characters therein is hardly unrequited! It isn’t often unrequited in other novels as well.

Pam Stuart and Detective Castilblanco held the record of unrequited love until Esther Brookstone and Bastiann van Coevorden tied it. In both cases, love was “unrequited” for only two novels in the corresponding series. And I wouldn’t exactly call what they experienced before tying the knot unrequited either.

But Kristofferson’s song is more complex because it also makes me think of the “road trip” story, where two free souls come together in unusual circumstances and draw closer as the journey progresses. The African Queen with Hepburn and Bogart is a good early example from Hollywood; so is Thelma and Louise. The entire Indiana Jones series can be seen as one long romantic road trip, although Indy and his true love interest aren’t together most of the time.

It’s strange that I can’t recall a serious novel that’s just a romantic road trip. Of course, my memory isn’t super-sized by any stretch of the imagination. The only one that comes to mind is Le Carré’s Little Drummer Girl, and that’s only part of that novel. Modesty aside, I could again use Time Traveler’s Guide… as an example, a romantic road trip to beat all road trips! It’s a comedy, though, a bit slap-sticky, ribald, and tongue-in-the-cheek. (Most reviewers lamentably seemed to miss the point.) Aristocrats and Assassins might be another example, as well as Rembrandt’s Angel, but the road trips aren’t the main theme in either novel, even though the protagonists move around a lot.

Romance and road trips aren’t main themes in my novels. They’re present in some (Mary Jo Melendez has several in her series, for example, and enjoys a bit of romance in the process), simply because romance is part of life and my characters do travel around a bit, as my motto “Around the world and to the stars!” indicates. The reason for this neglect might not be obvious: There’s a lot more to life than romance and road trips.

I celebrate life, not just a few of its aspects. I don’t, won’t, and can’t constrain my prose, wherever it leads me, and I rarely like fiction that seems too constrained and narrowly focused. I do like Kristofferson’s song, though—his version, not Joplin’s.

***

Comments are always welcome.

Two more “Esther Brookstone” novels. Did you miss them? Maybe you thought Esther’s adventures ended with the story of her honeymoon with Bastiann, Death on the Danube? No, there are more adventures involving crimes back in merry old England after the couple returns home. In #4, Palettes, Patriots, and Prats, they befriend an American artist, only to find there’s a lot more to her troubles than expected. In #5, Leonardo and the Quantum Code, everyone wants to steal new algorithms for quantum computers based on ideas of Leonardo Da Vinci. If you love the idea of 21^st versions of Miss Marple (Esther) and Hercule Poirot (Bastiann), don’t miss any of the books in this series.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

 

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