Darcy Lott (Susan Dunlap)

"Buddhism," she explains, "is common in San Francisco, though not in our family" but "like my oldest sister's collecting commemorative salt and pepper shakers, it was an odd enthusiasm the family had accepted". Then, after dutifully bowing to the statue of the Buddha, she admits, "I felt just the tiniest bit a fraud. Skepticism was what had lured me to Zen to begin with. I couldn't imagine ever being without it". Exactly what she means by this isn't very clear.

She has a phobia about going into the woods, dating from a Nasty Experience when she was four. She was "the youngest by far of us seven Lott children". Apart from that, we only learn about her from the way she narrates the story (she does this throughout, except for a few pages written, oddly enough, by an external narrator). She emerges as caring, conscientious, and determined - but we are not told anything about her age or appearance.

Susan Dunlap (1943- ) is the author of a large number of novels including the Jill Smith series about a Berkeley police officer. She earned a BA in English from Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania in 1965, and a MAT in English from the University of South Carolina in 1966. She married Newell Dunlap in 1970, worked as a social worker, and her day jobs have ranged from teaching hatha yoga to working on a death penalty defense team. She and her husband live in Albany, a small community just north of Berkeley near San Francisco. She is an ex-president of Sisters in Crime.

A Single Eye (2006)
A Single Eye sees Darcy Lott being sent by her Zen master to a remote monastery in California's redwood forest with a message for its Roshi (teacher/leader). She is told to "keep an eye open" because odd things have been happening there. It turns out that Aeneas, a an eccentric student, had disappeared and is feared dead. That was after he'd run off with and hidden the Buddha statue, and "raced through the grounds waving a gin bottle". The roshi, Leo Garson-roshi, is also about to leave under mysterious circumstances. But he is poisoned and Darcy, who has become his jisha (assistant) feels she must investigate.

The picture that emerges of Californian Zen Buddhists is interesting if bizarre, and there is frequent use of terms like sesshin, zazen, zendo, sensi, and dokusan (some of which are explained, and some not). "We sit zazen to experience being inseparable from the wonder of the moment", we are told. It is explained that "Buddhism is a religion; Zen is the practice of looking into yourself, peeling off layers till you find your essential emptiness" You can do this, it seems, by sitting for hours facing a blank wall and meditating. When asked what the point of it was, Darcy answers, "The traditional Zen answer is 'Nothing. You don't get anything because you already have everything; it's just that you don't realise it - yet.' "

Although doubtless "the wheel of the Dharma was turning", it was moving pretty slowly as the story unfolds, too slowly always to hold the interest. And, although there is some dramatic action, particularly at the end, it is not really as exciting as it might be, partly because the characters can be quite difficult to identify with. What is really interesting is the attempted American adoption of Buddhist beliefs: all these rather odd characters (including a man who seems to live just for making chocolate) trying to work out the basic Zen tenet: "Life is illusion". Or "Fundamentally nothing exists". It was the runaway student who "could see Reality, of course, but no one knew that. To his family, to everyone, he was a guy going wacko". You are left wondering, "Why settle on something so foreign? Not only is Zen Buddhism from Japan, by way of China, by way of India, but its basic teaching is beyond words".

On the internet, there is quite an interesting1998 interview with the author about her earlier books. Her books are listed and summarised on the fantasticfiction site.

The book is readily available, new or used. A good source of used books is abebooks.