We live in two towns at the same place — Santa Barbara and Santa Teresa. One is real and the other fictionalized, but both can be toured in real life.
Last Sunday, Friends of the Santa Barbara Public Library ran tours of the late author Sue Grafton’s Santa Teresa, where her protagonist detective Kinsey Millhone lived. Friends of the Library members Barbara Hershberg and Anna Lafferty co-directed the event as a fundraiser for the Santa Barbara Public Library.
More than 100 people gathered in the Faulkner Gallery for a panel discussion titled “A Day with Kinsey” about Grafton’s alphabet mystery series, from A Is for Alibi (1982) to Y Is for Yesterday (2017). Fred Klein, Melodie Johnson-Howe and I talked about our relationships with Grafton and how she put together the fictional geography and happenings in Santa Teresa.
“I consider myself the Goddess of Santa Teresa in that I control the weather and can move real estate at will,” Grafton has said.
The reason she chose the name was to honor a favorite classic and local mystery author, Ross Macdonald (real name Ken Millar). His books were often set in his version of Santa Barbara, aka Santa Teresa.
After the panel, four trolleys filled up and took off to drive around town checking out where Kinsey lived, worked and figured solutions to murders and unanswered cases. Irene Macias, former executive director of the library, wrote the script with stories from Grafton’s 25 novels behind those buildings or scenes. She also quoted from G Is for Grafton: The World of Kinsey Millhone by Natalie Hevener Kaufman and Carol McGinnis Kay about Grafton’s work.
Describing Santa Teresa, Kinsey said that the town has three styles of buildings: “the Spanish, the Victorian and the pointless” (D Is for Deadbeat, 1987).
According to G Is for Grafton, “Although she [Kinsey] gets tired of all the stucco and red tile roofs, longing for more of the Victorian bungalows left from Santa Teresa’s earlier days, she likens the absence of neon and factories and clutter. The very perfection of the ‘look’ may be ‘unsettling,’ but it is ‘so lush and refined that it ruins you for anyplace else,’” (B Is for Burglar, 1985).
Macias and three other Friends of the Library members — Anna Lafferty, Betsy Green and Sallie Watling Coughlin — served as the tour guides. They livened up the 13 stops between Santa Teresa and Horton Ravine, also known as Hope Ranch, in specific places such as the Granger Building (Granada Building), Sea Shore Park (Shoreline Drive) and Passage Mall (Paseo Nuevo Shopping Mall). Each stop included quotes and stories, such as along Albanil Street (Mason Street but a block up from its Santa Barbara location) where Kinsey lived in a 15-foot-by-15-foot studio converted from the house’s garage. Albanil means “stone mason” in Spanish. The tours took about two hours.
Macias’ script included Kinsey’s frequent use of the Santa Teresa Public Library to get “help from the librarians at the Reference Desk, from phone directories, city directories and the crisscross directory to help trace witnesses and suspects … the periodical room downstairs.”
She described it as “a spacious expanse of burnt orange carpeting and royal blue upholstered chairs with slanted shelves holding row after row of magazines and newspapers.”
In one of the last paragraphs, Macias wrote, “Kinsey is helped by the friendly staff, which looks up references and shows her how to use the microfilm machines which were in a dark corner (northeast corner, near an emergency exit door).”
When finished, two attendees looked back on the afternoon.
Linda Armstrong said, “The event was iconic for Santa Barbara. People who read Sue’s series almost worship her novels, especially living here in the same town where they can be part of the scene. I love getting books, especially mysteries, that take place wherever you’re traveling. That makes the place more real and on track.”
Claire VanBlaricum added, “I had a feeling of community because almost all those here today have read and know about Sue and Kinsey. It was organized and the tour reminiscent of those places in the books. The afternoon proceeded with a panel discussion, a trolley tour, followed by a reception serving Kinsey’s favorite foods.”
Some of Kinsey’s favorites on the table included Chablis, peanut-and-pickle sandwiches, egg salad, pimiento cheese sandwiches and a collection of packaged cookie treats. Marianne Robertson and Linda Love, who put the menu together, pointed out that in addition to the Chablis, they had a “better glass of Chardonnay.”
Kinsey would have encouraged this event in her name to celebrate Grafton. Another pleasure would be its success raising a sizable donation to one of her favorite spots, the Santa Barbara Public Library. Or would that be the Santa Teresa Public Library?
— Noozhawk columnist Susan Miles Gulbransen — a Santa Barbara native, writer and book reviewer — teaches writing at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and through the Santa Barbara City College Continuing Education Division. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are her own.
