Mary Higgins Clark: The Queen of Suspense

In 1964, a young mother named Mary Clark accepted a job writing sketches for a radio series. On the same day, her husband suffered a fatal heart attack. His mother, upon discovering that he was dead, collapsed at his bedside. And with five children to care for, Mary Higgins Clark lost her mother-in-law and her husband on the same day.

No stranger to hardship, Mary Higgins had come home from Mass one day to find her Irish father dead. The family had already been suffering financial troubles because of the depression., but after the death of her father, things got worse. Nora, Mary's mother, couldn't find a job. Mary had to move out of her bedroom so her mother could take in boarders.

Still, Mary was a bright girl and grew up to be a smart, professional young woman. She went to secretarial school and later got a job writing catalog copy (Joseph Heller was one of her co-workers). She was also a beautiful woman, who modeled in the company's brochures. At the time, she worked with an unknown model named Grace Kelly.

Her early adulthood, however, was not entirely free from the tragedy that had marked her childhood. She lost her brother Joseph to spinal meningitis, six months after he enlisted in the War. At the time, Mary's family had lost their house, was living in a tiny three room apartment and her mother was earning money as a babysitter. Even Mary's contributions were not enough. when Joseph died, Nora Higgins received a pension for life. After that the bills were paid, but the family was heartbroken.

Sometime after that, Mary was inspired to become an airline stewardess. She had been admiring the boy-next-door for years, a man named Warren Clark. At her goodbye party, Clark told her to try being a stewardess for a year- and then he would marry her the following Christmas.

So, Mary worked for Pan Am, flying all over the world. After the year was up, she married Warren Clark and began taking writing classes at NYU. In the coming years, Mary would spend most of her time on her children: Marilyn, Warren Jr., David, Carol and finally Patricia.

Mary found jobs as a writer, but she and the children also did commercials. The problems with Warren's heart began in 1959, when he was diagnosed with severe angina. He suffered three attacks in five years. His doctors told him not to work anymore, so Mary began looking for a way to support the family. She found the radio writing job the day her husband died.

Mary Higgins Clark had written her first poem at the age of six. She started keeping a journal when she was seven. She had also published a few short stories by the time of her husband's death. As a radio scriptwriter, she wrote 65 four minute programs. Stuffing a whole story into four minutes of airtime taught Mary how to write with precision, shaving off unnecessary words It was a valuable skill for a suspense writer. The collapse of the short story market prompted Mary to write a full-length novel. She wrote a fictionalized account of George and Martha Washington's life together. The novel sold, but not well. For months after it was published, Nora Higgins, Mary's mother, died. Sometime later, her younger brother died and Mary became the sole member of her family left. Her agent encouraged her to try writing another book and Mary turned back to the suspense genre she had loved as a child. She wrote a novel called Where Are the Children?

Simon and Schuster published the novel for $3000. In July of 1974, however, the paperback rights for the book sold for one hundred thousand dollars. Two years later, Mary sold her second suspense novel for 1.5 million dollars.

Today, Mary Higgins Clark has written 24 novels, all of which are in print. Together they have sold 80 million copies in the U.S alone. They have all been bestsellers. In France, Mary Higgins Clark has been named Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters and honored with the Grand Prix de Literature Policier and 18 honorary doctorates. At the 55th Annual Edgar Allan Poe Awards, she was inducted as a Grand Master and has served as President of the Mystery Writers of America.

Mary Higgins Clark often writes stories about young, independent women. Her stories are for adults, but kids as young as twelve can also enjoy them. Today, her books have earned tens of millions of dollars. She is remarried. Her two oldest children are Judges and one, her daughter Carol, is also a suspense writer. At one time in her life, Mary Higgins Clark would walk by the windows of stores and imagine all the clothes she would buy when she became a famous writer.

Wikipedia- Mary Higgins Clark- www.wikipedia.com