Sisters in Crime Australia is mourning the death of Tart Noir Queen, Lauren Henderson, who was our international guest at the inaugural SheKilda convention in 2001. She was only 59.
The self-titled sub-genre, Tart Noir, which had just emerged, also included Sparkle Hayter, Stella Duffy, and Katy Munger. Lauren, recognised as its godmother, described it like this:
“Tart. It’s a potent four-letter word. Sweet, sour, sharp, sexy, bad, with a touch of cheesecake. It seemed to sum up the detectives in a certain segment of the crime fiction genre, the independent-minded female sleuths who are tough enough to take on thugs and corrupt cops, tender enough to be moved by tough, tender men (or women, as the case may be). These are neofeminist women, half Philip Marlowe, half femme-fatale, who make their own rules, who think it’s entirely possible to save the world while wearing a drop-dead dress and stiletto heels. Our heroines are Modesty Blaise and Emma Peel, our morals are questionable, and our attitude always needs adjustment . . . “
At that point, Henderson had written seven novels featuring Sam Jones, a metal sculptor specialising in enormous spherical mobiles. London-based Sam was the archetypal Tart Noir heroine, tough, sexy, smart, and very hip. Sam’s adventures involved vast alcohol consumption, frequent illicit drugs, and plenty of raunchy sex, often with a tinge of S&M. She had an unfortunate habit of stumbling across dead bodies but is pretty good at solving the murders, considering her dissolute lifestyle.
Lauren’s books then included Dead White Female, Too Many Blondes, The Black Rubber Dress, Freeze My Margarita, The Strawberry Tattoo, Chained!, and Pretty Boy. A collection of Tart Noir stories came out in 2002.
Below is the SheKilda crew with Lauren Henderson.
In her speech to the opening of SheKilda on 26 October 2001, Lauren declared it was an amazingly historic occasion: “This is the first women’s crime conference ever to be held. Not just a first for Australia, but the whole world. This is a very exciting and powerful moment.”
Lauren went on to say, “But, though I am incredibly happy to be here. I’m also angry. I’m angry that women crime writers are still not being taken seriously enough by the crime establishment. I’m angry that here in Australia, a woman has still not won the main fiction prize for the Ned Kelly Award. And Britain’s scarcely much better. There we are only winning the major awards 25-30% of the time, and nominated for them much, much less than that I’m angry that in the UK last year the shortlist for the Daggers, the major British crime writing award, contained no women at all, and, this year there was only one women nominee out of a total of six.
“I’m angry that I am regularly asked by interviewers whether women’s crime writing is finally coming of age – as if Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, and Patricia Highsmith, to give just a few examples, haven’t towered over crime writing since its inception. I’m angry that in the UK, women were winning the Booker Prize so rarely that a group of writers and agents had to found the women-only Orange Prize in frustration. And, despite my delight at having crossed the world to come to this conference, in a way I’m angry that it was necessary to hold it at all, to have a women-only conference to make the point that women crime writers are still not getting the respect we deserve.”
Lauren’s encounter with Phillip Adams on RN’s Late Night Live left her less than impressed.
“When I walked into the studio, the first thing he said to me – off-air, I hasten to add – was: ‘But you’re attractive! I thought you’d be an old boiler!’ Lovely compliment, huh? He then spent the whole time trying to patronise me and Sue Turnbull, and finished off-air, by saying to me: ‘You’re fun to have on the radio’– and added, looking at my bosom area, ‘you’re very bouncy’. Can you believe it?”
To catch up with Lauren’s subsequent career, read Ayo Onatade’s tribute.