Harlan Coben
Harlan Coben
Harlan Cobenis an American author of mystery novels and thrillers. The plots of his novels often involve the resurfacing of unresolved or misinterpreted events in the past, murders, fatal accidents, and have multiple twists. Among his novels are two series, each involving the same protagonist set in and around New York and New Jersey, and some characters appear in both...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth4 January 1962
CityNewark, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
When you like something and you're pretty good at it and you can make a living doing it, you don't ask why. You just count your blessings and go with it.
And I love the twist. I love to fool you once, I love to fool you twice, and on the very last page, quite often - very last paragraph sometimes - I like to just play with your perception one more time in a way that makes everything that came before just a little bit different.
You can't have an up without a down, a right without a left, a back without a front - or a happy without a sad.
I'd never had money growing up, and it's never been that important to me, except maybe to take our kids on a nice vacation or something like that.
The muse is not an angelic voice that sits on your shoulder and sings sweetly. The muse is the most annoying whine. The muse isn't hard to find, just hard to like - she follows you everywhere, tapping you on the shoulder, demanding that you stop doing whatever else you might be doing and pay attention to her.
You know, people call mystery novels or thrillers 'puzzles.' I never understood that, because when I buy a puzzle, I already know what it is. It's on the box. And even if I don't, if it's a 5,000-piece puzzle of the 'Mona Lisa', it's not like I put the last piece in and go, 'I had no idea it's the 'Mona Lisa'!'
Let me back up a little and tell you why I prefer writing to real life: You can rewrite. A novel, for example, can be cleaned up, altered, trimmed, improved. Life, on the other hand, is one big messy rough draft.
In real life, coincidences happen all the time. In novels, they are leapt upon with fury.
I love stories. When I'm writing, what I pretend subconsciously is that we're cavemen, we're sitting around the fire, and I'm telling you stories. If I bore you, you're probably going to pick up a big club and hit me over the head.
Life may not always fall into neat chapters, and you may not always get the satisfying ending you're looking for, but sometimes a good explanation is all the rewrite you need.
I've never chased the dollar, I've always chased the reader's heart. I love having more readers. The more people who read it, the more thrilled I am.
I'm the Jerry Lewis of crime fiction.
Frankly I'm fairly boring or fairly busy. Between writing and family, I have little time for anything else.
I'm a little bit of a control freak.