“Very few of us are what we seem,” the thematic essence in Agatha Christie’s stories, is not only the kernel of a good murder mystery but also the raison d’etre of an anthropologist. We anthropologists go to our field site (where we will study culture, people, rituals, or phenomena). We participate in daily life there, while observing and asking questions. Then, we return home, puzzle over, and try to piece together all the information we have collected that will solve the mystery to a cultural question. In my protagonist’s case in Death in a Nutshell: “Why do people immigrate to Bozeman, Montana?” And then, we write up our findings as an ethnography.
Anthropologists and detectives (and mystery writers) work hard at decoding (creating) symbols and looking for (planting) clues to explain why people do what they do, how they do what they do, and why they persist in doing what they do. Hypothetically, detectives are Anthropologists, Anthropologists are detectives, and mystery writers are a little of both. This fluidity is why writing Death in a Nutshell: An Anthropology Whodunit, a murder mystery that embeds anthropology, was not a huge leap for this anthropologist.
As a child, I was also told that just as “You are what you eat,” “You write what you read.” So, it should have come as no surprise to me, given that my youth was spent in the world of cozies with amateur sleuths (Nancy Drew, Ms. Marple, Harriet Vane, etc.) that while on a winter vacation in Montana five years ago, an idea for a murder mystery surprised me. It came to me, initially in the form of a single character in a singular setting: a nature photographer in Yellowstone Park.
I returned home with a burning desire to write, but a raging fever kept me in bed the last week of winter break. I was unable to write more than a few pages of notes. My teaching quarter began, and the mystery faded into a file folder where it would mostly remain for the next two years.
In early 2020, the pandemic hit, and a few months into the lockdown, I carefully re-opened the file, not because I had more time (teaching on Zoom coupled with a unique homeschooling experience was more challenging), but precisely because entering into a cozy world of my own making was the only salve and form of control, I had in a world that was out of control and facing new and inexplicable dangers.
While delving back into the world of fiction, I noticed that I was not the only one having difficulty handling reality. My university students were slipping away, and just like my young learner with dyslexia at home who had escaped to a world of fantasy novels, they also needed a more inventive, sensorial, and creative way to engage the material I was attempting to teach them.
At home, my goal was to make education more accessible, often involving using stories to deliver information. I was already doing this with complex theoretical knowledge at the college level in the form of a novel and plays, so why not a murder mystery? And why not for everyone who enjoys a good mystery and is fascinated by the study of human behavior, the kernel of any good mystery?
Anthropology is often described as a discipline that aims to make the strange familiar, and the familiar strange. There was no better time than during the early months of the pandemic to witness the familiar turning strange and the strange slowly becoming daily life. The world needed, and still needs, a little anthropology to help navigate difficult cultural transitions. But that does not mean it should be devoid of its mysteries or that we should seek to control all that we cannot easily explain.
One of the joys of writing fiction is how a book unfolds despite its author. As my book slowly came along, my characters, as characters in fiction often do, began to take on a life of their own. My protagonist acquired dyslexia, which was no surprise given that I had spent the better part of the last decade researching dyslexia, advocating for students with dyslexia, and learning about my own dyslexia. What was serendipitous and quite surprising was when, on one pre-pandemic afternoon, my son returned from an after-school program at Chapman University and demanded: “Where are my fossils?”
Why would he suddenly need his fossils?
“I need to take them to Chapman next week.”
What did fossils have to do with an after-school program that paired younger students with dyslexia and other learning differences with college students and faculty mentors?
“Our professor mentor is a paleontologist!” My aspiring paleontologist son answered in frenzied excitement.
The paleontologist was none other than Jack Horner, a pivotal figure in my novel, whose exhibition I had encountered during that fateful Montana vacation. People, indeed, are not what they seem. I had no idea Jack Horner was a person with dyslexia when I slipped him into Death in a Nutshell. Or that we would meet one day through my son and our shared dyslexia. Nor had I known that Agatha Christie–the author who would become such an influential figure in my writing–was also a person with dyslexia.
It’s moments like these, when the unseen mysteries that connect us come to light, that I most enjoy as a writer and anthropologist—and writing mysteries in particular are the best way to keep me digging for a good story.
Alex is on the verge of dismissal from her anthropology doctoral program when her luck turns, and she lands a fellowship with a dioramist at the Museum of the Rockies. The only problem is, Alex hasn’t a clue about dioramas or dinosaurs, and, as she will soon find out, she’s not the only one faking it in this frozen landscape.
From New York City to Yellowstone National Park, we follow Alex, a whip-smart dyslexic-ADHD Margaret Mead cum Ms. Marple, as she explores friendship, identity, globalization and a murder against the stunning backdrop of the Rockies in winter.
A murder mystery embedded with forays into visual anthropology … we find that in an era of fake news and science denial, a little anthropology goes a long way.
Universal Book link: https://books2read.com/varzi
Roxanne Varzi is an award-winning author, filmmaker, playwright, Fulbright scholar, dyslexia disruptor. She has a PhD from Columbia University and is a full professor of Anthropology and Visual Studies at the University of California Irvine. Her writing is published in The London Review of Books, The Detroit Free Press, The LA Times, The Guardian, and Le Monde Diplomatique and three anthologies of Iranian-American stories. She is the author of Warring Souls, and Independent Publishers Award Gold Medalist Last Scene Underground: an Ethnographic Novel of Iran.
https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/professorvarzi/
Ladies of Mystery 
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