“How do you get your ideas?”
Novelists are asked that question all the time. Answering it is a little like trying to explain how you got your personality or why you keep having that dream about showing up for a book signing completely naked.
This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of my first novel, The Pardon, in which Miami criminal defense attorney Jack Swyteck made his debut. Jack is back for an eighteenth adventure in Goodbye Girl. Psychoanalysis aside, I can say from experience that the ideas for this long-running series have come to me in one of two ways. Sometimes, it’s the proverbial bolt of lightning. Other times, the story percolates for months, even years.
The Pardon: A Bolt of Lightning
For my first published novel, the “bolt of lightning” came in the form of a brush with Miami-Dade Police. My girlfriend (now my wife) and her family had lost their home to Hurricane Andrew and were living with me in a two-bedroom townhouse with no electricity. Right around then, my literary agent called to tell me that he had knocked on every publisher’s door in New York and, “Sorry, James, no one wants to buy your book.” The manuscript I had written over the past four years, while practicing law full time at a major Miami law firm, had crashed and burned. But there was a glimmer of hope.
“You got the best rejection letters I’ve ever seen,” my agent said. “Try again.”
I was afraid. I couldn’t waste another four years going down the wrong path. I spent night after night staring at a blank computer screen. One night around one a.m., I needed a break from my computer, so I went for a walk. A Miami-Dade Police appeared out of nowhere.
“Can I see some identification?” the cop said.
I had none—no wallet, no driver’s license, nothing. I was dressed in jogging shorts and T-shirt, ready for bed.
“Someone reported a peeping-Tom in the neighborhood,” the officer explained.
I stood nervously beside the squad car as he called in on his radio. The dispatcher recited the physical description of the prowler, and I could almost see the cop ticking off similarities on his mental check list.
“Under six feet,” the dispatcher said. Check.
“Mid-thirties.” Check.
“Brown hair, brown eyes.” Double check.
“Wearing blue shorts and white T-shirt.” Holy crap! I’m going to jail!
“And a mustache,” the dispatcher finally added.
The cop narrowed his eyes, trying to discern whether someone could have mistakenly thought I had a mustache. Finally, he said, “Go home.”
I walked quickly, thankful I wasn’t riding downtown in the back of a squad car. An arrest would have surely put me in the newspaper. Just being arrested could have ruined me.
My life had nearly changed forever. And in another way, it had. The feeling of being innocent and accused left my heart pounding. I took that feeling to the most dramatic extreme and wrote a scene about a death row inmate, hours away from execution for murder he may not have committed. That scene I wrote that night—all night—is the opening scene of The Pardon, my debut novel, published by HarperCollins in 1994.
Goodbye Girl: Ten Years in the Percolator
Have you ever downloaded music or movies without paying for them? Digital piracy costs the entertainment industry billions. No one can stop it, and in that sense, Goodbye Girl is a dark journey into the virtual Wild West. The tag line for the novel reads “A contentious intellectual piracy case leads to an unsolved murder, and Jack Swyteck’s client—a pop music icon—is the accused killer.” It sounds like something out of today’s headlines. But the idea percolated in my head for more than a decade.
In 2010 I was one of the lawyers involved in an epic courtroom battle for ownership of EMI Records. EMI and its iconic labels have been home to countless recording stars, from Frank Sinatra and the Beatles to Bob Dylan and Mariah Carey. In 2007 EMI was acquired in a deal worth €5.9 billion, and the buyer sued, feeling cheated. A big part of EMI’s financial trouble was music piracy. It was killing the entire recording industry. Our legal team lost the trial, but with an inside look at the ravages of piracy, I came away thinking, “there has to be a novel here.”
Piracy and pop stars seemed like fertile ground, but I write legal thrillers, and I needed a place for Jack Swyteck in my story. Then came the real-life battle between Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun. Braun and his companies controlled the rights to Taylor Swift’s master recordings, which meant that he was in a better position than anyone to profit from her original catalogue. Swift then re-recorded her first six albums and told her millions of fans to buy “Taylor’s Version.” Brilliant.
With that, a story came to me. Jack Swyteck represents “Imani,” a fictional pop icon whose professional nemesis is her ex-husband. Imani would rather thieves profit from her music than let her ex-husband pocket the royalties. She doesn’t re-record her albums. Instead, she tells her fans to “Go Pirate!” A contentious legal battle ensues, and someone ends up dead. Imani has more legal problems than she can handle, and her lawyer, Jack, is at the center of the storm.
Was it the percolator (piracy) or the bolt of lightning (Taylor Swift’s brilliant business move) that inspired Goodbye Girl? Maybe a little bit of both.
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