(5 of 5)
Nobody, including Craig Rice, seems to remember much about her husbands. The first was named Arthur John Follows ("a dreamer type," some say). Another was Albert Ferguson, a newspaperman of some talent, considerably her senior, who died shortly after she divorced him. She says there was another (apparently that was the marriage which was decided on the toss of a coin—she lest; it only lasted three days), but she is resolutely vague about his name. At any rate, her marriages brought her three children who are quite as nice (and as good friends with her) as in Home, Sweet Homicide.
And Then Success. The Craig Rice who after seven years' work is a successful mystery-story writer is still apt to have a smudge on her face and to work at an old typewriter in a pair of dirty slacks. Her right eyelid droops slightly. Her cheeks are plump, and she has a dimple at each corner of her mouth when she smiles. Women in general do not dislike her, and many men think she is fascinating.
Shortly before she turned to detective stories, she married again. Her last husband is no mystery. His name is Lawrence Lipton and he smokes a great many smelly cigars. He has also written two novels, neither of which won a Pulitzer Prize, much less a Gertrude.
Now they live in Santa Monica, in a cream-colored stucco house with ersatz pillars, that looks like a small-town public library. It surrounds a sort of atrium where the rain drips through a skylight into a fish pond. The rather overly large living and dining rooms are satined and chintzed. The master bedroom contains the "Craig Rice dressing table," a wide, crinoline-draped affair supported by two female legs appropriately gartered and stockinged in black mesh.
Bosco's sister, Mrs. Rice, who brought up Craig, lives with them. There are also a number of cats, and three statues which came with the house but have been improved by the children: Gus (Augustus Caesar, now adorned with crepe mustache and bow tie), Vicky (a putty-colored Queen Victoria, more handsome now with make-up and a pair of spectacles), and Flattop (a somewhat flat-headed nymph who wears a red hair ribbon and necklace, but is due to become ravishing when a net brassiere, now on order, is delivered).
Daughters Nancy and Iris and Son David (16, 15 and 13) are nowadays mostly away at boarding school. Husband Lawrence, who takes seriously his position as a man of letters, has a downtown office to work in. Craig, who like most professionals is not choosy about such things, has her workshop on an enclosed porch which she shares with Gus and a new luxury, a secretary.
Even with these assistants, turning out detective stories is not a mechanical job. Mysteries run only 60,000 to 80,000 words (the bare minimum for novels). Four of them a year (such as the hardest-working writers turn out) may total something over a quarter of a million words, not an undue output for a serious author. But the job is tough enough so that Craig is now from one to two years behind on mysteries contracted for with each of her three publishers (Simon & Schuster, Coward-McCann, Dial Press). It is a fine thing to be successful, but it means work.