In the early 1990s, I was a stringer for Harte-Hanks newspapers and was sent to interview a young romance novelist who was living in a small house on the water in Cochituate.
Suzanne Brockmann cheerfully explained about how success in romance writing requires following a formula — what the hero’s character should be, what the heroine should look like, by what page the first love scene should occur. She showed me the manual. It didn’t bother her at all that the books were meant to be read and thrown away.
As someone with occasional literary aspirations on the order of Dickens or Tom Stoppard, I was appalled. Goes to show that snootiness is ignorance.
I kept an eye out for the books. First I spotted Brockmann romances at magazine kiosks. Then I started seeing Brockmann mysteries on racks in every supermarket. Today I read that she is producing a movie — her second. Good girl!
Although the paint-by-numbers approach isn’t for everyone, I’m sure much of her success reflects the aspects of herself that she put into the writing, and in a way I admire her practicality. From a distance, she seems to have made a pretty fun career for herself.
Today’s Boston Globe talks about her latest project, an indie movie called Russian Doll.
“This is the second indie film for best-selling romance author Brockmann, who splits her time between Framingham and Sarasota, Fla. A few years ago, Brockmann, her husband, writer Ed Gaffney, and their son, Jason Gaffney, decided to make the romantic comedy The Perfect Wedding. Brockmann said it became important to her storytelling family to make a movie with gay characters who weren’t struggling to come out of the closet. Jason specifically wanted to see more characters like himself. …
“The family’s new project — a crime story thought up by Ed Gaffney — is about a detective who tries to solve a case while mourning the death of her wife. The starring role went to Brockmann’s daughter, Melanie Brockmann Gaffney, who has an acting background (she once appeared in an educational film series with Sudbury-raised Captain America star Chris Evans).” More at the Globe, here.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 