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March 5, 1999/17 Adar 5759, Vol. 51, No. 23
Mystery writer credits her success to imagination
TAMI BICKLEY
Staff Writer
Faye Kellerman
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Some of the grisliest, most bone-chilling tales of murder and mystery around are being written by a mother of four who takes walks in the California sunshine and is raising her children in a modern Orthodox Jewish home.
A vivid imagination plus carefully guarded relaxation/thinking time has allowed Faye Kellerman to pen 12 novels - in between stroller-pushing duty and carpools. "Boredom is the greatest ally of fiction writers," she says. "And when you're walking a kid endlessly, your mind starts thinking of all sorts of nefarious deeds."
She puts those wicked visions to paper for the world to see in books such as "The Ritual Bath," "Grievous Sin" and "Prayers for the Dead."
Kellerman will talk about being a writer - as well as a mom and an Orthodox Jew - when she speaks at the Challenges '99 luncheon on Tuesday, March 9, an event of the Women's Department of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, at the Arizona Biltmore's Wrigley Pavilion.
"It's going to be a light, informative, cheerful, funny speech," she says. "I don't like to preach in my fictional work, and I don't like to preach when I talk."
Kellerman says she draws on her own life experiences for her novels, and then weaves in the seven deadly sins, to create "crime thrillers that are about people who react under extreme situations." Although being a novelist is a "desk job," creativity is the key, she says.
"The whole fun of fiction writing is making it up," she says. "I prefer to leave the action up to my characters, not up to me."
Kellerman was the youngest and only girl of three children. She says she was raised "Conservadox" - less strict than modern Orthodoxy, but more traditional than the average Conservative Jew. She lived in St. Louis, Mo., until she was 5. Then her parents, desperate to escape bitter Midwest winters, loaded up the family car and headed to the warmest place they could think of - Arizona.
But it was August. And it was 1957, without an air conditioner in sight. So the family drove on to the Los Angeles area, where Kellerman has remained.
She graduated from dental school in 1978 with the intention of opening a professional practice. But then something happened.
"I guess I was at a point in my life, after 20-some years of schooling, where I could relax and let my mind start to wander," she recalls. "I don't know how you just get into (fiction writing). If you have a vivid imagination, you write novels depending on where your imagination takes you. I was always a highly imaginative child."
Eschewing dentistry, she plunged into writing novel after novel. Ten of her novels deal with Orthodox Judaism to some degree. Recurring fictional characters in her books include Rina Lazarus, an Orthodox Jew; her husband, Peter Decker, a Southern Baptist convert to Judaism; and their four children.
The group is similar to Kellerman's own family. She also has four children, and she has maintained the Jewish religious traditions of her parents.
"We're modern Orthodox now, and it's something I just know (from growing up with it)," she says. "I am (known by readers) as a Jew, not (necessarily) as a practicing Jew, but as a Jewish person (by ethnicity.)
Kellerman's children range in age from 6 to 20. Her husband of 26 years, Jonathan Kellerman, is a best-selling thriller writer. Faye Kellerman calls him her "greatest ally and greatest editor."
The couple has toyed with the idea of collaborating on a book of short stories and essays in the future, since they "collaborate on everything else in life." And with two writers in the same house, the Kellermans always have a sounding board for their ideas.
"This took time," she notes. "In the very beginning, there was a lot of friction when he would (critique) my work. But after 12 years and successes on both sides, we're now able to do this without creating a major riot."
Kellerman says she only takes book advice from Jonathan and her publisher.
"It's not good to get edited from too many places, because then, it's like a Hollywood screenplay, and you lose your whole soul of material."
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