Lockdown: A writer's legacy

Living in Melbourne during the COVID-19 lockdown, retired philosophy professor Janna Thompson decided to try her hand at crime writing—something she had always been interested in and passionate about.

In her debut crime novel Lockdown, she was able to weave her knowledge of philosophy into the narrative.

“She produced the first draft in a very short time—a matter of months. But then she ended up doing a lot more work on it, restructuring it and getting some editorial advice,” said Carmel Shute, Janna’s long-time friend and former colleague. 

Sadly, Janna lost her battle with brain cancer just before Lockdown was published. 

“The only shame is that it didn’t come out before she died. It was a race against time to try to get it out quickly, but it wasn’t quick enough,” Carmel said.

However, Janna is survived by her great philosophical work and her well-received foray into fiction. 

Carmel said, “It’s a shame that Janna didn’t get to be at the book launch, but everyone was thinking very deeply about her. There were about 80 people at the launch, and we were all thinking about her.”

Lockdown tells the story of Meg Thorne, a retiree who bands together with her other older-lady friends to form an investigative group—the Grey Ghosts. Being a retired philosophy professor was something that Meg had in common with her creator. However, that’s where the similarities end, says Carmel.

“Meg as a personality was quite different to Janna,” Carmel said. 

“She wears beige and pastels and is quite retiring. Whereas Janna, while she wasn’t exactly boisterous, she wasn’t retiring, really. She had very firm opinions.” 

Janna made a very successful living out of these opinions. She was a highly celebrated philosopher the world over. Janna fell into philosophy after going to the University of Minnesota to study journalism and being encouraged by her teachers to pursue philosophy.

She found herself launched onto that stage due to her response to then-Prime Minister John Howard’s comments about the Stolen Generation.

“Her most important philosophical book was about historical reparations. She was so riled about what John Howard said about the Stolen Generation and the responsibility that contemporary Australians might have for all of that. That book really cemented her international reputation,” Carmel said.

This theme makes an appearance in Lockdown, as do the themes of the treatment of the elderly inside nursing homes and the invisibility of women as they age.

“Once Janna was crossing a border from Vietnam into Laos. All of the young ones in front of her had to empty things out and had all of their things searched, and they looked at her, saw an older woman, and just waved her through—and that brought it home,” Carmel says. 

She continues, “More generally, when you’re an older woman, no one takes any notice of you, even if you’re still totally physically active and out there in society… [This] is something that our society should have more discussion about—why are we so dismissive of older women?” 

Equally important, says Carmel, was the treatment of older people in nursing homes—“something we need to have a proper society-wide discussion about”.

Lockdown is the sort of book that will prompt these discussions.

Quiet, unassuming Meg Thorne is practically invisible. But this retired philosophy professor has plenty of opinions—like, why do people dismiss little old ladies as harmless? 

Meg and her two friends, the tough-as-nails Dorothy Arden and the boisterous Lila Gatti, have decided to be a Force for Good with their Grey Ghosts Agency: because little old ladies can go undercover where other detectives simply cannot.

Their new case is the infiltration of Sunnyvale Residential and Care Home to learn why their client’s mother, Sara, is suddenly so afraid but won’t talk. Meg goes undercover and checks into Sunnyvale for ‘a short rest’ to uncover the truth, and in the process finds herself confronting her own fears of ageing.

Dangers lurk in Sunnyvale, but nobody counted on an unfolding global pandemic being one of them. Will Meg be able to leave with the truth, or will she be trapped in a lockdown with those who mean her harm? 

Lockdown is available for purchase at clandestinepress.net or through selected book retailers.