Sue Grafton, bestselling novelist, says, “I have several personalities” including “The Shadow, who does the work…”

Sue Grafton is the author of a series of bestselling novels featuring private detective Kinsey Millhone. The title of each book starts with a letter of the alphabet, and it won’t be long before Grafton has published her 26th bestseller.

In 2013, Grafton published Kinsey and Me, half of which is a collection of short stories featuring her alter ego Kinsey Millhone, and half of which is a series of autobiographical reminiscences in which she calls herself “Kit Blue” and describes episodes in her difficult childhood.

I recall that a number of years ago I read an interview online in which Grafton told the interviewer that sometimes she and Kinsey disagree about how the plot of a novel should go. Kinsey wants it to go one way and Grafton wants it to go another way. So, Grafton said, “You’ll think I’m crazy,” but Grafton will stop writing, leave the computer, and come back later “when Kinsey is not around,” so Grafton can write it her way. So when I recently heard of the publication of Kinsey and Me, I got it, in the hope that Grafton would elaborate.

Well, the book does not elaborate on Grafton’s relationship with Kinsey. And the part of the book featuring “Kit Blue” will just be puzzling to most readers.

So I found a public television video in which Grafton is interviewed about Kinsey and Me.

http://video.azpbs.org/video/2342088975/

In the interview, you will see and hear Grafton say the things I quote in the title of this post (if you don't blink, it is so brief). And she wouldn’t have published Kinsey and Me and then said, publicly, what I quote, if she hadn’t wanted to discuss her “several personalities.” But when novelists bring up this subject, interviewers never pursue it.