Smith, Martin J. 1956-

views updated

Smith, Martin J. 1956-

PERSONAL: Born July 28, 1956, in Birmingham, AL; married; children: Lanie, Parker. Education: Pennsylvania State University, B.A., 1978.

ADDRESSES: Home—Palos Verdes Estates, CA. Agent—Susan Ginsburg, Writers House, 21 W. 26th St., New York, NY 10012. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Express, Easton, PA, staff writer, 1978–79; Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA, staff writer for Sunday magazine, 1979–85; Orange County Register, Santa Ana, CA, staff writer and columnist, 1985–94; Orange Coast (magazine), Newport Beach, CA, editor at large, 1994–97, editor at large, beginning 1997; Los Angeles Times Magazine (now called West), Los Angeles, CA, senior editor, 2000–; Squaw Valley Community of Writers, faculty member, 2000–.

MEMBER: Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime.

AWARDS, HONORS: Don Feitel Memorial Award, 1985, 1986, for work at Pittsburgh Press; nomination for Edgar Allan Poe Award, best paperback original, Mystery Writers of America, 2002, for Straw Men; also winner of more than forty newspaper and magazine awards.

WRITINGS:

"MEMORY" SERIES; SUSPENSE NOVELS

Time Release, Jove Books (New York, NY), 1997.

Shadow Image, Jove Books (New York, NY), 1998.

Straw Men, Jove Books (New York, NY), 2001.

OTHER

(With Patrick J. Kiger) Poplorica: A Popular History of the Fads, Mavericks, Inventions, and Lore that Shaped Modern America, HarperResource (New York, NY), 2004.

(With Patrick J. Kiger) Oops: 20 Life Lessons from the Fiascoes that Shaped America, with Handy Recipes for Disaster, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including Writer's Digest and Los Angeles Times Magazine.

SIDELIGHTS: Author Martin J. Smith successfully made the transition from journalist to fiction writer with the publication of his first novel, Time Release, in 1997. Prior to Time Release, Smith had spent over fifteen years as a newspaper reporter, including a stint with the Pittsburgh Press. He began writing while a student at Pennsylvania State University in the latter part of the 1970s. As a reporter, Smith's assignments took him across the United States and to countries all over the world, including the Philippines and the former Soviet Union. He covered a host of subjects, including Pennsylvania politics. "I feel privileged to have made a living for so long as a newspaper reporter," Smith said in an interview with J. Kingston Pierce of January Magazine. "That career took me all over the world, taught me all sorts of survival skills, and forced me to overcome my natural instincts to be an introvert. It also exposed me to people, places, and ways of life I would have never seen before." For his newspaper work, Smith earned many awards, and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize by his newspaper on four different occasions.

Inspired by the work of authors James Ellroy, Thomas Harris, and Elmore Leonard, Smith decided to begin writing novels himself. Even though he spends much of his time working on his fiction, Smith has continued his journalistic activities. For several years he served as the editor in chief and later editor at large for the magazine Orange Coast, which is based in southern California where he lives with his wife and two children. Balancing the two types of writing seems to make sense to Smith. "Nonfiction writing keeps me in the real world, and the real world feeds my fiction," he told Pierce.

After Time Release, Smith published Shadow Image and Straw Men. All three works are segments in his crime fiction "Memory" series and feature protagonist Jim Christensen, a psychologist and memory expert. Critics praised his first two novels.

One of the reasons that Smith has been successful with his crime fiction may be that he incorporates elements of his journalistic writing. Both of his first two novels were inspired by actual news-making events. Though his story lines do not include the real incidents, they do mirror certain aspects of them. For example, Smith conceived the idea for Time Release in 1991, during the tenth anniversary of the famous Tylenol killings, in which several people died after consuming deliberately tainted pills. The book was also influenced by various criminal prosecutions that were based on repressed memory testimony, such as the case of George Franklin, whose daughter was able to conjure up the memory of him murdering her childhood friend twenty years after the actual incident. At the time, other such controversial cases were becoming more frequent in American courts, which intrigued Smith. Smith's interest in these trials led him to begin research about how the human brain deciphers and stores memories. "My own feeling is that memories are incredibly fragile to begin with, even traumatic memories that are etched most deeply in the brain. They're not like mental videotapes of past events; they're most like shifting sand," Smith told Pierce in the January Magazine interview.

Not only did Smith conduct interviews with people who had experienced repressed memories, he also examined the work of various memory experts, which led to the creation of his character Jim Christensen of the "Memory series." In Time Release, Smith includes a case similar to the Tylenol killings, though he uses the name Primenyl. During the story, Christensen examines the main suspect's son, ten years after the killings, to determine if he has any repressed memories about his father committing the crimes.

In a similar manner, Smith's second novel, Shadow Image, was also inspired by real-life affairs. In this case, however, Smith's interest was provoked by President Ronald Reagan's battle with Alzheimer's disease, a condition marked by memory deterioration. Smith's interest in Reagan began when the former president addressed the public about having the disease. "He [Reagan] wrote a letter to the American public, then, BOOM, he disappeared from public life. Why? Because someone who knows a lot of secrets might be very dangerous if they're no longer able to control their memories. They're not dangerous to themselves as much as they are to people in whose interest it is to keep those secrets quiet," Smith explained to Pierce.

Before beginning the novel, Smith attended several sessions of an art therapy class at a center that specializes in Alzheimer's so he could better develop the book's characters, including Floss Underhill, the Alzheimer's disease-stricken character who is at the center of a murder attempt. "I wanted to see firsthand what an Alzheimer's day-care facility was like, and to spend time with patients so my Floss Underhill character wouldn't come off as a stereotypical 'victim,'" Smith told Pierce. In the book, Smith's research is evident, as some scenes take place in a similar class, in which Alzheimer's patients use painting and other artistic expression in the attempt to revive some of their memories. Lev Raphael of the Detroit Free Press called this book an "exciting thriller."

Smith told CA the eight following "facts" about writing.

"The fantasy of fame, fortune, and public acclaim keeps most of us at the keyboard. It does not, however, have much to do with reality. Mirages are useful because they keep you moving forward, but they can disappoint in the end. So write because you enjoy it and want to tell good stories.

"The only thing you can control in publishing is what you put on the page. Everything else is controlled by mysterious and malicious forces that conspire to keep you obscure, unread, and broke. So focus on the writing.

"You and your mom are the only people who consider your book a work of rare literary genius. Despite what they say, your agent and editor are looking at it as a product destined for an unforgiving marketplace. If you are writing strictly for your own pleasure, it doesn't matter. But if you want to be published, understand and accept that reality.

"Publishers are more likely to take an interest in your book if they can immediately imagine which store shelf it will sit on. Your chances of success go up significantly if you write with a specific market in mind.

"It takes an extraordinary writer to extract universal meaning from the mundane facts of his or her own life. The writer who describes her uterus as 'a great inland sea' and suggests that there is much to be learned about the human condition by sharing in precise detail the environmental conditions therein had better be an extraordinary writer, because most people really don't care about her uterus, even if it has many meaningful things to say. Before you embark on such a project, ask: why would anyone care?

"Being a published writer does not make you more attractive to the opposite sex. Just forget that part of it right now.

"Nothing is wasted. Think of all the things you learned while writing that unpublished novel in your bottom drawer. You don't forget those lessons and will carry them forward into the next project.

"If you plan to quit your day job to write full-time, make sure you are independently wealthy or have married well."