Donna Birdsell - Janet Evanovich: A Biography

What is a Jersey girl?

A love of an unpretentious good time, and a certain sense of style. Jersey girls are about attitude. They're about eating pizza, drinking beer, having great hair and enjoying it all. She's got a mouth on her. She says what she means. And she's got a nice, cheerful laugh. Bottom line, all of them are sexy as hell " (from the Newark, NJ, Star Ledger , as published on UrbanDictionary.com ).

That definition could have been written about bestselling, award-winning author Janet Evanovich, a Jersey girl who has won legions of fans with her quirky characters, fast-paced plots and snarky, west-of-the-Hudson wit.

Over the span of an almost twenty-year writing career, Evanovich has penned more than a dozen romance novels: the Barnaby and Hooker series; the non-fiction title How I Write ; more than a half dozen collaborative novels; two graphic novels; and the light paranormal Wicked books, which feature a not-so-angelic hero in search of statues representing the Seven Deadly Sins, and a heroine who has the ability to detect magical charms.

But Evanovichs biggest contribution to kick-ass summer reading is, by far, the Stephanie Plum bounty hunter series: nineteen books (plus four novellas) and counting, jam-packed with action, romance, and dysfunctional family fun.

What Plum fan hasnt spent countless hours contemplating and debating the merits of Morelli versus Ranger? Bad-boy cop versus sexy, mysterious mentor? Love versus lust? Who hasnt wondered if Stephanie will ever settle for just one of them?

These are the questions that keep readers wanting more. And buying more.

To date, Evanovich has sold more than 80 million books worldwide. Her books have hit the USA Today Best Sellers List since 1994, and the New York Times Bestsellers List consistently since 2000, and have been translated into more than 25 languages

But although her characters witty repartee comes fast and easy, Evanovichs super-star status as an author did not.

It took a decade of writing before Evanovich sold her first manuscript. Even then, though she wrote more than a dozen romance novels during the late 1980s and early 1990s, her career didnt really take off until the 1994 release of One for the Money , her first book featuring loveable, hapless, lingerie-buyer-turned-bounty hunter Stephanie Plum.

Evanovich attributes the idea for Stephanies unconventional job to an epiphany she had while watching the 1988 comedy film Midnight Run , in which Robert DeNiro plays a bounty hunter trying to bring in a neurotic bond-skipper played by Charles Grodin.

In an interview with Andrew Peterson ( thrillerwriters.org ) in 2010, Evanovich says:

I had no way to grow my career in romance. I couldn't get a contract for anything other than the little category books and all those print runs were pretty much pre-determined. The romance editors didn't think my humor would translate into a larger book. So I was forced to reinvent myself. I took a year off to read and think, and at the end of that year I wrote the proposal for the Plum series.

One for the Money spent 75 consecutive weeks on the USA Today list of 150 best-selling novels. Critics and readers alike praised the unconventional comedic thriller. It was named one of Publishers Weekly s Best Books of 1994, and a New York Times Notable Book for that same year.

Kirkus Reviews called it, A smartly-paced debut with an irresistible heroine that, despite trouble getting her man, will have the reader hooked by page three.

Marilyn Stasio, in the New York Times Book Review, described Stephanie Plum as a bounty hunter "with Bette Midler's mouth and Cher's fashion sense, and said, with [Plum's] brazen style and dazzling wardrobe, who could resist this doll?"

And Dwight Garner said of the book, in his Washington Post Book World review, It comes roaring in like a blast of very fresh air.

The accolades didnt stop there. With each subsequent release, the praise and awards seemed to pour in, jettisoning Evanovich to staggering success.

Recently, however, some critics and readers have complained that after 18 installments and several in between novellas, the Plum series isnt feeling so fresh. Ditto for some of Evanovichs other efforts, such as the Wicked series, of which detractors have said the heroine a Salem, Massachusetts cupcake baker named Lizzy feels familiar. Like a Stephanie Plum who bakes.

And Evanovichs graphic novels, Troublemaker and Troublemaker 2 , which she co-wrote with her daughter Alex Evanovich (illustrated by Joelle Jones and Andy Owens), failed to capture the hearts of true comic fans, even if it did have one of the largest print runs in the history of comic novels.

Despite complaints, though, Evanovichs continues to soar to the top of the bestseller lists with every new release, and her empire, Evanovich, Inc., a family affair that employs her husband and both of her children, shows no sign of imminent collapse.

So how, exactly, did this Queen of Snark, this quintessential Jersey girl, make it out of the toxic dumping ground of rejection to climb to the top of the publishing mountain?

Born Janet Schneider on April 22, 1943 in South River New Jersey, Evanovichs early life may have been charmed, but she wasnt royalty.

Her parents, a machinist father and housewife mother, upheld traditional family roles. Evanovich lived in house much like Stephanie Plums childhood home, with her parents and two sets of aunts and uncles .

In her website bio, Janet describes her early childhood:

When I was a kid I spent a lot of time in LaLa Land. LaLa Land is like an out-of-body experience while your mouth is eating lunch your mind is conversing with Captain Kirk. Sometimes Id pretend to sing opera. My mother would send me to the grocery store down the street, and off Id go, caterwauling at the top of my lungs. Before the opera thing I went through a horse stage where I galloped everywhere and made holes in my Aunt Lenas lawn with my hooves. Aunt Lena was a good egg. She understood that the realities of daily existence were lost in the shadows of my looney imagination. ( www.evanovich.com )

Her own childhood in South River, Evanovich claims, formed the basis for Stephanie Plums childhood that of narrow row homes with clean windows and dinners with the family.

After graduating from South River High School in 1961, Evanovich, the first in her family to go to college, found herself at Rutgers Universitys Douglass College studying art. Says Evanovich:

I spent four years in the Douglass College art department, honing my ability to wear torn Levis, learning to transfer cerebral excitement to primed canvas. Painting beat the heck out of digging holes in lawns, but it never felt exactly right. It was frustrating at best, excruciating at worst. My audience was too small. Communication was too obscure. I developed a rash from pigment. ( www.evanovich.com )

While still in college, in 1964 Evanovich married her high school sweetheart, Peter, who was a doctoral student at Rutgers. She graduated from Douglass in 1965.

She has said of her work:

Since a degree in studio art qualified me to do NOTHING I had a variety of awful jobs after graduation: used car salesperson (four hours), file clerk, hospital supply customer service rep (sold colostomy bags), insurance claims adjuster, telephone solicitor, etc. Mostly I was a stay-at-home mom (the best job in the world).

Eventually she settled into life as a housewife and mother. In an interview with the