Linda Fairstein

 

Linda Fairstein, America's foremost prosecutor of crimes of sexual assault and domestic violence, has run the sex crimes unit of the District Attorney's office in Manhattan for more than two decades. A fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, she is a graduate of Vassar College and the University of Virginia School of Law. Her first novel, FINAL JEOPARDY, which introduced the character Alexandra Cooper, was published in 1996 to critical and commercial acclaim, appearing on several national bestseller lists. Patricia Cornwell said, "From the mind of one who knows, this is life. Raw, real, and mean. Linda Fairstein is wonderful." Linda's second and follow-up novel in the series is LIKELY TO DIE.

Her nonfiction book SEXUAL VIOLENCE was a New York Times notable book in 1994. She lives with her husband in Manhattan.

 

 

Page ONE
"Who were your Literary inspirations when you were growing up? What did you read? What do you read now?"

 

Linda
"I read everything I could get my hands on. My earliest memories of my own reading (after being read to nightly by my mother) were Robert Louis Stevenson and Louisa May Alcott. I had an older brother, so I got hooked on the Hardy Boys before Nancy Drew, and quickly graduated to Poe. Mystery and suspense were the early favorites, and its an addiction that grew rapidly.

The worst part about writing, in addition to having a more than full-time prosecutorial job, is that it cuts into my reading time. I read everyone in this genre - Patricia Cornwell, Carl Hiaasen, Elmore Leonard, Richard North Patterson, Lisa Scottoline. Because of the "day" job, I like hard-boiled and bizarre - that's what I see in my work.

Also, I read a lot of nonfiction - I love history and biography - just finished the Professor and the Madman; and am moving through Titan (the Rockefeller biography). I majored in English literature in college, so I love the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century classics - Trollope, Eliot, Hardy. Give me a thick, dense book from another century and I can lose myself completely. Every now and then, a wonderful contemporary novel (non-mysterious) slips in - I commend a real gem called One of Us by David Freeman, which is a hauntingly beautiful book. I love books."

 

 

Page ONE

"Your forthcoming Alexander Cooper novel is COLD HIT Tell us a little about the plot and where did this story come from? Where/ how did you research the art industry? Are you an art collector?"

 

 

Linda
"While in the processing of writing each novel, I've always got my eye out for ideas for future books - especially since I'm doing a series. Throughout the past few years, there were an astounding number of articles - in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Connoisseur Magazine, Vanity Fair - which involved capers and crimes in the international art world.

 

In the mid-eighties, I was involved in an investigation of a high-profile murder which focused on a world-renowned gallery owner and art dealer - who was convicted of other crimes but never charged with the murder. It seemed to me that this "scene," which appears so refined and elegant on its surface, is teeming with intrigue and deception on another level.

 

So I did an enormous amount of research, and was drawn into fascinating true stories - the unsolved theft of two masterpieces, among other items, taken in a heist at the Gardner Museum in Boston ten years ago; the rigging of bids at famous auction houses; the missing Amber Room, still believed to have been hidden and moved during the Nazi invasions of European countries; and upscale dealers who not only defraud....but occasionally murder. COLD HIT uses all that research, and some cutting edge forensic science, too.

And although I'm not an art collector, as you asked, as each of my novels has been published, I've treated myself to a painting as my incentive and reward. If the series goes on as long as I'd like it to, I might have a collection."

 

 

 

 

Page ONE
"How long did it take you to write COLD HIT?
Did you do any outlining before you began?"

 

 

 

Linda
"It's difficult for me to answer the question about how long it took me to write a book. That's simply because I am still working full-time as a prosecutor in Manhattan. And while many of my writing colleagues work at two jobs, it's the unpredictability of the prosecutorial work which keeps me from sticking to an established schedule. I'm frequently called in to work on cases at night or on weekends, which often makes it hard to settle down to write.

 

I began work on COLD HIT in the summer of 1997, after I toured for the publication that year of LIKELY TO DIE. Throughout the following winter, mostly on weekends and early mornings, I worked on the book, but not steadily. In August of 1998, when I took a month's vacation and worked on the manuscript literally every day, at least eight hours a day (with only one day off that month). I finished the story in late fall, and worked on the edit over the winter.
I'm not a serious outliner. Basically, I start out with the idea for a story, do a loose plotting and timeline before I begin, and generally find that by the fifth or sixth chapter, I've changed direction already. So the outline gets revised and remains pretty fluid throughout the process. As the characters develop more fully, they start to take me places I never dreamed of going when I started out."

 

Page ONE
"Your main lady, Alex Cooper is an Assistant District Attorney and you are an Assistant District Attorney --- How much of real life do you draw from for Cooper's character and who (between you two) do you think will make a career move first?"

 

Linda
"Alex Cooper and I share a lot of traits in our professional capacity. She's certainly got my job, and has the same passion about it that I've enjoyed. I draw quite heavily from my own experience - twenty seven years on the front lines in the New York County District Attorney's Office - to give her character what I think is a feel for the authentic workings of a good prosecutor.

 

On the personal side, Alex is younger, thinner and blonder than I am, and endowed with a trust fund that gives her far more flexibility to move around in these stories than my friends and I had as young lawyers. Part of the great fun in writing fiction is infusing the protagonist with all kind of qualities that her creator doesn't have. And since her voice is very close to my own, it confuses even my closest friends. As they read the books, I often get calls asking whether I actually did some of the things that Alex does, or had her romantic involvements. They're looking at me differently now..... As for career moves, I hope Alex outlasts me in her job by many years - something, of course, which is up to the readers."

 

Page ONE
"Can you describe your writing style?
Has your style changed over the past three books?"

 

Linda
"Tough questions. I'm not sure I'm describing my style to say that what I set out to write were procedurals. I have always loved this genre - crime novels - and especially liked reading books that entertained, but that taught me things while I was reading as well. Perhaps because I work in the criminal justice system, it's not easy for me to read "cozies" or amateur sleuths solving major crimes.

I love hard-boiled. I love noir. I love tough and taut. I generally like very spare writing (which is not my style - at least not yet....but I'd like to get closer to it). So I think I'm writing procedurals which are fairly hard-boiled, but which also have a lot of humor, which evolves from the personalities of the central characters I have drawn.

 

Again, I'm not sure that my style has changed over the course of the writing of these books. But I do feel that COLD HIT is better than the earlier ones - I think I worked harder and longer at the actual craft, and spent more time refining and honing the language after I had finished telling the story.
(I'm sending this...more to follow) ..."

 

 

Page ONE
"Linda Fairstein, Patricia Cornwell and Virginia's Forensic Science and Medicine have something in common -- Would you like to tell us what that is and how it all got started?"

 

 

Linda
"When I decided I was ready to try to fulfill my dream of writing fiction - which came on the heels of publishing a well-received non-fiction book in 1993 - the idea I had was really modeled on the early novels of Patricia Cornwell. I think POSTMORTEM, BODY OF EVIDENCE, and ALL THAT REMAINS hooked me and drew me into the idea of writing procedurals. They told great stories - real age-turners - but were full of the actual work and technique of forensic investigators.

My great friend and literary agent, Esther (Lobster, if you listen to Imus) Newberg, was very encouraging as I was about to set off for vacation to try to write in the summer of '94. The day before I left, she invited me to lunch, for a pep talk.When I walked into the restaurant, Esther was sitting at a table with Patsy Cornwell, whom I had never met before. I was given the most enthusiastic sendoff a novelist has ever had.

 

Throughout the past five years, Patsy has been astoundingly generous - with her advice about writing, with her guidance about the publishing business, and with her friendship. She's got a lot of other talents, too. This July, she just got a license to fly her own jet helicopter - and dropped in on us at our home on Martha's Vineyard, taking my husband, my mother and me for an impromptu aerial view of our house. Patsy's smart and funny and loyal, and has been a great friend to me ever since that first lunch.

 

An example of her generosity is that she recently gave one and a half million dollars to the state of Virginia as seed funding to start the country's first Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine, in Richmond. The program was dedicated on July 2nd, and it is the most stunning facility of its kind anywhere in the country. It's also where Cornwell first worked, when she conceived the idea to create the character Kay Scarpetta. Because of my forensic experience, Patsy asked me to be one of the Institute's Board members, and I enthusiastically accepted. So every now and then, we just kick back and imagine Cooper and Scarpetta crossing fictional paths in a future novel."

 

 

Page ONE

"Cold Hit showed up on President Clinton's summer reading list. How did it make you feel to know the President of the United States was reading your novel?

 

 

Linda

It was great fun to see COLD HIT on the President's reading list the very week it was published.

 

First, no matter what your politics, I think it's fantastic that both the President and First Lady are such voracious readers. I've had a number of opportunities to be with them, and each time, they obviously derive enormous pleasure from their reading - as well as discussing what they've recently read, and taking recommendations about what they should consider reading. Also, both Clintons - in addition to reading serious nonfiction and literary fiction - like the crime novel genre. It was, for me, an honor and a thrill to know that the President began his summer vacation with COLD HIT. The added bonus was that most newspapers and magazines in the country reprinted the President's reading list, giving the book's publication launch a nice boost.

 

Page ONE
"What is it you enjoy about novel writing the most?
What do you dislike?"

 

Linda

"I love the process of writing. I love everything about books - reading them, holding them, looking at them. I love bookstores and libraries, and people who like to be in the community of readers and writers.

 

For me, the process of story-telling is enormously cathartic. I love starting with blank pages, then watching them fill up with people and dialogue. Best of all is when those people come alive, and readers grow attached to them. It's a hoot to have fans tell you what they want Alex or Mike to do, as though these were real people who had actual lives. So the process of working with words and language, building the images into a story, and ending up with a beautiful book that I can hold in my hands and read is the most wonderful part of the writing experience. The only bad part is the loneliness of the process. My prosecutorial job - as COLD HIT illustrates - is a very collegial one. It relies on close and regular contact with other lawyers on the team, and with the detectives. We always have our partners to cover our backs, and each other for advice and direction. We hang out together after work, call each other at all hours of the day and night, and rarely go through much alone.

The hours at the word processor are long and solitary. I need to isolate myself when I write, to avoid the temptations of joining my husband or our friends for a game of tennis or a swim in the ocean, at least until I'm ready to knock off for the day. That's about the only gripe I have about writing. And when a new book is published, and I get to be out among readers - listening to their reactions and getting encouragement to write more - it's worth every minute of those long, lonely hours. If we meet along the way and you really want to win my heart, just ask me when the next Alex Cooper novel is coming out."

 

Page ONE
"Tell me a little about your challenges directly after graduating law school at the University of Virginia. Did you have any idea then that you would be writing crime novels?"

 

Linda
"The single biggest challenge I faced when I graduated from law school in 1972 was employment in a district attorney's office. I tell the story, which is pretty humorous, in my nonfiction book. At the time I went to law school at the University of Virginia, there were only ten women who graduated (in my class of 340). Typical of most schools at that time. Very few women were litigating in the criminal justice system. No woman had ever tried a murder case in New York State. Of the 170 lawyers in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, only 7 were women... and most of them were not doing trial work. The legendary DA, Frank Hogan, told me the work was "too tawdry" for a "girl" like me.....and twenty-six years later, it's pretty obvious that I have thrived on tawdriness.

One of my dreams has always been to write crime novels, since I enjoy reading them so much. My prosecutorial work exposes me to endless amounts of material regularly - and great characters. Turning the dream into reality has been a great thrill."

 

Page ONE
"In real life, you work in the judicial system just like your main character Alexandra Cooper in your novels Final Jeopardy and Likely to Die. Which is tougher, writing about crime or actually working in the trenches on a daily basis and why?"

 

Linda
"The real-life prosecutorial job has been much, much more difficult than writing fiction. Over the past two decades, my unit has broken ground in a stunning number of ways, when one considers how archaic the criminal justice system was in its views about sexual assault. It has been exciting - but a very long, tough haul.

For me, since I love the process of writing - creating stories and characters, making them come alive so that readers develop relationships with them - this part of it is a treat. The only downside is that the long hours alone at the word processor can be grueling. As my novels reflect, my work in the DA's office is very collegial - hard work, but all done with great friends and wonderfully supportive DA - detective pals. Investigating and going to trial on a "high profile" murder/sexual assault case makes writing fiction a cakewalk...."

 

Page ONE
"Tell us a little about your main character Alexandra Cooper. How much of you can we see in this character? What are your differences?"

 

Linda
"Alexandra Cooper, the protagonist in my series, mirrors almost all of my professional traits - my beliefs, my passions, and - hopefully, with many more books to come - my experiences. On the personal side, I have taken great liberties with Alex (ah, fiction!) - she's younger, thinner and blonder than I am, and I've endowed her with a trust fund that gives her more freedom, at 35, to do things that most young prosecutors couldn't afford to do.

One of the weird things that happens, even with close friends who have known me for years, is that - because I write the books in the first person and the voice is very close to my own - they're often not sure how much I write about is true or not. I'm constantly asked - "Did you really do that?" It's great fun to be able to mix so much of my very real life with a totally made-up character."

 

Page ONE
"You are the author of a nonfiction book as well titled Sexual Violence. How did this book come about and was it completed before you began your fiction work?"

 

Linda
"In the mid-eighties, I was approached by several publishers to write a nonfiction book about the pioneering work of our sex crimes unit. After I signed the contract, I procrastinated for years (literally, years) - because of my involvement in several notorious cases in New York.....the prosecution of Robert Chambers (known as the Preppy Murder case - a great misnomer) and then the Central Park Jogger case.

When I finally sat down and got the book down, it was published in 1993. It's got a heavy title - SEXUAL VIOLENCE - but it's much more anecdotal and readable, I think. The book was well-received and was, among other things, a New York Times "Notable Book of the Year."

That gave me the impetus to start to fulfill the dream - to try to write a crime novel. Part of my wonderful good luck is that the superb literary agent, Esther Newberg, is also a close friend. She told me to stop whining about how much I wanted to write mysteries and just do it. After I wrote sixty pages, I showed it to Esther.....and she sold the book - FINAL JEOPARDY."

 

Page ONE
"Which do you prefer writing - Nonfiction or fiction and why? Are there any other nonfiction works planned for the future?"

 

Linda
"I prefer writing fiction simply because it's much more fun to do. The idea that you can sit down and create a plot and interesting people out of whole cloth, and try to breathe life into them....and then develop a readership (which, in this genre, is an exceptionally loyal crowd) still never ceases to amaze me.

The nonfiction is much, much easier for me to write. I don't need to research it - it's the work I've been doing every day for twenty-six years. I lecture around the country frequently, so I'm regularly writing speeches and essays. Yes, I certainly expect to write more nonfiction in the future."

 

Page ONE
"Is there a new Linda Fairstein novel in the works and if so can you tell us a little about it?"

 

Linda
"The third novel in the Alex Cooper series is done (and just submitted to Scribner, my publisher) in mid-December. The title of the book is COLD HIT.

That's the new term for when a computer makes a match between a DNA sample from a crime scene and a suspect (and in this case, a double entendre for the fact that the murder victim may have been killed by a hired killer). Coop, Chapman and Wallace become involved in the murder of an art dealer - and the story gets into the seamy underbelly of the elegant international art world - scams, frauds, heists and so on. COLD HIT will be published in late summer."

 

Page ONE
"It is a pleasure to have you as a guest with Page ONE. Do you have any advice for beginning crime novelists?"

 

Linda
"My two pieces of advice for beginning crime novelists aren't very profound, but I think it's valid. Read and keep reading is my first rule. Find voices you like and immerse yourself in the rich worlds created by the classic writers in this genre.

Second is simply to write. You have to want to write and like to write. Sit down at that desk or machine or laptop and tell stories. The more you do it, the sooner you discover whether this art is something for which you have a talent or not. Keep writing, don't be afraid to show the pages, to someone you respect, and accept the guidance of others in the business. One of the things I've found most wonderful about this genre is the willingness of established writers to give generously of their time and advice. Don't procrastinate - start writing."