March 2005: Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You: Stories (Drummond)

Post date: Jan 07, 2010 6:18:46 PM

A few of us were already seated in Sherrill's living room on March 8, nibbling cheese and crackers, when a loud knock brought us to attention: It announced the arrival of police officer Veramo. We recognized Catherine, though she did look different in her "costume,"--her police officer's complete uniform missing only the radio. She did the routine she uses with Girl and Boy Scout troops who learn about policing, describing each item on her "bat belt" and let us try it on, feel its weight, and shake our heads in wonder. Thanks to Catherine, this was no ordinary book club meeting, but a community education session.

Catherine and her friend from the Oakland Police, Jonna Watson, were an impressive show-and-tell to accompany our discussion of Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You: Stories by Laurie Lynn Drummond, which Catherine had recommended to the group--as well as to other police officers she knows. A quick read, this well-written collection of stories describes five female police officers' experiences in Lousiana. Catherine and Jonna talked about parts of the book that really resonated with their experience, and also about differences: the level and amount of training (which is much higher in California), counseling and relief after high-stress or traumatic calls, etc. They expanded on the book by adding some of their own stories, and confirmed that women police feel held to a higher standard than men, that they have to prove themselves.

Catherine seemed thrilled to bring her two worlds together for an evening, though she knows her life and her sanity rely on her keeping them separate most of the time. The uniform and the persona that goes with it need to be something she can take off when she goes home to her family--and something she can put on when facing brutal humanity.

"In this stunning debut collection of short fiction, Laurie Lynn Drummond mines her eight years as a cop to tell the stories of five female police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In prose as unflinching as the job itself, each woman's story -- like each call in a police officer's day -- varies in its singular drama, but all the tales illuminate the tenuous line between life and death, violence and control, despair and salvation." - San Diego Union-Tribune

Though we talked more about the women, police life, and the content of the stories, it was likely because the book was so well-written and the characters so vividly portrayed that we wondered, worried, and marveled at them. We also marveled at and appreciated the women sitting in the room with us, for whom these kinds of stories are not fiction.