Portrait of author Gail Lukasik.

Gail Lukasik discovers a puzzle worth solving, and uncovers a family secret

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Gail Lukasik never intended to become a mystery writer. In fact, she had already found success as a poet when her son nudged her to try something new.

“You’re always reading these mysteries,” he told her. “Why don’t you try writing one?”

It was an unexpected challenge, but Gail embraced it. Within a year, she had written her first novel, introducing readers to Leigh Girard, a breast cancer survivor and journalist who moves to Door County, Wisconsin, to start a new life – and solve crimes.

“It took me less than a year,” Gail recalled. “Leigh was a teacher, decided to start her life over, and went to Door County, which is one of my favorite places. We call it the Cape Cod of the Midwest.”

The result was “Destroying Angels,” the first in her Leigh Girard mystery series. That was followed by “Death’s Door” and “Peak Season for Murder.” Though the journey to publication was rocky – including a collapsed publishing deal right before her debut was set to launch – Gail persevered.

“I had photographs taken for the cover. I had a blurb coming from Nevada Barr, a famous mystery author. And then, right before the galleys were done, the publisher went out of business,” she said.

Despite the heartbreak, Gail held fast to her dream. “My husband said to me, ‘You’ll always be a writer. Just keep at it. Don’t give up.’”

Eventually, she secured a publishing contract after pitching her book at a writers’ conference. The process took nearly a decade from start to finish, but it solidified her love for the genre.

Finding joy in puzzles

“What I love most about mysteries is the puzzle,” Gail said. “You have the murder, the sleuth, and the red herrings. At the end, the world is put right again. What’s more satisfying than that?”

For Gail, mystery writing provided a sense of order and justice, even when life itself didn’t always follow a tidy narrative.

“I love puzzles,” she added. “And I love the idea that something wrong has happened and, by the end of the book, it’s made right.”

In addition to her Leigh Girard series, Gail authored “The Lost Artist,” a standalone mystery centered around two female artists, and “The Darkness Surrounds Us,” a gothic historical mystery set in 20th-century Michigan Island called Harmony.

“I took a real turn with that one,” she said. “It was a lot of fun to write something different.”

Starting over after 50

Like many women of her generation, Gail grew up with limited career options. In high school, she was pulled from college prep classes and enrolled in secretarial training.

“My parents’ plan for me was to be a secretary or get married,” she said. “To be a professional writer just wasn’t in the cards.”

Still, she wrote in poems, journal entries and short stories, often in secret. It helped Gail to process the chaos of her childhood by putting it on paper. It wasn’t until later in life that she finally pursued writing seriously, earning a master’s and then a Ph.D. in English with a specialization in poetry.

“I found my tribe when I went back to school,” Gail recalled. “Suddenly I was with people who talked about writing and books all the time. I thought, ‘This is where I belong.’”

She later became the director of an internship program in the English Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago. There, she helped students bridge the gap between academia and the real world.

But, when a new administration dismantled the program, Gail was forced out of a job she loved at age 50.

“It was humiliating. I had done so much work for them, and it was helping people,” she said. “But I took that as a sign. That’s when I started seriously writing mysteries.”

The shift marked the beginning of a new, purpose-driven chapter in her life. “If I’m an example of anything, it’s that at 50, I finally got on the path I wanted to be on,” she explained.

Turning truth into mystery

Gail’s most recent book, “What They Never Told Us: True Stories of Family Secrets and Hidden Identities Revealed,” represents a different kind of mystery – one grounded in real life.

The idea for the book came after her memoir, “White Like Her: My Family’s Story of Race and Racial Passing,” chronicled Gail’s discovery that her mother was really of mixed race, but had been passing as white her entire life.

“I made the discovery in 1995 while researching my grandfather on the Louisiana census,” Gail explained. “There was a ‘B’ next to his name. When I traced up the column, it was for race.”

Shocked, Gail dug deeper. She eventually obtained her mother’s birth certificate, which listed her race as “colored.” When Gail confronted her mother, she admitted the truth, but begged Gail to keep it a secret until after she died.

“My mother said, ‘How will I hold my head up with my friends, if they know?’” Gail recalled.

Gail kept the secret for 17 years until her mother’s death in 2014. She later appeared on PBS’s “Genealogy Roadshow,” where researchers confirmed the family’s racial history. That appearance led to an unexpected connection: an email from a woman who identified herself as Gail’s cousin.

“She said, ‘I saw you on the show. I’m your cousin, and my father is your uncle,’” Gail said. “I had no idea they existed.”

In 2015, Gail attended a family reunion in New Orleans, where she met relatives she never knew she had. After appearing on the Megyn Kelly Today Show, Gail discovered there were many people who shared similar stories.

For “What They Never Told Us,” Gail interviewed dozens of people who discovered, often through DNA testing, that their identities had been hidden from them, whether through adoption, donor conception or secret affairs.

“They’re the family secret,” she said. “And it is incredibly brave of them to share their stories.”

Each story in the book is written with the structure of a mystery: a discovery, subsequent search, and final resolution.

“I used the same storytelling techniques I learned from writing mysteries,” Gail explained. “But this time, the stakes were real.”

Discovering identity

After “White Like Her” was published, Gail faced a new challenge: figuring out how to define her racial identity.

“In the beginning, I said I was a white woman with black heritage,” she said. “But I got criticized from both sides. Some people said I wasn’t honoring my black heritage.”

Eventually, she decided that identity wasn’t one-dimensional.

“There are so many things that define us – our DNA, appearance, family history and the struggles of our ancestors,” she explained. “So now I identify as mixed race.”

The reaction from audiences has been mixed, but Gail uses those moments to foster deeper conversations.

“I can see the perplexity on people’s faces when I speak,” she said. “And I think, this is a good way to start a dialogue.”

Writing with purpose

Now in her 70s, Gail continues to write, speak and inspire others to tell their stories, especially for people over 50 who may feel it’s too late to begin.

“If there was something you always wanted to do, but life or fear got in the way, embrace it,” Gail encouraged. “Go for it. What have you got to lose?”

She also recommends volunteering as a way to rediscover passion and build community. Her husband, a retired dentist, found unexpected joy in becoming a master gardener.

“He thought he was going to sleep in and do nothing,” Gail laughed. “But by month two, he was bored. Now he has a whole new circle of friends and a purpose again.”

For Gail, writing remains both her passion and her purpose.

“All writing is rewriting,” she said. “But if you get obsessed with something, trust it. That obsession will carry you through the dark days.”

And for those people who are considering writing their life stories?

“Memoir is incredibly powerful,” she said. “It helps you process your life, understand your identity and, sometimes, it even changes your future.”

For more information

People can connect with Gail on multiple channels, including:

All of Gail’s books, including “What They Never Told Us,” are available on Amazon and in other bookstores.

If you order one of Gail’s books from a link above, Forward From 50 may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

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