Hi Michelle, Welcome to Augie’s Corner,
Augie: Michelle Dougherty, it was fun meeting you after the Night and the City: L.A. Noir in Poetry, Fiction and Film at Mount San Antonio College, with host John Brantingham who was great as usual and featured readings of Sunny Frazier and Tony Barnstone who both were phenomenal. I enjoyed the chapter reading from Sunny’s Where Angels Fear (who is our Posse Leader) and from Tony and his femme fatale who performed a mystery radio-theatre. I understand that you have a Work-In-Progress novel that is near completion.
Michelle: Yes! I’ve been working on my novel about a female assassin for a few years, and I recently completed the draft.
Augie: Is there a title, or will we have to wait?
Michelle: Coming up with a title has been really difficult! For now, I’m just naming it after the protagonist, Kiki Hasumi. I’m hoping that by the time I finish revising, a title will miraculously appear.
Augie: Tell us about Kiki Hasumi? Wait, first of all I love names, so where did the name Kiki come from?
Michelle: Kiki’s real name is Keiko, a very common Japanese name. Like me, Kiki is half-Japanese (Hasumi was actually my maternal grandmother’s maiden name). I wanted Kiki’s name to reflect her Japanese heritage and her American heritage as well.
Augie: That’s very interesting and hopefully an honor to your culture. Okay, now Agent 537, Kiki Hasumi of the Lotus Agency, lethal killer and an all around everyday lady…hold-up (pun not meant) she sounds like one heck of a female. What’s her story? I know you can’t tell us everything, but I am intrigued as well as I can see the audience is too.
Michelle: Kiki loses a lot of her family while she is still a teenager, so as she makes the transition into adulthood, she does so without any guidance and with a lot of bitterness and resentment. Ironically, she leads a more isolated existence before becoming an assassin because that profession requires her to interact with people on some level. Kiki loves a good fight – but she does grapple with the choices she makes, especially as she discovers that her targets are not always the monsters she thought they were. Still, Kiki can be quite cold and calculating, but she’s relatable, too. For instance, she’s a bit of a slob when it comes to her living space, and she loves junk food.
Augie: An assasinjunkfoodolic sounds fascinating. She exceeds to the highest ranking in martial arts and she attracts the attention of Ryuu Nakamura, there goes those names again…love it! Who is he?
