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Author, heroine share feminist traits, find humor helps

You can't help loving a heroine who looks like Rita Hayworth and has a caustic wit.

Author Sparkle Hayter - yes, that's her real name - has given us such a character in her mystery series featuring television journalist and feminist Robin Hudson. And Saturday, she comes to Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont for a session of Winter Coffee & Crime to speak about the reissue of her novel "The Last Manly Man."

When you speak with Hayter, you simply have to ask her about her name. "Yes, it's real. You could never make a name like this up. It's a cross I have to bear. It was my father's idea. He is eccentric. I feel like a walking oxymoron," she says, laughing. "I was meant to be funny and homicidal."

Born and reared in Canada, Hayter attended New York University, where she got her degree in film and television. While attending school, she worked at CNN as an intern. After she finished school, she worked for that television news channel as a writer and producer, leaving in 1986.

"I knew I wanted to write novels since I was a little kid. I wanted to be Ernest Hemingway," she says, noting she wrote two early, unpublished books in the Hemingway fashion. She since has destroyed them, noting they were really bad.

After returning to the United States after a stint in India and Afghanistan, she says she wanted to live on the "lighter side." That's when Hayter began to do stand-up comedy - which she occasionally still does - and wrote her first Robin Hudson mystery novel, "What's a Girl Gonna Do?"

Before it was published, the book was rejected 37 times, she says. "People thought it was too quirky - it took awhile. I just thank God I have an ego. I never would have survived all that rejection," she says.

She has similarities to Robin Hudson - and differences. "She looks different than I do. She has big boobs; she's taller; her hair is redder and frizzier than mine. And she is smarter, funnier and has a more exciting love life.

"But we both are open, funny, tenacious and flawed. And we both have the capacity to find something good out of something bad. When something bad happens to me, at some point Robin kicks in. I find a laugh makes things easier," she says.

Her heroine, who disdains guns, still has a need to protect herself. She keeps poison ivy in her windowboxes as a burglary disincentive measure. Hayter says she looked into this in 1984 when she was attacked by a man in Atlanta. "I ended up beating the hell out of him with my umbrella - Robin is that side of me," she says. "She gave me more courage, because I knew I had that side of me and I could stand up for myself."

Robin Hudson and Hayter are feminists, but not man haters. "I was raised to be adventurous - to do things even though I was a woman. I like men. I would like things to be fair for everybody - everybody should have an equality of opportunity. Nobody should tell you that you can't do something because you are black, Asian or homosexual. I'm a global feminist. We could all be having a lot more fun getting over petty things," she says.

In "The Last Manly Man," Robin Hudson often displays her feminism in humorous ways. For instance:

  • "We had an interview that day with a Danish researcher who reported that men had four billion more brain cells than women, though she was mystified as to why, since men didn't use them. If you think about it though, it makes sense, since men have bigger heads and they need something to fill the space, the equivalent of Styrofoam packing peanuts, otherwise their brains would just rattle around inside their skulls."

  • "It's that old double-standard (bs), you know; he gets to go off on the Crusades, wenching all the way, while I sit at home watching the rust grow on my chastity belt."

    And the most exquisite - Robin Hudson musing on something said by her male boss, Jack Jackson:

  • "... those primitive cultures that put their women in huts at the edge of the village during their 'time of the month' were on to something. (And, hey, I can see his point. If I was a woman menstruating in the wilderness a thousand miles from the nearest Midol or Tampax dispenser, and I had a chance to go away for a few days, I'd have my bags packed and by the door when the happy day arrived every month. Let me see ... stay home and deal with a husband, kids, back-breaking menial labor, and cramps ... or go to a hut at the edge of the village to chill out for a few days with nothing to do but rest and drink a tea made from the bark of some intoxicating root• Tough choice.)

    And finally:

  • One of her characters says, "Quoting cartoonist Nicole Hollander, 'What would the world be like without men• A lot of fat, happy women and no war.' "

    When writing, Hayter starts with an idea and a character, then a plot appears. "I watch the news, read about science, eavesdrop on conversations, and write down my dreams. These seemingly disparate ideas come together to form a plot. I feel I have a mission to turn things that are wrong into something right."

    Hayter turned to the mystery genre because she wanted evil incidents resolved. "After journalism, I found stories didn't always work out the way I wanted them to. Murder, death is a great metaphor - any other person can kill you if they want to. Robin doesn't like people to get away with murder or evil, powerful people to get off scot-free. She is a way of satisfying that instinct in me to get things right, if only in a book," Hayter says.

    She wants people to enjoy her books. "I want people to laugh, because life is hard, and we all could use a few more laughs. And I want them to learn more about different topics, like Bonobo chimps and feminism (central to "The Last Manly Man") - I want to open a door. I want to make them laugh, to entertain, to provoke and to give another view of feminism. It's not storm troopers with brushcuts. It's the cornerstone of the human rights agenda. And to make me rich - that would help."

    She soon will be on her way to Paris to write another Robin Hudson novel, "Mr. Wrong," about a reality TV series set in a sorority house with residents from all over the world.

    She has dreams for the future, as well. "I'd like to be the first Canadian mystery writer to get a Nobel prize. I want to write the best book I can so I can keep myself interested. I want to get closer to the heart of human questions. And I hope to go back to Afghanistan to teach English, basic computers or to help with a children's camp program. I feel a debt of the heart to that country."