Interview with Laura Lippman (October 2003)
Author of Every Secret Thing (2003)
October 26, 2003
Laura Lippman was a newspaper reporter at the Baltimore Sun for fifteen years. Her Tess Monaghan novels have won the Edgar, Agatha, Shamus, Anthony, and Nero Wolfe Awards, and her novel, In a Strange City, was a New York Times Notable Book. Her latest book, Every Secret Thing, is probably her most powerful yet.
Q. What made you decide to start writing mysteries?
A. There are multiple answers to that. The funny one -- "I wanted to kill someone" -- has a germ of truth in it. But I think I was drawn to mysteries because I had a very hard time finishing the novels I attempted in my 20s. I needed the discipline of story to pull me through, to get me over the hump of wandering around with 60-70 pages of something vague and unformed.
I've stayed with mysteries because I've found the genre an excellent place to explore what interests me about urban life. And, increasingly, suburban life as well.
Q. Your latest book (Every Secret Thing) is a stand-alone, the first you've written. Was that a conscious decision on your part, or just the way the story took you?
A. It was conscious as an artistic choice, not so much as a business one. Because a lot of writers have enjoyed enormous success by writing outside their series, some people assumed this was a calculated decision on my part. But it was far more emotional than intellectual. I wanted to write this story, and I couldn't make it fit into my series
Q. In Every Secret Thing you write about a terrible crime committed by young children. Was that a hard story for you to tell and did you have any hesitation about doing so?
A. I never had any hesitation because I trusted myself. (And I suppose I should add a 
there, but I'm serious. I knew I wouldn't write a sensationalistic, graphic book.) I knew I could tell the story in a gentle, non-exploitative fashion. In fact, I find it far harder to talk about Every Secret Thing because it sounds stark and overwhelming when summarized, and the book is not.
Q. Did you miss writing about Tess Monaghan, or was it nice to give her a vacation?
A. I missed her, but I loved the opportunity to think about new characters. It was like cross-training -- the new activity reminds you of all the muscles you're not working in your regular routine.
Q. All of your books have been set in the city of Baltimore, where you still live. What is it that attracts you so much to the city, and do you think you'll ever write a book set elsewhere?
A. Baltimore is so provincial that it honestly doesn't care about its reputation beyond the city. Oh, sure, some individuals do, and they bitch and moan about its shortcomings. But Baltimore is what it wants to be. Criticizing it is sort of like faulting a Snickers for not being tiramisu. Look, it's okay not to like it. Plenty of people don't. And it's not perfect, far from it. But I love it. And the fact is, it's small enough that things grind together here -- races, classes -- which is good fuel for fiction.
Q. We understand that you are good friends with David Simon, creator of the stunning HBO series "The Wire." Have you considered writing for the show, as novelist George Pelecanos has done?
A. It's not my voice, I have nothing to bring to that show unless they spin out Rhonda Pearlman, the prosecutor, and make her the central figure. They could call it "Rhonda!" It would have a peppy theme song and introduce us to her overbearing parents and her WASPy best friend. Oh, wait. That's the Tess Monaghan series.
Q. Do you read reviews of your books?
A. Yes, but I probably shouldn't. The bad ones hurt, and the good ones feel too good, sort of like that incident in "Brainstorm," the cheesy Natalie Wood-Christopher Walken movie, in which recorded memories are as powerful as the real event. A guy plays one, um, particularly satisfying tape over and over again until he's almost a vegetable. That's the risk of good reviews. They can make your brain mushy with pleasure. So I guess the goal is to read them once, and put them away.
Q. What advice would you give aspiring writers?
A. To be professional. There are a lot of ups and downs in publishing, but those who survive tend to take their work seriously, treat writing like a job.
Q. What are your thoughts about Hollywood adapting your books?
A. I'm pretty blase about the Hollywood stuff. If one has escaped one's day job, it fades in importance. The chief lure is that it can increase one's audience exponentially, and I wouldn't mind that. Who would? But I'm not panting for it.
Q. What excites or distresses you about the mystery genre today?
A. I feel as if I'm in very good company. My hunch is that someone I know is going to be read 100 years from now. I just don't know who it is.
Q. What's the last book you read?
A. I haven't finished it yet, but We Need to Talk About Kevin, by Lionel Shriver, is the book that just jumped off my TBR pile. I've also been reading a book about a year in the life of a suburban middle school in Columbia, Maryland.
Q. What's next for you?
A. I have to finish revisions on Tess #8, and find a title while I'm at it. And then it's my plan to write another stand-alone, centering on a shooting in a school that's not really a school shooting. I'm interested in the way narratives rush to fill a void, so an absence of information makes way for a series of theories, all plausible, some rooted in fact, but none actually true.
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