COPYRIGHT AND USE OF THIS THESIS This thesis must be used in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. Reproduction of material protected by copyright may be an infringement of copyright and copyright owners may be entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. Section 51 (2) of the Copyright Act permits an authorized officer of a university library or archives to provide a copy (by communication or otherwise) of an unpublished thesis kept in the library or archives, to a person who satisfies the authorized officer that he or she requires the reproduction for the purposes of research or study. The Copyright Act grants the creator of a work a number of moral rights, specifically the right of attribution, the right against false attribution and the right of integrity. You may infringe the author’s moral rights if you: - fail to acknowledge the author of this thesis if you quote sections from the work - attribute this thesis to another author - subject this thesis to derogatory treatment which may prejudice the author’s reputation For further information contact the University’s Copyright Service. sydney.edu.au/copyright PROFESSIONAL EYES: FEMINIST CRIME FICTION BY FORMER CRIMINAL JUSTICE PROFESSIONALS by Lili Pâquet A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences University of Sydney 2015 DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY I hereby certify that this thesis is entirely my own work and that any material written by others has been acknowledged in the text. The thesis has not been presented for a degree or for any other purposes at The University of Sydney or at any other university of institution. i ABSTRACT This dissertation studies novels written by and about professional women investigators, or “professional eyes,” who have worked in occupations involving police investigation and criminal trials. It poses the questions: How has the inclusion of novels by professional eyes changed the direction of feminist crime fiction? Is there a difference between the novels of crime fiction authors with professional experience to those without? How does it reflect real feminist gains in the criminal justice system? Dorothy Uhnak was the first of these authors to emerge with her autobiography and fictional Christie Opara trilogy. Following this, Linda Fairstein began publishing her Alexandra Cooper series of legal thrillers, based upon her own experience as head of the sex crimes unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. Kathy Reichs also began publishing her Temperance Brennan forensic crime series, which was based upon her experiences as a forensic anthropologist. The final authors examined are former Australian police officers P.M. Newton, Karen M. Davis, and Y.A. Erskine. Through a study of discourse, genre, and the author, my suggestion is that the promise of ‘reality’ and ‘truth’ by these authors resonates with a readership of contemporary women who are faced with ‘plausible’ feminist investigators. Furthermore, there are significant differences in the narratives of professionals compared to non-professionals, in their use of expertise and jargon, links between their fiction and nonfiction, use of fiction as a kind of scriptotherapy, and depiction of unequal justice systems. Although the authors reveal the challenges that still exist in the integration of women into the criminal justice system, they have ushered in a new era in the real world of criminal justice, just as they have in fiction. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Rebecca Johinke, for all of her invaluable guidance and wisdom. No matter how busy the time of year, she is always enthusiastic and encouraging. I am also indebted to the assistance of Dr. Mark Byron, Professor Vanessa Smith, and other members of the University of Sydney English Department. Laura Russo and her team at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University were also instrumental. This dissertation would not have been possible without the patience and support of my husband, Sam. He has tolerated many sudden mood swings, brewed countless cups of strong tea, and somehow survived the past three years in a house filled with piles of books and papers. Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Frances and Robert, for their encouragement. Their love of literature has always inspired me. Without their unfailing belief in my abilities, I doubt I would have imagined commencing a dissertation. iii CONTENTS Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………… 1 I. Dorothy Uhnak: The Original Professional Eye………………………………………… 42 II. Linda Fairstein: Foucauldian Feminism in the Legal System………………………… 77 III. Kathy Reichs: The Female Forensic Gaze……………………………………………… 137 IV. Australian Police Officers and Fiction as Therapy………………………………….. 192 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….. 223 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………………… 242 iv INTRODUCTION The New Female Investigator In 1979, Carolyn G. Heilbrun published her book Reinventing Womanhood in which she claims, “Women writers, like successful women in male dominated professions, have failed to imagine autonomous women characters. With remarkably few exceptions, women writers do not imagine women characters with even the autonomy they themselves have achieved” (Reinventing Womanhood 71). Heilbrun, an academic and professor from Columbia University, published nonfiction feminist titles under her own name as well as the Kate Fansler crime series under the pseudonym Amanda Cross (an act that did little in itself to help the point she was trying to make). Almost a decade later, Maureen T. Reddy argued a similar view as Heilbrun, writing: If the woman detective in crime fiction remains relatively rare, the female series character is rarer still. One possible reason for this is that employment discrimination on the basis of sex has barred women from jobs as police detectives or private investigators until fairly recently, leaving crime novelists who wanted plausible female protagonists with only the option of gifted amateurs, like Christie’s Miss Marple. (Sisters in Crime 6) Marcia Muller, Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton are among those authors who began to introduce professional women as protagonists of crime fiction from the 1970s onwards. The popularity of these authors revealed the readership of women who appreciated the tough female investigator challenging gender stereotypes, and proved inspirational for increasing numbers of female crime authors. In their 1999 book Detective Agency, Priscilla L. Walton and Manina Jones graph the radical leap in numbers of professional female investigators in crime fiction, revealing how it had tripled in the decade since Reddy’s 1 observation (29). Professional female investigators in crime fiction have increased rapidly since the 1970s, one of the most significant developments in the genre, and yet little has been written about this change. This is where this thesis sits within the critical debate, with a focus on professional women in crime fiction, as both protagonists and authors. There is some disagreement in what constitutes a ‘professional’ in crime fiction, and whether amateurs or private detectives can be included in the label. This disagreement is evident in the disparate ideas of Kathleen Klein who argues in The Woman Detective (1988) that crime fiction is fundamentally adverse to feminist ideas, and Sherri Paris who writes in “Riding the Crime Wave” (1989) that Klein’s argument is biased by a lack of discussion on amateur detectives such as those by Barbara Wilson and Amanda Cross. Paris believes that by focusing on professionals who work within male-oriented institutions, Klein fails to include the most feminist of crime fiction texts. She argues that Klein’s focus on institutional crime professionals “skews her analysis and leads her to marginalize the feminocentric novels many women have created outside the boundaries of this model—and to ignore, lamentably, virtually the entire lesbian-feminist canon of detective fiction” (“Riding” 10). Paris suggests that these amateurs represent feminist concerns specifically because of their placement outside of the male-oriented system. This dissertation focuses on professional women who have worked within the criminal justice system in positions directly involved in the prosecution and investigation of crime. These include police officers, forensic technicians, and prosecutors. This is not in order to ignore the importance of private detectives such as Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski, Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone, or Wilson’s Pam Nilsen; but to provide research on the progression of their successors, and the ways they approach legal and policing institutions from within. This dissertation studies these novels written by and about professional women investigators, and poses the questions: How has this development changed the direction of feminist crime fiction? Is there a difference between the novels of crime fiction authors with professional experience to those without? How does it reflect real feminist gains in the criminal justice system? Women are now imagining protagonists with the professional autonomy they themselves have gained, and the fiction of former criminal justice 2 professionals provide protagonists who are ‘plausible’ to readers. The gifted amateurs described by Reddy are more often found in historical fiction, while professional female investigators proliferate within the hardboiled mode. To answer