Tess Gerritsen

An interview with Tess GerritsenHello and welcome to Love Romances and More. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me, Love Romances Reviews and our readers. I have thoroughly enjoyed several of your books and hope our readers will enjoy them as well.

One of the first things we at Love Romances and More and our readers want to know about your writing is how long have you been writing?-- I've been writing since I was seven years old -- in fact, that's when I wrote my first "book." I started writing in earnest after I had my first child and went on maternity leave from my hospital work. I sold my first book in 1987, to Harlequin Intrigue. So I've been a published author for 21 years now.

Your bio tells us that you received your M.D. from Stanford (here in California where I am) in 1979. If memory serves me, that was the year before the Bakke decision and there weren’t many women in medical school. You were in a ground breaking position. Do you remember how it felt?-- I was one one of the earliest beneficiaries of the women's movement. It was 1975 when I entered medical school (at the University of California in San Francisco -- I got my undergraduate degree from Stanford). Only five years earlier, as recently as 1971, most medical schools still had quotas LIMITING the number of women students to fewer than ten percent. Many superbly talented women were turned down, while men who were less qualified were admitted. It took federal legislation outlawing discrimination to equalize women's chances. In 1970, 9 percent of medical students were women. Once anti-discrimination laws were passed, women could compete on an equal footing with men, and by 2000, women made up 45% of medical students. So I feel fortunate indeed to have been on the cusp of that movement. My class, in fact, had 40% women -- the largest number in the school's history up to that time.

And you have continued being the first to do many things. Does it come naturally or do you seek out these diverse experiences?-- I"ve never consciously tried to be "first" at anything -- I just happen to follow my own interests, and they take me to surprising places!Your bio talks about you starting to write during maternity leave. What prompted you along this path?-- Like so many writers I know, I always felt I was a born storyteller, but my very practical Chinese-American father urged me to pursue a more practical career. He believed that writing was something you did as a hobby, and in your spare time -- certainly it was not a way to make a living. Maternity leave simply gave me the time and the opportunity to indulge in my lifelong passion of writing. And once I discovered that I could actually sell what I wrote, I realized I actually could make a living at it.

You’ve retired from practicing medicine, do you miss it?-- I've been away from medicine for so long, I couldn't return to it now. And while I miss the contact with patients and colleagues, I don't miss the long hours and the stress of making life-and-death decisions while exhausted!

Although, you/ do/ have your hand in medicine with your medical thrillers and the Jane Rizzoli series, is that a way of staying connected; is it writing what you know or something else?-- Partly it's "writing what I know," but a larger part of it is simply that medical tales -- and medical situations - have inborn conflict and crisis. Hospitals are scary places, and doctors are witnesses to the biggest dramas in peoples' lives. So writing from a doctor's point of view automatically gives you access to the most powerful storylines.

You wrote a screen play—ADRIFT—which starred Kate Jackson and sold the rights for *HARVEST*. Any idea when we might see that movie made? How about any of your other books? (I know I’d love to see *CALL AFTER MIDNIGHT* made into a movie).-- I've sold the rights to many of my books -- but as yet, none of them have made it into production. I certainly hope I'll see one of my stories make it to the big screen one of these days.

You’ve lived in a number of places, Hawaii, California, and now, I believe, Maine. Where haven’t you lived that you would like to?-- The list is long indeed! Starting with somewhere in Italy or the south of France. Most of the time, I seem to end up living near the ocean. Perhaps it's the result of having grown up a California girl. If the sea isn't nearby, I feel a little trapped.

On your website you have a link for Creepy Biological Facts. (Yes, I read them—euuuu! But fun euuuu). Where did the idea come from to do that?-- It comes from my own slightly macabre interests. When I was a child, my mother used to take me to a lot of horror films, so I grew up with an interest in all things creepy. Since then, I've collected numerous clippings from newspapers and science magazines detailing weird facts or news stories. Not everyone shares my love of creepy things, though, so I always have to watch what I say during dinner conversations!

Your characters travel pretty far and wide. In *CALL AFTER MIDNIGHT*, Sarah and Nick travel to England, Germany, Amsterdam, in *UNDER THE KNIFE* you take readers to Hawaii, in *WHISTLE BLOWER *to San Francisco. Have you traveled to all the places your books take place?-- I confess that CALL AFTER MIDNIGHT was written with the use of a guidebook (to Great Britain), as was IN THEIR FOOTSTEPS (which takes place in Paris.) Since then, though, I have managed to travel to those places and more. Travel is one of my biggest pleasures, and I've lost count of how many countries I've been to. I'm drawn in particular to the Mediterranean and the Middle East, because of my interest in archaeology and the ancient world.

When you are writing your books do you feel like any of the characters are living with you while you are writing the story?-- Weirdly enough, the one character who actually seemed to take up "residence" in my life was the serial killer from THE SURGEON. He was such a vivid personality that I never really felt I had to think about what he would say -- the words would come out automatically. He was so real to me, in fact, that my husband and I would sometimes talk about him as if he were sitting at the dinner table with us. He turned out to be the serial killer who came to dinner and stayed. At the end of THE SURGEON, he was still alive -- and he insisted I write another book about him. Which is why I wrote THE APPRENTICE and ended up with a series!I identify most with my character Maura Isles, who reflects many aspects of my own personality. She's logical, introverted, and a believer in science. But because she and I are so alike, I find I often need to get out of her head, just to take a break. Which is where Jane Rizzoli (her co-star) comes in. Jane is impulsive, fearless, and blunt -- all the things I'm not. The contrasts between the two women are what I find so much fun to write.

As I ask this I think of Warren Hoyt. What was it like for you to write him in *THE SURGEON *and *THE APPRENTICE*? I will tell you, he was one of the creepiest, bone chillingest characters I’ve ever read.-- The creepiest part of writing about Warren was the fact I understood him so well. He looked ordinary, seemed ordinary, but his fantasies set him apart. He was utterly amoral, not a wild-eyed crazy, merely someone with a different view of humanity than you and I might have. He looked at other people the way a lion might look at a zebra -- as prey, nothing more. In his world, hunters simply hunt, and there's nothing inherently evil about following one's killing instincts.

This question may seem a bit off the wall, but I am curious, have you ever suffered from "writer’s block"? If so, what did you do to get out if it?-- I suffer from it with almost every book. Somewhere around the middle, I get tired of the story and the characters. Or I hit a wall in the plot and don't know where to go from there. Often it's merely exhaustion or stress. Sometimes it's because I haven't figured out the plot and just need time to let it sit for awhile. I find that a long drive or a trip out of town can help me get past it.What does your typical writing day consist of?-- I write best in the morning. So I'll get to my desk by around 9 AM and write until I've finished four first-draft pages (with a break for lunch, of course). As I get closer to deadline, I spend more and more time at my desk, and by the final month, I'm often working seven days a week. I always write my first drafts with pen and paper. I've never been able to compose fiction at the keyboard. I don't know why. After 21 books, I'm too set in my ways to try changing my methods now.

Now, about the books. When I’m interviewing an author I try to read everything he or she has written so I have a perspective on their writing history. *CALL AFTER MIDNIGHT* was your first, unfortunately out of print, although I did see a re-release of it on Amazon in 2006. I could definitely see huge growth in you as a writer between *CALL AFTER MIDNIGHT* and *THE MEPHISTO CLUB*. *THE MEPHISTO CLUB* was definitely creepier. I flip flopped back and forth as to whether there was something paranormal going on or if it was the real deal. To me, that takes a lot of talent and skill to pull off—keeping the reader on the edge of which it is. I can see how your characters have become more intricate, more developed. (Although when I read *CALL AFTER MIDNIGHT*, each of the characters seemed full-fleshed to me.) Your scenes have more detail, making the reader feel like part of the story. Do you feel that your writing has become more in-depth? Did you do anything to bring that about?-- I think what's changed about my books is primarily what the genre demanded of me. CALL AFTER MIDNIGHT was romantic suspense, and the line I was writing for (Harlequin Intrigue) had a length limit of only 75,000 words. In that short time, you must include both a romantic subplot and a thriller subplot -- and wrap it up with a happy ending. That's not an easy thing to do, and it means you have less space for descriptive passages and subplots. I loved writing romantic suspense, but the page limits meant there was only so much I could do with plot complexity. Since becoming a mainstream writer, I have the freedom to expand, as well as to explore grittier and more horrifying themes that one simply can't use in the romance genre. So although it may seem that I've grown as a writer, I think I've also been given greater opportunity to show my chops as well. Having written both romance and mainstream thrillers, I can appreciate the difficulties posed by both genres -- and respect them both.

The premise of *CALL AFTER MIDNIGHT *is fairly simple—an agent using another identity seems to go underground when an attempt is made on his life. He reaches out, either for real or from the grave, to his wife and she goes in search of him. Yet you made it a page turning, can’t put this book down, read. I know it was written twenty years ago, but do you remember how it felt to be writing it? How is it different from how you write today?-- In so many ways, it's not different from any of my other stories. I still love that book. I still love the characters. While writing it, I was caught up in the thrill of a fast-paced spy story combined with a love story, and I don't remember having a single instant of writer's block -- the tale just spun itself. Even after all these years, I'm still proud of that book, even though I wish I'd known more about the geography of Great Britain when I wrote it!As I was reading *UNDER THE KNIFE *I reflected back to the date when it first came out. If you were writing it today, would you do anything different?-- Not a thing. It is what it was meant to be -- a love story combined with a murder mystery. I know that mystery/thriller readers love to thumb their noses at anything with a hint of romance, but you have to take it for what it is -- a romance! Criticizing it for that reason is like criticizing Star Wars because it has spaceships.*WHISTLEBLOWER *totally captured the San Francisco I know, from the opening scenes with the rain on a dark and cold night to those on Mission Street and the visuals of the apartment; I could feel the fog rolling in.

Did you do anything special to capture those film noir moods?-- I lived in San Francisco for four years while in medical school, so I knew that city well. The descriptions came straight from memory.*HARVEST *was beyond creepy. It definitely made me think about the kind of questions I’d ask if I had to have surgery. Where did the idea come from?-- It came from a conversation I'd had with a former detective who had recently traveled in Russia. While there, he'd heard rumors from local cops that children were vanishing from the streets of Moscow, and they believed the kids were being shipped abroad as organ donors. It was one of those tales that gave me chills, especially since I'm a mother. I was still obsessing about it a few weeks later, and realized that I simply had to write a story about it.

I want to know, but I don’t…does what happened in *HARVEST *happen in real life? How about *LIFE SUPPORT*? It’s scary to consider, but how close do you think we are to creating organs and doing transplants like you describe in *LIFE SUPPORT*?-- Where large sums of money are involved, I think any crime is possible. So I don't doubt that the events that happen in HARVEST are indeed happening somewhere in the world. LIFE SUPPORT was inspired by a scientific article I’d read about the cloning of eyes in fruit flies. I realize that it's a long way from fruit flies to the plotline of Life Support, but it's an example of how I can be inspired by an odd little science article and spin a whole plot from it. Ideas are always the fun part. Turning them into plots is the hard part.

*BLOODSTREAM *seems to have been another shift for you. I felt a gothic overtone, which I loved—you can really feel that moving through the fog, knowing there is danger out there element. You also moved out of the hospital and into a small town practice and the love interest in a police officer, Lincoln Kelly. What prompted that shift? Anything in particular?-- I happen to live in a small Maine town, and there's something dark and atmospheric that happens here every winter, when the days are short and people huddle inside their homes. I wanted to capture that gothic atmosphere of a snow-bound town where terrible things are happening -- things that no one wants to talk about. It was also inspired by a particularly bad episode we had with our then-14-year-old son, who'd gotten into a bit of, well, trouble with the local police. He was a great kid at age 12, but at age 14, he became something of an alien force in our household. I thought: what if there's a small town where every teenager is starting to act like an alien? What if they've suddenly become violent? What if it happens in this town every fifty years, and only during the month of November? It was a creepy premise, and one that should terrify every parent of a teenager!

*GRAVITY *quickly became my favorite /Gerritsen /book because it was about one of my dreams, flying on a shuttle. If you have the chance to do so, would you go up in one of them? Knowing what you created in *GRAVITY*, would you like to be the doctor on the International Space Station?-- Becoming an astronaut used to be one of my dreams, too! But after writing GRAVITY, and after all the research I did on the dangers of spaceflight, I realize that I'm too chicken to strap myself onto a rocket. The risk of a major disaster on a space mission is about one in fifty -- those aren't good odds, and it makes me admire the courage of astronauts who are willing to take that risk.

We meet Jane Rizzoli for the first time in *THE SURGEON*. She’s very different from all of your other female characters up until this point. She’s got an edge and some identity issues along with often ‘barely there’ anger management. What was it like for you when you first were creating her?-- Jane Rizzoli was created as a throwaway character who was never meant to survive THE SURGEON. I thought she was going to die in that climactic scene in the cellar. So I didn't feel I needed to make her particularly likable, which may be why so many readers think of her as a bitch in that first book. But she had a vulnerability that I grew to like, and although she was flawed, she had the grit of a true survivor. By the time I got around to writing her death scene, I found that I simply couldn't do it. She'd fought so hard, and she'd grown so much over the course of the book, that I had to let her live. Since then, she's appeared in every book, and there've been many changes in her life -- changes that have made her a more tolerant and more likable person. It's been amazing to watch her grow and change. But she still hasn't lost her edge -- or her anger management issues.

*THE APPRENTICE *introduces several new characters to Detective Rizzoli’s world, namely Gabriel Dean and Maura Isles. What was it like for you when you were first creating Dr. Isles?-- Maura was yet another character who was meant to stay "minor." In fact, she was created specifically because I had auctioned off the right to name a character, and the winning bidder asked for a character named Maura Isles. But I grew intrigued by this rather mysterious medical examiner and wanted to learn more about her. So I wrote THE SINNER, specifically about her.Gabriel seems the epitome of the aloof alpha male until we meet him again in *THE SINNER.

*Did you intentionally set out to transform him into the sensitive and vulnerable man we see in *THE SINNER*, or was it a transition that the character evolved into on his own?-- Gabriel is modeled after so many of my favorite romance heroes, men who at first seem unapproachable. (Think of Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice -- the ultimate romance hero!) But underneath that reserved exterior beats the heart of a man in passionate love with the heroine -- even though it will take a crisis to make him admit it!Father Brophy, who we meet in *THE SINNER *is the essence of forbidden fruit, isn’t he? What was it like for you to create him?-- Ah yes, forbidden fruit! Haven't we all been tempted, just a little? I love writing these should I?/ shouldn't I? crises because they lead to such turmoil and such conflict, and that keeps the story racing along. It's especially ironic that my character Maura, who's so intelligent and accomplished and logical, should be the one who falls for the unattainable man. It's a stupid romantic choice, but it only proves that she's as human and as flawed as everyone else.

He and Maura explore a bit of their feelings in *THE MEPHISTO CLUB*. Is that a relationship you see growing in future books?-- It's a relationship that is full of complications. And they will be explored in the next book, THE KEEPSAKE.

In *IN THEIR FOOTSTEPS *you return to your romantic suspense roots. How did that feel for you?-- That was published back in 1995, so it wasn't really a return , but was written back before I became a thriller writer. And it was a lot of fun to write!Do you think you’ll return there again?-- I have no plans to write romance at the moment. But I never say never.What do you like best about writing an anthology?-- The anthologies that have been published have used books that were already written and published years ago. Since becoming well-known, it's amazing how many different ways they can take my old books and re-package them, often without my even being aware of it!What was it like for you to be the lead author of an anthology?-- Hey, I always love seeing my name on the cover of a book! Any book!I loved *BODY DOUBLE*.

Just when I think I have a favorite “Gerritsen” I read another and have to change my mind although *GRAVITY *and *THE MEPHISTO CLUB* still are the best for me. In true Gerritsen style, you take the “what if” factor and turn it into a spell binding, I-can’t-put-this-book-down read. For myself, I always thought I had a twin and my mother just hid it from me. To this day, I still wonder despite her avowing no such being existed. In *BODY DOUBLE *you introduce readers to Dr. Maura Isles’ twin and we learn about her in such a fascinating way. What led you in the direction of creating her heretofore unknown family?-- That story was inspired by an experience I had in the autopsy room. I was watching an autopsy on a young man, and realized that he was my son's age. That thought really bothered me, because I thought how horrible it would be to watch someone I knew get autopsied. Then an even more grotesque thought occurred to me: what would it be like to watch MYSELF get autopsied? I couldn't stop thinking about that scenario, and how I could make it happen without writing a ghost story. That's how BODY DOUBLE was born -- Maura Isles comes home from a business trip to find a crime scene in her front yard. A woman has been shot to death -- a woman who looks exactly like Maura. So when she watches the autopsy a day later, it's as if she's watching herself get cut open. The explanation for that weird situation includes a twin sister she never knew she had -- and a murder story within a murder story.Speaking of Maura’s family—do you think her devotion to her job is in her genes?-- I think her fascination with the dark side may be in her genes. There are times when Maura is downright spooky to write.*VANISH *reminded me in some ways of *HARVEST*—that combination of the best and worst humanity has to offer or do to us. We see a bit more of who Gabriel is behind the façade of the cool and collected federal agent. Was this a natural transition or one you thought about?-- Gabriel is simply a husband who's madly in love with his wife -- a husband who'd do anything to keep her safe. I wanted to show just how heroic such a man could be. He's the man we all want to be married to -- the man who would die for the woman he loves.I so can’t stand Dr. O’Donnell, she takes what I call “the creep factor” to new heights. Her outcome in *THE MEPHISTO CLUB* left me with a macabre let down, I wanted to hate her some more. She gave us some incredible insights into the sick minds that commit the most heinous crimes. Is she based on anyone you know?-- She's entirely my own character. No one that evil could possibly exist -- at least, I hope not!Will we see her “talents” appear in another character soon? Or perhaps a reincarnation of her in some fashion?-- I think so. She was such a creepy character, there has to be someone else to take her place!

The ending of *THE MEPHISTO CLUB *is chilling and it dangles more books in that line before us as readers. Will the Watchers return in another book?-- Anthony Sansone will certainly return. He appears in THE KEEPSAKE. And I'm toying with the idea of writing a spin-off young adult series based on THE MEPHISTO CLUB.

Your latest, the *BONE GARDEN *is a unique turn in the path. You blend a series of murders in the late 1800s with some notables from that time and drop it in Maura Isles lap. Before you left your practice, were you ever in the situation that called upon those forensic skills?-- No, I'm afraid I was a plain old specialist in internal medicine. I did get accepted into a pathology residency program, but chose to stay with living patients.

There is also the aura in *THE BONE GARDEN *of the supernatural. We saw the allusion to it first in *THE MEPHISTO CLUB *and it tantalizes us here. Is this a direction we’ll be seeing you explore?-- Although I'm firmly a realist, I do have a fascination with all things metaphysical. I like to toy with the idea that the supernatural exists -- even though I don't believe it. The Mephisto Club allowed me to play with the possibility -- and yet not commit myself to which is real and which is not.Is Maura going to have a happily ever after?-- We'll have to see, won't we?Are you working on anything right now?-- I've just finished my 7th Jane Rizzoli book, THE KEEPSAKE. It goes on sale September 9.

Earlier I asked about your books being made into movies. If you could pick anyone you wanted for the Jane Rizzoli series, who would you have play Jane’s part?-- I have no idea! It would have to be someone with an edge and a big mouth.

What is next on Tess Gerritsen’s writing horizon?-- I'm taking a six-month break to work on some fun projects. The young adult spin-off of Mephisto Club, for instance. And then it will be on to the next Jane and Maura book.
Any advice to aspiring authors?-- Read read read. And when you start writing, just finish the whole manuscript before you revise. I find that I don't know what my book's about until I finish the first draft.Do you have anything to add?-- I think you've covered it all!Thank you for some fabulous reading and your time today.