That’s One Way to Work Out Aggression

There are plenty of stories about restaurant waiters spitting on food in retaliation against obnoxious diners, and somewhat fewer tales of café baristas serving bossy customers who want decaffeinated coffee with high-octane fuel, instead. But beware of pissing off a novelist, because he or she may just get their revenge in print. The best part of a new Seattle Times exchange between interviewer Adam Woog and author Donna Leon (Through a Glass Darkly) comes when Woog asks her about a particularly offensive neighbor in Venice, Italy.

Q: You killed off a noisy neighbor in one book.

A: Ahhh! This woman plagued my life for four years! I had just come back from a trip and was asleep, and I woke at about 4 a.m. with this terrible noise--gunshots or something. For the next four years, every other night or so--in the summer, when everyone’s windows are open--her television was on at deafening volumes, from 11 at night till 5 in the morning.

Q: Was she hard of hearing?

A: No! She was just a nasty old cow. If I called her to turn it down she wouldn’t. She was mean as a snake, and universally reviled in the neighborhood. Italians are pretty humane about speaking well of old people, but no one had a good word for her. Finally she died, but not before I put her in a book and beat her head in with a statue of Padre Pio.