Ridley Pearson - 1963
|
Advanced English III
Emmett High School, Emmett, ID
I. Personal and Professional Biography
Ever since the story of Cinderella was first told, people have aspired to have their own little corner where they can sit around and pretend to be whatever they could possibly dream of. One person, an author from Idaho, has found a way to do so, and he does it as his career. This author once stated of his career, " There's no better job in the world because when I sit down at the computer I'm the world's best forensics expert, if that's what I'm writing about that day. Or I'm some crazed psycho running down a dark alley. Or I'm a gorgeous woman looking to find a man that night. Whatever! But I'm all of those things everyday. How can you beat that?" (Profile 2). How indeed could one beat the opportunity to dream things and then live them as a form of reality? It is precisely this appeal that makes writing such a great career for Ridley Pearson. Not only is this man a talented writer, but he is also a talented musician, a hard worker, and a person who is highly concerned with the well-being of his fellow man.
On the thirteenth of March in 1963 this master of horror and mystery was born in Glencove, New York, to Betsy and Robert G. Pearson (Jones; Jorgenson). From the beginning, it seemed as though Pearson were meant to pursue a career in the arts as his family was an artistic group. Pearson's mother was, at the time, an accomplished painter, as well as the organizer of local art shows and the local mini-Olympics, while his father became a freelance writer upon quitting his job of thirty-three years in public relations at Shell Oil (Profile 2). His father has, also, come to edit no less than eight of Pearson's novels, and was actually the reason that Pearson was published to begin with.
As a child, Ridley Pearson lived both in Greenwich and Riverdale (Jones; Jorgenson), two towns in Connecticut, where he spent his school years in Pomfret Prep School. Pearson considers this school to be the reason that he is capable of being a writer due to the high standards placed on him there. Pearson considers the courses taken at the prep school to have been far more challenging than any classes he attended at the university level (Profile 2). While attending Pomfret, Pearson participated in many extra-curricular activities, some of which include student council, soccer, squash, tennis, and Boy Scouts, where he achieved rank of Eagle Scout. In his spare time he studied his childhood loves which included music and marine biology (Profile 1).
Upon graduating Pomfret Prep School, Ridley Pearson decided to attend the University of Kansas where he entered the Pre-Medical program in 1972 (Jones; Jorgenson). One of the main reasons Pearson chose this school was that it was the university that both of his parents attended, and, in fact, was the place where they first met (Profile 1). After a bit of schooling at this institution, Pearson dropped out mid-way through his freshman year in order to help a former prep school roommate who had been diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease (Profile 2). In 1974 (Jones; Jorgenson), Pearson returned to school, but this time he was pursuing his first love... music. Pearson entered Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island (Profile 2) as a Music Theory major and went on to graduate in 1978 (Jones; Jorgenson).
Marcelle Marsh, who eventually married Ridley Pearson, worked as a waitress for a brief period in her life, and one particular evening had the fortune of hosting a dinner for a group of noisy musicians, "The Sensational Toast Points" who were getting ready for a gig. The bass guitar player caught her eye, and she would eventually come to marry him. Minister Robert Fulgham married Pearson and Marsh in a castle in Cottswold, England (Profile 2).
Pearson has lived in a number of different places including England, New York, Rhode Island, Kansas, Connecticut, Idaho, and Missouri. Currently he lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with his wife and two daughters, Paige and Storey who was adopted from China (Adoption Journal). Prior to Missouri, the Pearson family resided in the small Idaho resort town of Hailey. The Pearson family prefers living in St. Louis to living in Hailey because of the focus on children in St. Louis, as well as the town's active FCC (Families with Children from China). This group was non-existent in Hailey, Idaho, due to the lack of diversity in the area, and children were not accepted at all (Profile 1).
Ridley Pearson tends to be a bit of a workaholic, a huge perfectionist, and a compulsive worrier. Pearson is such a workaholic, that when author Stephen King called on the Fourth of July one year, he said to Pearson, "I knew you'd be working on the fourth because I am, too." Pearson commented, "Nobody in their right mind would be working on the Fourth of July but me and Stephen" (Profile 2). When asked about writing his books Pearson commented, "My philosophy is that I should try everything people suggest, and I worry to death. I'm a worrier" (Profile 1). Part of the reason Pearson may work and worry so much is that he is a perfectionist, so much so that he goes through draft after draft of a book until he considers it to be perfect. Fortunately for him, he has found an antidote for his uncontrollable working habits. Pearson participates in recreational tree climbing. While that may sound boring, it is far from that when the trees are upwards of a hundred feet. Pearson feels it to be exhilarating, and one of the best parts about it for him is that he has to be so focused on what he is doing that he does not have the time to worry about anything else (Profile 2).
Music is Ridley Pearson's "first love," and he plays both acoustical rhythm guitar and bass guitar and has played for at least two musical groups, "The Sensational Toast Points," and "The Rock Bottom Remainders." The latter of these two bands is a literary garage band whose motto is, "This band plays music as well as Metallica writes novels" (Rock Bottom Remainders). Other members of this band include authors Stephen King, Amy Tan, Dave Barry, Barbara Kingsolver, Robert Fulgham, Mitch Albom, and around a dozen others (Profile 1, Profile 2, Jones; Jorgenson). This group has played on Good Morning America, played for the American Book Sellers Association Convention, played with Bruce Springsteen at Hollywood Palladium (Profile 2), and performed twice in a club called Cowboy Boogie (Rock Bottom Remainders).
As much as Ridley Pearson enjoys writing, he also enjoys reading in the little free time he has. He especially enjoys Jonathan Harr, Mitch Albom, Barbara Kingsolver, Stephen King, Dave Barry, Laura Lippman (Mystery Guide), James Elroy and Carl Hiaasen (Profile 2). Despite what he enjoys or doesn't enjoy as far as literature goes, three specific authors stand out for him. These are writer Thomas Harris, the author Pearson envies because of the amount of time he is given to complete a book (Mystery Guide), James Clavell, Pearson's literary model due to the insight gained through reading his novels, and John D. McDonald, his literary hero. Person has also had the pleasure of meeting one of his characters, Lou Boldt, through meeting detective Don Cameron whom he received the pleasure of meeting due to his book helping solve a court case in the area (Profile 2).
Currently Pearson is an author, but it has not always been that way for him. He has had the experience of working other jobs including being the songwriter for a touring bar band, dishwasher and housekeeper in a hospital surgery suite, and composer of an orchestral score for the documentary film Cattle Drive (Jones; Jorgenson). Currently he is a suspense thriller author, and while he would enjoy working at home, he does not have that luxury. Right now he works in a small office that is approximately two miles from home in a strip mall, where he stores the larger most of his research materials (Profile 1).
Pearson got into writing when his parents treated him to a Florida vacation and he came across John D. McDonald's Travis McGee series. Upon reading these books he decided that he wanted to become a mystery screenplay writer. When he finally completed a script and showed it to director Stan Silverman, he was told that his scripts showed some talent, but that he did not have a clue of what he was doing. Finally Pearson started a novel that was not completed until nearly two years latter. When he finished this novel, he showed it to his father who in turn showed the novel to Helen Bernett who passed it to literary agent Franklin Heller. Mr. Heller agreed to take Pearson on and told him that there were only two problems with his novel, the premise and the ending. While this novel was the first that he finished, it was the second to come out due to the revision process. Prior to Heller's accepting the novel Whiteout, about twenty-three different publishers had rejected this script.
To many, Ridley Pearson is considered a mystery writer (Jones, Jorgenson), however he has been quoted saying, "I call my stuff aerobic fiction because I hope to get your heart pounding, and get you turning pages." He also does not feel that he should be titled a "mystery writer" because mystery typically asks, "Who done it?" whereas his books typically ask, "Who will prevail?" because the reader knows who the killer is half way into the book. Because of this, he feels that a more appropriate genre title for his novels would be suspense thriller (Profile 2).
The majority of Pearson's novels start with a period of research so he has enough fact in them to make them realistic. While Pearson will not bend facts (Mystery Guide), he will bend other ideas within his stories to the point that one-sixth of each of his stories is made up. Typically when he does make an idea up, it is just an exaggeration or minimization of a concept, such as fitting a two hundred and ten pound man into a fifty-five gallon barrel. For Pearson, research includes looking into modern technology for new ways of making things sound interesting, and it has been said of this "the technocrats among us will appreciate the detailed research apparent in an arson case so bizarre that the cause is unknown" (Smith).
Inspiration for Pearson's novels comes from various places including newspapers, technological breakthroughs and conversations with police. The novel Chain of Evidence was inspired by an article promoting castration of sex offenders and by geneticists being able to splice chromosomes in order to correct anti-social behavior (Profile 2). The book No Witnesses , a book about a serial killer bent on revenge to a food chain (Jones; Jorgenson), was inspired by an ATM delivered ransom in Britain in the 1990's and by a breakthrough in the area of genetics. This book actually became the focus of a genetics conference that was highly controversial and even made national news (Profile 2). Finally, at least one of the murders in Beyond Recognition came from a real-life case (Preview). It was said of this book "You have to be a bit of a masochist to give in to a Pearson plot, but when you do it hurts so good" (Jones; Jorgenson).
Two of Pearson's novels have greatly helped people. The book Undercurrents helped solve a case and convict a woman's husband of murder twice; the prosecuting attorney handling the case had been reading the book and found a technique used to solve a case in the book that would be most helpful to his case, so he called Dr. Alyn Duxbury, who had helped with Pearson's research for this particular technique, and asked if it was real. When he found out that it was, he used the technique and convicted a guilty man of murder. The second book that helped someone was The Angel Maker. This book helped a medical examiner find a body by using one of Pearson's techniques to get upstream to it.
The sophistication in thoughts, the detailed research, and skillfully-worded text of Pearson's novels have helped him to be the first-ever American to be awarded the Raymond Chandler Fulbright Fellowship in detective fiction which he received in 1990 at Oxford University (Jones; Jorgenson). Part of the reason he has had the pleasure of doing so is because he always has an underlying theme or concept to his novels. Some examples of his concepts are in Art of Deception, fear; in Middle of Nowhere, trust; and In Parallel Lies, his newest creation, truth. Another thing that Pearson does which may have contributed to such an accomplishment is that he, as does his favorite author, always tries to give a realistic sense of events as they occur in the real world (Profile 1).
Ridley Pearson has written many novels including Whiteout, 1985; Never Look Back: A Novel of Espionage, 1985; Blood of the Albatross, 1986; The Seizing of the Yankee Green Mall, 1987; Undercurrents, 1988; Probable Cause, 1990; Hard Fall, 1992; The Angel Maker, 1993; No Witnesses, 1994; Chain of Evidence, 1995; Beyond Recognition, 1997; The Pied Piper, 1998; and Parallel Lies, 2001. He is a gifted writer. As was his goal from the start, his books can easily be related to real life. It is evident that Pearson puts all of his heart, as well as his life situations into his writing. He tries to achieve the best possible, and that is probably the best thing about him.
II. Works Cited
Jones; Jorgenson. Contemporary Authors on-line, The Gale Group 2001. 10 April 2001
http://www.gale.comPearson, Ridley. Home Page. Profile 1. 2 April 2001
http://www.ridleypearson.com/prof.html
Home Page. Profile 2. 2 April 2001
http://www.ridleypearson.com/prof2.html
Home Page. Adoption Journal. 2 April 2001
http://www.ridleypearson.com/storey.html
Home Page. Rock Bottom Remainders. 2 April 2001
http://www.ridleypearson.com/tour.html
Preview Port. Ridley Pearson Biography. 6 April 2001
http://www.previewport.com/Home/pearson-b.html
Smith, Jill M. Rev. Beyond Recognition, by Ridley Pearson. Untitled. 1998-2001. 6 April 2001
http://romantictimes.com/data/books/2183.html
This essay was submitted by a student of Joanne Davis, an English teacher at Emmett High School in Idaho.