Where Did Ellie Foreman Come From? by Libby Fischer Hellmann
Ellie
Foreman, the protagonist of my first series, is a documentary/industrial video
producer in Chicago. JUMP CUT, the 5th volume in the series, marks her return after
a 10-year hiatus. The previous four novels featured Ellie, her daughter Rachel,
her father Jake, her best friend Susan, her ex-husband Barry (who shows up in
every book, much to Ellie’s chagrin) and her significant others.
Ellie is an
amateur sleuth, and I wrote her in first person, which was both a blessing and
a curse. A blessing, because her voice came to me fully formed, as if she’d
been waiting for me to discover her. She’s intimate, self-deprecating, and has
a great sense of humor. She’s the kind of person who will give you TMI when you
go out to lunch with her, which makes her a lot of fun. But writing first
person is also a curse, because it’s harder to switch point-of-view so the
reader can get into another character’s thoughts. I handled that in AN IMAGE OF
DEATH, as well as JUMP CUT, but it ultimately was one of the reasons she went
on hiatus.
But that
still doesn’t explain how she came to be in the first place. (Taking a deep
breath) Okay, here it is. I’d been writing police procedurals featuring two
male cops. I snagged an agent who tried to sell the novels, but he wasn’t
successful. A few months went by, and he called me on the phone.
“Libby,” he said, “I’ve been having a tough time selling your
books.”
“I know,” I replied. “But don’t worry. I’m writing a sequel. And
it’s better. And crisper. And the characters are more sharply delineated. And—”
He cut me off. “No. I don’t think you understand. I can’t sell this
series. I think you need to change your characters, change your plots, change
your voice. And change agents. Because I don’t feel I can represent you
anymore.”
I was crushed. I cried. And drank a bottle of wine. When I picked myself
off the floor, I had to decide whether he had a point. Fortunately, I’d written
a couple of short stories while I was writing novels, and one of them, “The Day Miriam Hirsch Disappeared” won a couple of contests. It was about a 16-year-old boy named
Jake Foreman, who had a crush on Miriam Hirsch, an actress in the Yiddish
Theater. The theater was in Lawndale, once a thriving Jewish neighborhood that
became ground zero during the 1968 riots (and still hasn’t completely
recovered). But Miriam only had eyes for Skull, who may or may not have been a
gangster. The story takes place in 1938, and its subtext was – well, you’ll
have to read it.
Within a few days I had one of those “eureka” moments and decided to
move the characters in that story 60 years forward in time. Jake was no longer
16 – he was in his 70’s. And he now had a daughter, Ellie. And Ellie had a
daughter, who was Rachel. They didn’t live in Lawndale anymore; Jake lived in
Skokie, and Ellie lived in a small village on the North Shore. That’s how she
was “born.”
After four
books, though, I was turning back-flips trying to find a credible reason for
Ellie to get involved in murder investigations. Let’s face it: a video producer
just doesn’t come up against dead bodies on a regular basis. Writing
first-person didn’t help, either. So Ellie went on an extended vacation while I
wrote other novels. Seven of them, which you
can find here.
Now to JUMP
CUT. I knew from the moment I conceived it that Ellie had to be telling the
story.
Ellie is
usually producing a video in all of the books, and JUMP CUT is no exception. She
was creating a video for Delcroft Aviation, a giant airplane and defense
contractor in downtown Chicago. In the middle of production, though, the VP of
Engineering Charlotte Hollander, cancels the video, claiming it was amateurish
and that her twelve-year-old son could have done a better job.
Ellie suspects
there was another reason the project was trashed: Hollander might have been
spooked by some shots of a specific man in Ellie’s B-roll. (B-roll is “cover
footage” and is used to cover narration or statements from experts). Ellie
tries to meet the man but before they can talk, he jumps—or was pushed—to his
death in front of an El train.
I can’t tell
you too much more without ruining the story, but I can tell you it involves
espionage in the post-Snowden era, drones, hackers, Chinese spies, and file
encryption. And more.
I’m often
asked if Ellie is anything like me. She is a video producer (so was I). She
used to work in broadcast news (so did I). She has a daughter (as I do), and
she lives on the North Shore of Chicago. (I do too.) But… she is NOTHING like
me. She is taller, thinner, and has black curly hair. And she has a much purer
sense of justice. She is impulsive and takes risks but never thinks she’s putting
herself in jeopardy. I live in behind a white picket fence, worry about every
creak and squeak in the house at night, and won’t go out alone after dark.
So it’s
clear that Ellie and I are nothing alike. Really.
Bio: Libby Fischer Hellmann left a career in broadcast news
in Washington, DC and moved to Chicago 35 years ago, where she, naturally,
began to write gritty crime fiction. Twelve novels and twenty short stories
later, she claims they’ll take her out of the Windy City feet first. She has
been nominated for many awards in the mystery and crime writing community and
has even won a few.
With the addition of Jump Cut in 2016, her novels include the
now five-volume Ellie Foreman series, which she describes as a cross between
“Desperate Housewives” and “24;” the hard-boiled 4-volume Georgia Davis PI
series, and three stand-alone historical thrillers that Libby calls her
“Revolution Trilogy.” Last fall The Incidental Spy, a
historical novella set during the early years of the Manhattan Project at the U
of Chicago was released.
Her short stories have been published in a dozen
anthologies, the Saturday Evening Post, and Ed Gorman’s “25 Criminally Good
Short Stories” collection. In 2005 Libby
was the national president of Sisters In Crime, a 3500 member organization
dedicated to the advancement of female crime fiction authors.
More at http://libbyhellmann.com
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