Assessing How We Define Diversity - Seattle University

ex-grunge rocker-turned-prosecutor. Facing his 40s, he
suspects it’s time to settle down and get married, but he’s
still locked into a pattern of carousing and one-night affairs.
The novel’s frequent references to grunge music serve as
a clue to what makes these characters tick and infuse the
novel with the mood and energy of the Seattle scene.
Now Lindquist has turned his writer’s eye on Tacoma,
mining his inside knowledge to construct The King of
Methlehem, a taut, disquieting account of a small-time
“meth cook” pursued by a single-minded detective.
BASED ON ACTUAL EVENTS
“I always start books with characters. This one started
with a tweaker [meth user] who is smarter and more
ambitious than most. I wanted a cop who is obsessed with
a ‘white whale,’” he says. “Cops see so many criminals that
they get jaded quickly, but every once in a while a bad guy
crawls under their skin, and I think that’s interesting.”
The backdrop is the modern-day scourge of
methamphetamines, “a drug that’s like putting your brain
in a frying pan,” declares the novel’s prosecuting attorney.
Six years ago, Pierce County was one of America’s notorious
hot spots for meth labs, which are inexpensive to set up
and easy to hide in a rural landscape. In 2001, the Pierce
County drug unit prosecuted 439 meth labs. “It was an
epidemic,” says Lindquist.
Today the number of labs has dropped by almost
80 percent, he says, crediting aggressive policing and
prosecution, community awareness and legislative
changes, such as restrictions placed on the purchase of
pseudoephedrine, used to manufacture meth. “Most of the
meth is shipped in now, but we still have a raging problem
with meth use,” he says. “It’s tied to lots of crime—identity
theft, property crimes, domestic violence.”
Lindquist drew on a real tweaker for his fictionalized
meth cook. He also borrowed from real-life detectives,
prosecutors and judges. “So far, no one seems to have
minded,” he says with a laugh.
So is Lindquist a writer who prosecutes or a prosecutor
who writes?
“Hmm, I’ve never really broken it down like that,” he
says. “I was a writer before I was a prosecutor, so I tend to
look at the world that way,” he says.
He pauses for a long time and then adds, “But I’ve
always wanted to be a participant in things, and being a
prosecutor really gives you a chance to jump in. It’s deeply
satisfying to be doing something to achieve justice, though
you’re just part of a process. I guess I just feel lucky to have
two jobs that I love.”
Being a prosecutor also gives him a strong connection
with his community, a rewarding sense of stewardship
that helps him cope with the inevitable frustrations and
Sisyphean task of combating crime.
“You know, I reread the Camus essay about Sisyphus
after I took office,” he says, referring to the 1942 treatise in
which the French writer Albert Camus analyzed the Greek
myth about a king cursed to push a huge boulder up a hill
throughout eternity. “I realized his point is that while the
rock is going to keep coming back down the hill, there’s a
joy to be found in pushing that rock up the hill again and
again. You don’t have to wallow in existential defeatism.
You can find purpose in going about your task.”
A good motto for prosecutors, writers and most
everyone else.
SU
Read a review of
Lindquist’s latest
tome, The King of
Methlehem, in this
issue’s Bookmarks
on page 36.
SU Magazine Fall 2007 | 27