Reed Farrel Coleman, the youngest of three sons, was born on March 29th, 1956 in Brooklyn, New York. He was named after the B-movie actor, Reed Hadley. The F in Farrel was for some dead relative. He was the first Coleman in his family as those who preceded him were Cohens! Hence the explanation of the great Irish name for a good Jewish boy.
The Colemans lived in an area in Brooklyn which bordered Sheepshead Bay, Brighton Beach and Coney Island. And, depending upon his state of mind, Reed will claim to have come from any of these three neighborhoods. They all figure prominently in his work. Coney Island especially, with its bizarre blend of decadence and bustle, has evolved into an essential symbol in his writing.
Reed attended Abraham Lincoln High School and played offensive tackle and center on the JV football team. It was also during this time that he began writing run-of-the-mill overwrought, teenage poetry. When he snapped the ball over the punter's head during the championship game against South Shore, Reed decided he probably had more of a future in bad poetry. Oddly enough, one of his poems was published in the school literary magazine. By his senior year, he had been named editor in chief of that very publication.
At Brooklyn College, Reed worked on the school literary magazine and continued to publish. Any pretense of pursuing poetry as a career was dashed when he took a careful look at the faculty of the English Department. "At that time in the mid 70s, Allen Ginsberg, John Ashbery and David Lehman were teaching at BC. Any chip was promptly knocked off my shoulder and ground into dust. It was like thinking you're good enough to play in the NBA and having Michael Jordan kick your ass up and down the court until you realize that maybe basketball isn't a good career choice."
Reed transferred to SUNY Stony Brook for a brief period before moving to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to pursue a relationship with an artist he'd met at Summerfest '76. He was back home in Brooklyn by the summer of '77. That summer also played a central role in shaping his writing. That was the year of Son of Sam, the July blackout and Elvis' death. Reed returned to Brooklyn College as well.
After school, Reed got a job in the air freight business at 1 World Trade Center. A competent worker who chaffed at authority, he was transferred to the cargo area at Kennedy International Airport. It was here that Reed met several of the colorful people who help inspire the complex characters who appear in the pages of his books. It was also during this period that he met and married. "Rosanne and I met in a writing class, so she always knew that's where my heart was." When, out of boredom, Reed took an evening class in detective fiction at Brooklyn College, his fate was sealed.
Rosanne, a successful occupational therapist, urged Reed to pursue his dreams. Working part time at a local restaurant, he met retired NYPD Detective Tom McDonald. "We took to each other immediately. We were sort of from the same neighborhood and were both so rooted in the Brooklyn of our youth that it was a natural partnership." Tom became both an inspiration and an advisor. He served as the model for Johnny MacClough, a central figure in Reed's first three novels.
Reed continued to publish novels and poetry and work odd jobs to augment Rosanne's earnings. When the family grew with the births of Kaitlin and Dylan, he did a long stint as a house dad.
In 2000, Reed, at the urging of one of his basketball buddies, got a commercial driver's license. He's probably the only member of the mystery-writing community licensed to drive hazardous materials. Although permitted to haul nuclear waste, Reed sticks to more mundane cargo like home heating oil. In 2005, he was elected to the board of directors of MWA and was elected Executive Vice President of the organization the following year. He had the pleasure of serving with Janet Evanovich as President and with board members Lisa Scottoline, Linda Fairstein, Charles Todd, Charlaine Harris, Leslie Glass, PJ Parish and many other distinguished writers.
Mystery author Reed Farrel Coleman is interviewed by Barbara Peters of Poisoned Pen Press and Bookstore, Arizona.See additional videos here.
My father's illness (bone cancer) and his failure in business are so much a part of me that it is sometimes difficult to separate who I am now from who he was and what he suffered.
My big brothers, Jules and David, showed me that not everything in the world was disastrous.
My mom spoke a lot of Yiddish and though we weren't exactly a religious family, the sound of Yiddish has shaped me more than I can say.
Up until 7th grade I was in the gifted classes, but I missed making the marks for those classes in junior high school. At first I was crushed. Eventually I came to see it as the best thing that ever happened to me. I was thrown in with different groups of people and had to learn new survival strategies. It's also how I learned to become comfortable with peoples' differences.
Going to Milwaukee was really crucial. It taught me about perspective. And I realized I was too young to be so unhappy. When I came home I decided I was going to change my life. I went into therapy and didn't stop until I'd changed.
Brooklyn, everything good and bad about it.
Nancy Connor. The funny thing is, she probably doesn't realize it. She was the person who, with one simple action, hurt me more than anyone in my life. She was a girl I had a tremendous crush on all through high school. I made no secret of how I felt, but it was not to be and settled on an awkward friendship. When we went our separate ways for college, we sort of kept in touch. When I returned from Milwaukee, I was absolutely crushed and at the end of my rope. I had nothing left in the tank. During Christmas break and out of the blue, Nancy asked me to go drinking with her in the city. We went to the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village. Outside, she kissed me. I mean she really kissed me. It was so unexpected and at such a low point in my life, that it felt like salvation.
She invited me to come visit her the following up at school. For that week leading up to the visit, I was happy for the first time in months. But when I stepped off the train, I could see it in her eyes that things had changed back. But there was no going back. When I moved to kiss her, she turned away and then barely kissed on my cheek. I will never forget that kiss. I knew I should have about-faced and gone home. Instead, I stayed the weekend. She made no explanation and we have not spoken in twenty-five years. I've always felt since that if I could ever successfully express in words the pain I felt at that moment, I would have achieved a great thing. I am always striving in my writing, at least in the emotions of the characters, to hit that note. I use that kiss on the cheek as fuel every time I write.
