Sue Grafton

About Sue Grafton

Sue Taylor Grafton was born (from the gods' lap) on 24 April 1940 in Louisville, KY and lived to the age of 77, passing away on 28 December 2017 in her beloved Santa Barbara.

She was a U.S.-based writer of mysteries (more commonly known today as "crime fiction") of the "hardboiled" style, widely known for her "alphabet series" of novels featuring a feisty female private investigator by the name of Kinsey Millhone. This was a significant innovation at the time, and paved the way for many other female authors, and female protagonists, to come. They are also just a damned good read on your downtime.

Through no fault of her own, I'm sure, Ms. Grafton graduated from the University of Louisville and apparently (if the statements of other contemporaries can be believed) retained her Southern accent throughout her life. Frankly, to me, she has always "read" like a northeasterner who relocated to the West Coast with a certain imported skepticism, but this just shows how much I know. Although her active period is listed as 1964 until her departure, her first published mystery novel came in 1967.

After graduating the U of L, Ms. Grafton vagabonded her way into the life of a screenwriter and cranked out a significant number of scripts, mainly for television. It was through this gig that she met her lifelong life-partner (and husband) Steven F. Humphrey. The union was apparently a happy and productive one--but she often said that the character of Kinsey Millhone was who she might have become if she had never married. (She was also, apparently, an avid mystery reader herself, who cited the author Ross MacDonald as one of her strongest early influences.)

(Of course, given that my research shows Steven Humphrey was her THIRD husband, I guess she must have played the field a bit in her youth. Good for you, Sue!)

Her alphabet series, beginning with A IS FOR ALIBI, ran to 25 volumes by the time she was done; Z was never finished, nor apparently even begun, because for her last 2 years she was also busy battling cancer of the appendix. (This frankly resulted in maximum frustration for an alpha-completist like myself, but of course I'm more saddened, and somehow lessened, by her loss. It seems a true shame I will never be able to pick up a NEW Kinsey Millhone mystery ever again.)

Ms. Grafton lived much of her life in the southern California city of Santa Barbara, on which she loosely based the fictional city of "Santa Teresa", though she was hardly the first mystery writer to use such a device. Any discrepancies in her descriptions she simply passed off as the two cities being NOT the exact same literal place. (Most of Kinsey's fictional adventures were set there, although she did move around a fair amount to different locales.)

I can't swear it to a certainty, but I'm reasonably sure that Ms. Grafton never did any sort of AV work, or even amateur striptease. If she had, given her perfectionism about her craft, you can be sure she would have knocked it out of the park. (Or if not, she wouldn't have bothered).

I never got the chance to meet Sue Grafton, and now of course I never will. So just know, girl, that wherever your spirit has flitted off to, you made a difference in my life and the lives of so, so many others. Ave atque vale. You will be missed.

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TRIVIA: At around her time of death, Sue Grafton had a net worth estimated at $55 million. (!) She was also noted as one of the richest novelists ever to hail from Kentucky (not that that's an especially high bar, I'm sure) and was ranked among the most popular novelists TO EVER EVEN EXIST. (Okay, I added the last bit.)

Her height and weight as given seem right to me but are based on a metric conversion site, so if your research turns up anything different, please don't hesitate to challenge me. Also pls. remind me to research eye color if I forget and still leave it blank.

She was born under the sun sign of Taurus and heavily independent from a young age due to her parents' alcoholism and neglect. This independence got reprised into her fictional alter ego by way of her being orphaned at a young age. Other than the Kinsey Millhone SERIES, her book KINSEY AND ME has been highly popular, and her next best-known work is THE LOLLY-MADONNA WAR, which got made into a film.

After some of her early experiences in script conversions, Sue Grafton refused to let her novels get converted into movie scripts--which may tell you something.

(P.S.--my sources included her wikipedia entry, her fansite bio, and popular biography)

TTFN--tata for now!