John Verdon Talks About His Life
As far back
as I can remember, I wanted be somewhere else, have something else, perhaps
even be someone else. There was always a set of circumstances on the far
horizon that I yearned for. The present was a place to escape from.
Going away
to college didn’t help. Working as a stunt man in a theme park didn’t help.
Devoting myself obsessively to martial arts didn’t help. Sports cars and
motorcycles didn’t help.
I wanted to
be a writer, but I also wanted to make a living. So I became an advertising
writer. I pursued that career from the alcoholic sixties to the workaholic
nineties, eventually pursuing promotions into a job that had very little to do
with anything I was good at.
I left
advertising to do something completely different — still chasing that
“something” on the far horizon. I studied woodworking and started building
Shaker-style furniture, an occupation I immersed myself in for the next ten
years. Along the way I also got a commercial pilot’s license, as an alternate
route to the horizon, but that’s another story.
When my
wife left her teaching job in New York City, we moved to the country — to a
beautiful part of the western Catskill mountains. And then, for the first time
in my life, I stopped wanting to be somewhere else. Being here felt wonderful.
I finally stopped looking into the future for my magic kingdom. The sweet,
peaceful world my wife and I found here was what we’d both been dreaming of.
After we
made the move, I began reading a lot more — mostly mysteries. I discovered not
only that I truly loved classic detective stories — in all their varieties from
Conan Doyle to Ross Macdonald to Reginald Hill — but that I was fascinated by
the form itself, the mechanics of constructing the hidden crime and gradually
exposing it.
I was
talking about this process one day to my wife, Naomi, when she made a simple
suggestion: Why don’t you write a mystery novel of your own? With some
misgivings and considerable fear of failure, I decided to try it. The result,
two years later, was Think of a Number.
Its
subsequent success in the marketplace, as well as with critics, astounded me.
My agent and my publisher urged me to write a second novel featuring the same
central characters. The result of their encouragement was Shut Your Eyes Tight,
which became another international bestseller, translated into more than 20
languages. The third novel in the Dave Gurney series, Let the Devil Sleep, was
published in 2012 and the fourth, Peter Pan Must Die, in 2014. The fifth, yet
to be named, is on the way.
I continue
to be amazed and delighted.
Our
children from our former marriages are good people — honest, humorous, smart,
successful. Our grandchildren are all that grandchildren are supposed to be. My
wife and I are happy. Grateful for the lives we’ve been given. Grateful to have
each other.
- 2015, Wolf Lake
- 2014, Peter Pan Must Die
- 2012, Let the Devil Sleep
- 2011, Shut Your Eyes Tight
- 2010, Think of A Number
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