The Crime Writers' Chronicle
all about crime writing and the crime writer's life
Dennis Palumbo ends his stunning book WRITING FROM THE INSIDE OUT
with a quote by screenwriter Frederick Raphael: "Work is... having pages
in the evening that weren't there in the morning."
And his own words: "You. And Your writing. That's all there is. That's all there needs to be. So go. Write!"
If I were doing a book on "Writing," I'd want to say everything Dennis
says. Both a gifted writer and a well-known psychotherapist, Dennis
tackles the weighty issues that confront every serious writer:
Rejection, solitude, fear, isolation, struggles, envy, tumult, joy and
triumph! This book is not a manual for the neophyte. Or a person who
toys with the art. Rather, it is like going to your own personal guru,
who is experienced both as a fellow writer and as a wise shrink.
Informed, compassionate and funny, Dennis gives you the confidence
that you ARE on the right track, ARE okay and all WILL be well!
That all your agony on this journey IS worth it!
That you have a compassionate friend, a steady guide and a wise companion - that you are NOT alone!
Author of acclaimed crime novels MIRROR IMAGE, FEVER DREAMS and NIGHT
TERRORS ( Poisoned Pen Press), a collection of short stories, FROM CRIME
TO CRIME ( Tallfellow Press), Dennis has been a Hollywood screen writer
for popular series, including "My Favorite Year" and "Welcome Back,
Kotter," short fiction in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
, The Strand
, articles in the NYT, the LAT, The Lancet
, Psychology Today
and the Huffington Post
. He has been named UCLA "Outstanding Teacher of the Year"!
Today, as a licensed psychotherapist, he works with established screen
writers, directors and novelists, often dealing with issues of anxiety,
depression and relationship difficulties.
He has stated "The most challenging aspect of crime/mystery writing is
the plotting—making sure there are enough twists and turns!" ( Sound
familiar, dear friends?)
He makes us feel "If you seek wisdom, sample every tent in the bazaar!"
We are never too smart, gifted, clever, famous, well-published—to think
we are above seeking good advice!(From many years in the challenging
world of crime writing—as reader, reviewer, writer—I'm always on the
lookout for a superior teacher on how to write better or how to navigate
the Slippery Slope of Writing Fiction!)
In Dennis Palumbo I've found a writer who is sage, inspired, experienced, exceptional.
I can't wait to begin his new crime novel, NIGHT TERRORS, that sits beside me as I write this page.
Please welcome Dennis Palumbo to our esteemed blog - Crime Writers Chronicle!
Thelma Jacqueline Straw
In my latest Daniel Rinaldi mystery, NIGHT TERRORS (Poisoned Pen Press),
the Pittsburgh psychologist and trauma expert is asked by the FBI to
treat one of their recently-retired profilers. After a twenty year
career inside the minds of the most infamous serial killers, Special
Agent Lyle Barnes can no longer sleep through the night. He’s tormented
by a cascade of horrifying images, along with intense feelings of dread
and imminent danger. Until, sweat-soaked, heart pounding, he wakes up
screaming...
He’s not alone. Once considered primarily a pediatric diagnosis, more
and more adults are currently being treated for night terrors. Why the
upsurge in night terrors in adults? Most clinicians—including therapists
like myself—are blaming the increased uncertainty of contemporary life.
The economy, terrorism. Even natural disasters, like tsunamis,
earthquakes, and super-storms. The daily anxiety suppressed by adults
during waking life, now invading their sleep.
And since science hasn’t yet discovered what exactly causes night
terrors, treating it can be quite difficult. In my novel, Rinaldi’s
approach is to get the retired FBI agent to open up about his years as a
profiler. His thousands of hours of contact with the most heinous and
notorious serial killers. Since Barnes’ work was his life, Rinaldi
believes that the best way to address his nocturnal demons is to get him
to open up about the real-life demons with whom he spent most of his
career.
Not an easy task, since Lyle Barnes is also the target of an unknown
assassin who’s already killed three others on a seemingly-random
hit-list...
***
As it happens, I got the idea for the fictional narrative of NIGHT
TERRORS from reading about the real-life sleep disorder in a clinical
journal. In my dual careers as both a therapist and crime writer, the
worlds of psychotherapy and mystery fiction are often equally
intertwined.
Take, for example, an institutionalized patient I knew called Angie. All
the other patients called her Angie the Android. She was a deeply
delusional teenage girl who believed she was actually a machine. Like
Pinocchio, her biggest and only dream was to become a real person.
I met Angie the very first week of my internship at a private
psychiatric hospital in West L.A. She was one of dozens of schizophrenic
patients I worked with at this final stage of my training to be a
psychotherapist. It was a thrilling, challenging, enlightening and
ultimately humbling period of years. (Even though my former career as a
Hollywood screenwriter, working with various film producers and network
executives, had already given me valuable experience dealing with
psychotics.)
Of course, my internship at the private hospital took place many, many
years ago. Now I’m a licensed psychotherapist in private practice, but
I’ve woven some of the situations and people I encountered during my
clinical training—people like Angie—into my series of crime novels. In
fact, it was the opportunity to blend aspects of both my clinical
experience and personal biography that prompted me to create the series
in the first place.
For starters, my protagonist, Dr. Daniel Rinaldi, is a psychologist.
And, although my internship was in Los Angeles, the novel takes place in
Pittsburgh, my home town. Moreover, Rinaldi shares a similar background
to my own—from his Italian heritage to his love of jazz to his teenage
years spent working in the Steel City’s sprawling produce yards.
(However, unlike me, he’s a former amateur boxer, and, in general, a lot
braver and more resourceful than I am!)
But it’s my clinical experience that most influences my writing, that
(hopefully) helps ground my stories and characters in reality. For
example, Rinaldi’s best friend, Noah Frye, is a paranoid schizophrenic,
his delusions tempered by medication (when he stays on it).
Foul-mouthed, funny, and disconcertingly intuitive, this character is
based on another real patient with whom I worked.
However, it isn’t just my experience as a therapist that informs some of
the material in my crime novels. It’s also the emotions, conflicts and
confusions that accompanied my career transition from screenwriter to
psychotherapist. To say it was a rocky journey would be an
understatement. For one thing, it wasn’t a decision that came easily. Or
quickly. After almost 16 years as a Hollywood writer, the idea of
changing careers—involving graduate school, years of supervised
internships, and the difficulties of setting up a clinical
practice—seemed… well… crazy. Frankly, I was so unsure about it that I
kept the fact that I’d gone back to school a secret from all but a
select group of friends. (It didn’t help that most of them thought I was
crazy, too.)
In a similar way, my psychologist hero, Daniel Rinaldi, goes through an
emotional upheaval before finding his calling. Though what happens to
him is much more painful and life-shattering than merely deciding to
change careers. My decision was the result of years of ruminating, of
debating the pros and cons. His was in response to a single,
overwhelming event—one that leads to his becoming a trauma specialist,
treating the victims of violent crime.
No question, what makes the writing of this series so engaging for me is
that I’m able to weave together aspects of my clinical training at a
psychiatric facility, my current experience in private practice, and the
police procedural details of a mystery thriller.
Which is why I knew from the very beginning that the protagonist of my
series was going to be a therapist. But not merely because I am one,
too.
Let me explain: some years back, I did a Commentary for NPR’s “All
Things Considered” in which I lamented the depiction of male therapists
in today’s TV shows and film.
In fact, I referenced two iconic images, from two memorable films: In
Now, Voyager,
kindly therapist Claude Rains walks in the garden with troubled patient
Bette Davis. He’s paternal, insightful, and obviously knows what’s good
for her.
In
The Three Faces of Eve, Lee J. Cobb helps Joanne Woodward
parse out the three distinct personalities tormenting her. Like Claude
Rains before him, he’s a model of the patriarchal culture, a therapist
of unquestionable motives and unimpeachable authority. One of the good
guys.
Which raises the question: how did we get from there to Hannibal Lecter?
Because, I testily pointed out, with rare exceptions that’s where we
are. And I still think this is true. Whether in print, in film or on TV,
male therapists are serving more and more as convenient villains.
Instead of being caretakers, they’re portrayed as troubled, predatory,
even psychotic. It seems that every other mystery best-seller or
Hollywood horror film features a demented shrink. Not to mention TV
shows like
Law and Order: SVU and the CSI franchises, where a
male psychologist or psychiatrist is as liable to be the bad guy as any
garden-variety contract killer or spurned lover.
Now I know enough to be skeptical about pop culture’s notion of any
profession, but I can’t help wondering what’s going on. How did the
image of male therapist go from father figure to the most likely
suspect?
Maybe this change simply reflects one that’s occurred in the culture at
large. After all, the past forty years has seen a challenge to the whole
idea of male authority. In terms of image, professors, doctors and
scientists of the male persuation have suddenly gone from being saints
to sinners. Same with therapists. No wonder today’s crime novelists, TV
and film writers find them irresistable as villains. All that education,
respectibility and power, turned to the Dark Side.
But it isn’t just society’s growing mistrust of male authority that
turned Lee J. Cobb’s gray suit and pipe into Anthony Hopkins’ face
muzzle and leather restraints. After all, the world’s a pretty
treacherous, confusing place nowadays. Our most sturdy
institutions—government, the church, education—traditionally headed by
men, seem to be letting us down. It’s no different with therapy. Whether
fairly or not, I believe the way in which male therapists are portrayed
in popular fiction reflects a similar disenchantment with both the
profession in general, and its male practitioners in particular.
The truth is, nowadays—much like priests—male therapists suffer from the
failed expectations of a disillusioned public. Which is why I wanted my
series hero to be a therapist. Flawed, yes. Troubled, stubborn, and
with a temper. But someone trying desperately to make a difference. To
help others on the path to healing, even if only as a way to come to
some kind of peace himself.
I guess what I’m saying is, if Daniel Rinaldi’s mission as a therapist
is to treat those crippled by trauma, my mission as a writer is to help
resuscitate the image of the mental health professional. Particularly
male. Particularly in today’s harsh, cynical world.
Which brings me, by an admittedly circuitous route, back to Angie the
Android. Believe it or not, we’re all a bit like Angie. We all want, in
both our lives and our work, to be real. Authentic. For most writers I
know, myself included, it is—as it was for Angie—our biggest and only
dream.
That’s why I’m grateful I got to know her, all those years ago. As I am
all the patients with whom I’ve been privileged to work since then. Just
as I’m grateful for my lifetime of experiences, both personal and
professional. Because everything we’ve ever done informs who we are, how
we think, what we write.
The Beat poet Allen Ginsberg once said that our main job in life is to
track our consciousness. That’s certainly true for patients in therapy.
But I believe it’s also true for those of us who feel the need not only
to keep track, but to write it down…
Dennis Palumbo
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