When Jesse Kellerman hit a crisis of confidence midway though his debut novel, he turned to two people whose expertise in such matters is pretty much unquestioned.
His parents.
The 27-year-old fledgling author is the son of Jonathan and Faye Kellerman, the husband-and-wife writing duo who have each written more than a dozen best-selling thrillers.
So when Jesse, the eldest of four children, sent them an early draft of his thriller, "Sunstroke," he was looking for some tough literary criticism. What he got instead was parental support.
"They're both relentlessly encouraging and positive and optimistic — to the extent that I don't really trust them, truthfully," he says. "They're going to like it no matter what: I'm their kid."
They did, of course. But so did others, including The New York Times, describing him as "a keen storyteller who writes in a style that's boldly his own." The book, published Jan. 5, has gone through two printings — for a total of 42,000 copies — and is a main selection of the Book of the Month Club.
People are also reading…
But not all reviewers were charmed. The Washington Post said "Sunstroke" is "a shaggy-dog tale, the characters are ciphers, and the dialogue is silly," while Publishers Weekly wrote that "the adventure is a bit too cool and cerebral to be a thriller and too literary to be a genre mystery."
During an interview in New York at the Upper East Side apartment he shares with wife, Gabriella, a medical student, Kellerman struggles with his parents' shadow. He knows what everyone's thinking: His name got him published.
"It's just unavoidable," he says. "People are always going to assume that there were nepotistic forces at play, but my hope is that people will read the book and understand that it was published on its own merits."
He's at pains to point out that his parents' publisher passed on "Sunstroke" and that their agent did the same regarding him. And, he adds, if his lineage is so powerful, why was one of his earlier, unpublished novels rejected by 21 editors?
Jesse Kellerman's story centers on Gloria Mendez, 36, a single, Mexican-American secretary who is secretly in love with her older boss. When the boss is reported dead in a car crash while on vacation in Mexico, Gloria pokes around — and uncovers secrets.
While it might seem a little unusual for a first-time novelist to pick as his hero an older woman, Kellerman says that the story came first and that Gloria just happened to fit best into it. A female protagonist also appears in his next-to-be-published novel.
"I have three sisters . . . if you want to do some dime-store psychoanalysis," he says with a smile. "As it's turned out, the majority of the situations have demanded a female character for some reason or another. If I get a bunch of letters from angry 36-year-old, Latina divorcees telling me, 'You totally messed this up,' then I'll know I didn't do a good job."
Kellerman, who got a bachelor's degee at Harvard University and a master's degree from Brandeis University, has had his plays produced throughout the United States and at Edinburgh's fringe festival in Scotland. Most recently, he received the Princess Grace Award, given to America's most promising young playwright.
According to family lore, Kellerman showed promise at a young age. His parents recall him at age 3 or 4 — before either was published — dictating a series of stories to them. The first was called "Apple of Danger," followed by "Pear of Danger," and there were plans in the works for "Orange of Danger." Each had a word to a page and was illustrated. But it wasn't until he was in college that Kellerman approached his parents to broach the idea of becoming a writer himself.
