Any Place I Hang My Hat (45 page)

A Biography of Susan Isaacs

Susan Isaacs (b. 1943) is an award-winning author of mystery and literary fiction who holds the rare distinction of having had every one of her novels appear on the New York Times bestseller list.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, she attended Queens College, and upon graduation took an aptitude test for a position as a computer programmer. She failed the test, but when the interviewer saw that she had written for her college newspaper, she offered her a job at Seventeen magazine.

After several years writing advice columns, then political speeches, Isaacs tried her hand at a mystery novel, and Compromising Positions was published in 1978. The story of housewife-turned-detective was a runaway success. It has been translated into thirty languages and adapted into a film starring Susan Sarandon and Raul Julia, and Isaacs wrote the screenplay herself.

Isaacs’s experience in city politics informed her second novel, Close Relations. Like Compromising Positions, it became a critical and commercial success, and established her as an author of literary fiction. Her fourth book, the World War II drama Shining Through, was later made into a film starring Michael Douglas, Melanie Griffith, and Liam Neeson. Isaacs also found success as a screenwriter, penning 1987’s Hello Again, a comedy starring Shelley Long and Gabriel Byrne.

A former president of the Mystery Writers of America, she is a winner of the John Steinbeck Award, the Marymount Manhattan Writing Center Award, and the Writers for Writers Award. Isaacs is currently chairman of the board of the literary organization Poets & Writers. She has continued her involvement with politics, covering the 2000 election for the Long Island daily newspaper Newsday, an experience she has called “one of the greatest thrills of my life.”

Since 1968 she has been married to Elkan Abramowitz, a criminal defense lawyer with whom she has two children. Now a grandmother, she lives on Long Island.

Susan, the budding author, at about ten months of age. “Note the toothless smile,” Isaacs says. “Perhaps I’d not yet developed my ironic sensibility?”

Susan’s uncle, Herbert Isaacs Nova, a bomber pilot, named his B-26 for his niece in celebration of her birth, which was December 7, the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. This is one of the reasons she feels such a connection to World War II—and returns to it a few times in her novels.

“Cowgirl—such a practical ambition for a girl from Brooklyn!” says Isaacs.

Susan and Elkan Abramowitz on their wedding day. Susan says, “Marrying Elkan was the smartest decision of my life.”

Susan and Elkan’s son, Andy (now a lawyer), with the dog Susan calls “the noblest collie since Lassie.”

Susan with her daughter, Elizabeth (now a philosopher), in the early days.

Family vacation circa 1987. According to Susan, she is “98 percent sure we’re at Versailles.”

Susan (right) with Ethel Merman and Liz Smith at the launch of her second novel, Close Relations (1980).

The Compromising Positions film wrap party. From left to right: Susan Isaacs, Joe Mantegna, Frank Perry, Deborah Rush, Josh Mostel, and Anne De Salvo.

Susan and Elkan at the Tetons during one of their great vacations in Wyoming.

Susan’s mom and dad. She calls them “charming, bright, and warmhearted.”

Susan’s scene with Shelley Long in Hello Again. She wrote herself a role in the film—and actually got to play it!

Susan Isaacs signing books at the annual Book Expo. She is pictured with her publicist, Jane Beirn, and her late editor, Larry Ashmead.

Susan at home in New York during a New York Post photo shoot. (Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Lippman.)

Susan at the 2010 Poets & Writers bash with emcee Dave Barry. She has been chairman of the board of Poets & Writers (www.pw.org) for many years.

Susan’s family on her grandson Edmund’s first birthday. Edmund was born developmentally disabled and Susan’s daughter and son-in-law decided to celebrate his first birthday with a softball game/picnic/fundraiser for the 5 P Minus Society (www.fivepminus.org).

Acknowledgments

I sought information from the people listed below. All were courteous and helpful. I thank them and hope they will understand that on the occasions when their facts did not fit into my fictional universe, I chose credibility over truth.

Alvin Bragg, Jr., Paul Budline, Samantha Zises Cohen, Michelle Cottle, Joe DeBari, Jonathan Dolger, Dennis Farrell, Jacqueline Garber, R. T. Hawkes, Robert M. Kaye, Susan Lawton, Tamara Lipper, Joal Mendonsa, Daniel D. Mielnicki, Stephanie Moore, Sara Nelson, DeeDee O’Hearn, John Peterson, Sheila Riesel, Allen Salkin, Maggie Sandoval, Daniel Summers, Bernice Wollman, and Susan Zises.

Thanks to Elizabeth J. Carroll for her splendid research and for opening the door to boarding school for me.

I learned so much from the staff, faculty, and students at the Taft School. I appreciate their warm welcome and their sharing knowledge and memories of boarding school with me. Particularly, I am much obliged to Suzanne H. Campbell, Eleanor Gillespie, Massiel Santos, and Clayton B. Spencer.

I love libraries, particularly the Port Washington (New York) Public Library and the New York Public Library.

I am enormously grateful to the fine people at my publisher, Scribner, including my editor, the brilliant and gracious Nan Graham, as well as Susan Moldow, Pat Eisemann, Alexis Gargagliano, and their colleagues.

Owen Laster, my ace agent, is unfailingly shrewd and kind. It is comforting to be represented by such a fine man.

My assistant, Ronnie Gavarian, is awesomely gifted, as knowledgeable in gemology, music, and cake decorating as she is in Internet research. She’s also funny, insightful, and hardworking. I was blessed from the day she agreed to take the job.

The following people made generous donations to Long Island charities in exchange for having characters in this novel named for them or for a friend or relative. I hope they enjoy their other selves: Barbara Axinn; Sandy Garfunkel; Robin Ziegelbaum for her mother, Margaret Jane Maller; Joan Bernhard in her maiden name, Joan Murdoch; Matthew Schwartz; Mary Sloane.

So much of what I know about contemporary popular culture comes from my children and in-law children, Elizabeth and Robert Stoll, Leslie Stern and Andy Abramowitz. It is a joy to learn from them.

Naturally, I must hail my muses, Nathan and Molly Abramowitz.

I dedicated my first work of fiction to my husband: Elkan Abramowitz, the best person in the world. This is my tenth novel, and he still holds the title.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

copyright © 2004 by Susan Isaacs

cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

978-1-4532-1969-0

This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media

180 Varick Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com

Table of Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgments

Copyright