The Line Up (23 page)

But as gay people gradually began receiving greater focus in books, in films, and on TV, I occasionally became the recipient of snarkiness in the gay press. E.g., “How can Kellerman, as a straight man, presume to write about the gay experience?”

Which is not only narrow-minded and stupid, it betrays an utter lack of understanding about what writing fiction is all about. If I had to limit myself to the confines of my own direct experience, I could never write about women, anyone older than I am, anyone from a different ethnic or religious background. Yes, that sounds obvious, but you’d be amazed at the limited thinking of those who choose to incarcerate themselves in sociopolitical cell blocks.

The apex of reverse discrimination arrived several years ago, in the form of a review in a British gay magazine opining that if Alex Delaware were really a great shrink, he’d realize he was in love with Milo.

I laughed. What else can you do?

Since I consider writing fiction a profoundly narcissistic exercise—I shut out the world and aim at pleasing myself—I pay no heed to any of that blather and continue to engage in the same routine that has been part of my life for decades: entering a quiet room, sitting down, typing until fatigue rules. And over the two decades since they first dropped in and introduced themselves to me, Dr. D and Lieutenant S have continued to explore the darker side of the human experience as friends and cocompulsives.

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One point of commonality between Alex and Milo is their Midwestern origin. Milo hails from Indiana, and Alex, like my wife, is Missouri born. This is no accident; to me, the Midwest represents much of what is praiseworthy about America, with its emphasis on humility, hard work, and loyalty, rather than the LA–New York ethos, with its emphasis on cosmetics, self-invention, and spin masquerading as truth.

But LA’s so much fun to write about. And what better eye to cast upon the city formed by Hollyweird than that of a Midwestern boy who drove cross-country at age sixteen. In order to… well, Alex really wasn’t sure about his goals, but he did know it was time to escape his alcoholic father and his chronically depressed mother and the older sister who never stuck up for him.

And Milo… gay, Catholic, one of a gaggle of six macho brothers. Need I say more?

Like so many other loners, both men migrated to California in order to escape their personal histories, but they will never be able shed those early, formative years in the flatlands of the Midwest. Though they’ve never really discussed their childhoods with each other, surprisingly similar backgrounds have imbued both of them with a burning desire to learn the truth. To obsessively churn forward until the truth shows its sometimes ugly little face.

These are not guys who have any patience for situational ethics. In the world that Alex and Milo inhabit, the distinction between good and evil is clear. That is not to say they are simpleminded, naive, or blithely unaware of life’s nuances. Quite the contrary; they are complex, intelligent, thinking men who, precisely because they weigh the moral consequences of every situation, are guided by a firm sense of right and wrong.

Alex and Milo are unabashed good guys who are out to get the unabashed bad guys, and they will always be that way because I’ve created them and hell if I don’t think that’s the right way to be.

Alex and Milo admire the same people I admire and they despise the chumps who bring my blood to a boil and who seem to populate the Third World nation that is Los Angeles: smarmy psychopaths, petty politicians, backbiting weenies, faceless bureaucrats, citizen-fascists pretending they can’t smell the stink of the concentration camp a block away. Not to mention pig-headed bigots, manic poseurs, downright frauds, smooth and not-so-smooth cons, ass kissers, buck passers, small-minded wimps, shiftless shirkers. And just plain mopes who evade responsibility.

Working as a psychologist is all about refraining from imposing one’s values on others.

Writing fiction is such a lovely vacation from that. I judge. Oh, boy, do I judge.

I like real heroes. And, unlike the television network executive cretin who opined that Alex Delaware would be more appealing if he had a limp or some other physical defect, I have no problem working with a good-looking, good-thinking good guy.

You want antiheroes who are just as unredeemable as their quarry, go somewhere else. But close the door lightly and don’t wake me up. Nothing is more yawn inducing to me than the conspicuously flawed antihero.

None of that should imply that either Alex or Milo is devoid of problems. In When the Bough Breaks, Alex debuts as a tormented, disillusioned, insomniac burnout unable to maintain a steady relationship or to function professionally. And one recurrent motif of the Delaware novels is the therapist getting through the rough spots of his own life by putting them aside and concentrating on solving the problems of others.

Then there’s Milo. Slovenly, constitutionally grouchy, compulsively stuffing his face, ever a malcontent. He is certainly no poster boy for Perfect Adjustment. But unless his foibles are germane to the story, they are handled lightly. Yes, he’s got issues. No, they won’t stop him from getting to the bottom of horrible murders.

Alex is a hero, but he is also a real person who lives in my head and tells me great stories. And real people evolve and develop and go through rough patches.

In When the Bough Breaks, Dr. D’s past involvement with a group of abused children ends up connecting, quite terribly, to other, similarly mistreated kids, as well as to multiple murder. Alex becomes an integral part of the story. But in the next two novels, Blood Test and Over the Edge, he steps back, is allowed to accrue some objectivity as he assumes the role of behavioral scientist and ad hoc detective.

The success of those books, particularly Over the Edge, which remained on the bestseller list for months, led me to realize that I was going to write a series, and that I needed to acquaint myself more fully with my recurring protagonist. The result was a vacation from Alex, so that I could attain perspective and understand him more fully. During that time, I wrote a stand-alone novel, The Butcher’s Theater, a massive, disturbing account of serial killings (before they became known as such) in the holiest of cities, Jerusalem. The following book, the fourth featuring Delaware, Silent Partner, falls squarely in the noir tradition but also edges into surrealism and horror. Because one of the driving forces of that book was for me to solidify my understanding of Alex, he reverts to the role of primary player, as a supposedly chance encounter with a former lover—a beautiful, troubled, enigmatic graduate student named Sharon Ransom—draws him into a nightmare world of betrayal and corruption.

Confident that I’d buttoned down enough about my hero to continue the series with authority and verisimilitude, I next penned Time Bomb, a book that allowed Dr. D to fade back into the role of expert. Though his love life did take some interesting turns.

That approach continued for the following three novels, until, once again, I felt Alex needed some shaking up in order to enlarge his character. The result was Bad Love, in which a vindictive patient from Alex’s past threatens his very survival. Then back to Dr. D as expert for eight more novels.

Nine years after Silent Partner, I decided it was time to learn more about Milo. The result was The Murder Book, in which we delve into the inimitable Detective Sturgis’s days as a rookie homicide cop, a period when homosexuality, per se, was automatic disqualification for employment in the LAPD. A period during which secrets ruled Milo’s life and affected his ability to solve a particularly brutal homicide. It is only when a newly integrated Sturgis—by which I mean a Sturgis caught up with his own psyche—reexamines the file that what has become a brain-itching cold case can finally be solved.

The Murder Book also marked a stylistic departure for a Delaware novel in that exclusive first-person narrative—a form I believe has the potential to increase a sense of intimacy between reader and character—was abandoned. Instead, I alternated first person with the third-person flashbacks necessary for excavating Milo’s initial days as a novice detective. The book could only have been written at that particular time, as it took me that long to build up the courage to deviate from the form.

I decided to break free after reading my brilliant wife’s superb novel Justice, in which Faye initiated that same point-of-view flexibility for her series. I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that being married to Faye has proved an enormous confidence builder in general; she has taught me, always by example, never pedantically, that one needn’t be locked into a stylistic straitjacket in order to maintain thematic and artistic consistency across a series.

Faye’s unintentional mentoring has extended to another area: Anyone who knows my wife knows she is All Girl. Despite that, she displays an almost freakishly masterful ability to write from a male perspective. (Many writers have commented on her brilliance in that regard. The Edgar®-winning author Brian Garfield has opined that no one does it better than Faye.) Faye’s exceptional gift made me wonder if I could pull off a female chief protagonist. The result was Petra Connor, hero of Billy Straight and Twisted and an all-around great gal who surfaces as a collaborator in the Delaware novels when her talents are needed by Alex and Milo.

Milo, Milo, Milo.

He, as opposed to Alex, is described in great physical detail in every single Delaware novel, because we view him, as we view the world, through Alex’s eyes. Despite that, I have received several inquiries from readers wanting to know if he’s white or black. At first, I was puzzled by the puzzlement of those loyal fans, since allusions to Milo’s pallid complexion, straight black hair, and bright green eyes seemed to preclude anything but Caucasian. Then I realized that I’d described him several times as “Black Irish,” a tag that refers to a subset of Emerald Isle Celts with dark hair—probably the result of long-ago genetic contribution from Roman invaders. A common term during my youth but one that has, apparently, lost currency. I may need to be less subtle.

I have also fielded countless questions about Alex’s ethnicity, including one rather rambunctious reader who insisted that, let’s face it, Alex is Jewish.

Let’s face it; he’s not.

I am Jewish; Alex is a self-described “mutt,” and that was a deliberate choice. One of the many things that working as a psychologist taught me was that once we get over what I call the hurdle of ethnicity, we’re all pretty darned similar, intra-psychically. For that reason, and because I see myself as an inclusive man, I yearned to create a universal character—to write universally appealing books that avoided the ethnic tunnel vision that would be distracting and detract from meta-themes.

There may be some Semitic protein floating around in Dr. Delaware’s ribonucleic acid. I couldn’t tell you, as I’ve never seen the results of any lab test. There’s probably American Indian, German, English, French, and Lord knows what else in there too. But Alex is nothing if not ethnically ambiguous—a distinctly American persona cobbled together from what is best about the greatest nation in history, a truth seeker undeterred by Orwellian notions of “diversity” or by base, creativity-murdering political correctness.

All fiction is to some extent autobiographical, but it is also a particularly entertaining variant of the Rorschach test—a series of deliberately hazy images upon which the reader projects his or her own fears, affections, and drives. Vegans want Alex to eschew meat. Liberals, conservatives, libertarians, all shudder at the possibility that he might not agree with every single opinion they possess on any given topic.

Sorry, he’s his own guy.

Nearly thirty years ago, when Alex Delaware popped into my head, I had no idea he’d ever stay alive long enough to serve as the springboard for exploring my own existential questions, let alone those of tens of millions of other people.

The fact that he continues to do his obsessive, heroic thing without adhering to—or even touching upon—any particular orthodoxy brings me tremendous joy as I continue to tell the stories to which Dr. Delaware directs me.

I love my job.

JOHN LESCROART

Born in 1948 in Houston, Texas, John Lescroart (it’s pronounced Les-kwah) had a varied career background before becoming a successful author who is a regular on the New York Times bestseller list in both hardcover and paperback. After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley in 1970 with a BA in English with honors, he worked as a computer programmer, advertising director, moving man, housepainter, legal secretary, fund-raiser, management consultant, bartender, and musician. He wrote about five hundred songs and performed for more than two years with Johnny Capo and the Real Good Band (he was Capo). Although the band was somewhat successful, he retired to write full-time. His affection for music never disappeared, though, and he has recently founded his own recording label, CrowArt Records.

His first book, Sunburn (1981), a non-mystery paperback original, was followed by Son of Holmes (1986) and Rasputin’s Revenge (1987), both of which featured Auguste Lupa, the son of Sherlock Holmes (a character reminiscent of Nero Wolfe).

Many of the Dismas Hardy novels also feature Abe Glitsky, a somewhat acerbic and disillusioned San Francisco policeman. Lescroart has recently created yet another popular character, Wyatt Hunt, a private detective who starred in The Hunt Club (2005) and The Suspect (2007).

Lescroart lives with his wife and children in Davis, California.