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 ventually
she felt burned out and retired … That's when the riding
accident occurred. "It was like being jerked off the horse
and thrown to the ground," Rosenberg recalls. "It was
like God said, 'Write, not ride.' " Her decision to devote
herself to writing was not entirely surprising, because she'd
expressed herself that way since childhood. "I wrote all my
life:' Rosenberg claims. "I was a very troubled child, and
I was also a gifted child. The combination made me very dark,
and the only real happiness I felt was when I picked up a pen
and reinvented my world beyond my world."
In
Mitigating Circumstances, Assistant DA Lily Forrester takes the
law into her hands, gunning down a suspect--the wrong man, by
the way--with impunity. Does this mean Rosenberg believes in
vigilantism! "I think she should have gotten caught:'
Rosenberg says. "Self justice doesn't work.' She herself
will not buy a gun. "The odds are if you own one, you're
going to shoot yourself in the foot. We've got to get guns off
the street:' she says fervently. "I'd walk through metal
detectors all day long if I thought they would help."
The protagonist of Interest of Justice is
Judge Lara Sanderstone, who also finds the legal system
frustrating after her sister is murdered. Probation officer Ann
Carlisle does the sleuthing in First Offense, which Rosenberg
says she wrote "in response to my belief that minorities do
not fare well in the criminal justice system. They are
definitely given shoddy treatment. Why are there so many blacks
on death row! It isn't because they commit all the crimes."
(Incidentally, she waited until her third book to make a
probation officer her central character because she originally
thought "nobody would be interested" in a heroine with
that job.) Rosenberg's career as a writer actually got under way when she was taking Leonardo Bercovici's writing course at UCLA.
Having completed a lengthy section of Mitigating Circumstances,
she mustered the courage to send samples to agents.
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Among those who
responded was Peter Miller of PMA Literary and Film Management.
"It was a Sunday morning, and he was in his office, and I
liked that:' Rosenberg says. Miller auctioned the book, with
Dutton making the winning bid, for $787,000. Rosenberg lowers
her voice when she talks about money and keeps it there when
confiding that the initial deal, which didn't include paperback
rights, was renegotiated. Under the new arrangement, Rosenberg
will receive three million dollars for a four-book contract
that includes paperback rights and terminates with Trial By Fire
this fall. Now there's a five-book contract for an amount she
won't even disclose in a whisper.
And then there are screen rights, since her
books seem naturals for further life on celluloid. Jonathan
Demme is producing, and Agnieszka Holland is directing, the
movie based on Mitigating Circumstances. Interest Of Justice
will be a TV Movie of the Week starring Sissy Spacek.
California Angel has its own deal. For less
than her usual! "I won't say." Rosenberg replies,
"but the fact that it is a separate deal is a clue:' She
also says that she loves and respects Michaela Hamilton, her
editor, but when asked why there is so much sex in her
books--often within the first pages-- she arches an eyebrow and
sighs, "Editors." Maybe she's even more miffed at
contractual expectations placed on her than she allows, because
she stresses, "I think writers should have more liberty to
write anything that comes to their minds.'
… Rosenberg's take on herself? "I'm a huge fan of
Dostoyevski, but how many people today can relate to him! I know
I'm not Dostoyevski, but maybe I can write a good book because
I've lived it"
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