INTERVIEWS At Home in the Heartland By Deborah Peterson The Post-Dispatch Best-selling author Ridley Pearson writes on-the-edge thrillers and plays rock 'n' roll with a band of renowned writers. But when it comes to family life, he and his wife have chosen the warm Midwestern values of St. Louis. Ridley Pearson's life fairly drips with glamour. The New York Times best-selling author grew up in Greenwich, Conn., and has lived in England, New York and Sun Valley, Idaho. Aside from writing successful suspense thrillers, he plays in a rock band -- the Rockbottom Remainders -- with such literary luminaries as Stephen King, Amy Tan, Dave Barry, Scott Turow, Barbara Kingsolver, Robert Fulghum and Mitch Albom. When he and his wife, Marcelle, were married in Cottswold, England, about five years ago, Fulghum was their minister and Barry was their best man. He and Barry are e-mail pals, exchanging several messages a day. Tan is cultural aunt to his adopted Chinese daughter, Storey. Pearson has jammed with Bruce Springsteen, is a business phone pal of Jamie Lee Curtis and a close buddy of King's. Marcelle Pearson, who has been a director of fine-arts galleries, is fluent in French and has lived in Paris, England, San Francisco and Sun Valley. But the Pearsons say they've never been happier than they are now -- living in St. Louis. That's right. This chic couple -- tall, attractive and world-traveled -- moved to St. Louis in August. And to talk to them, you'd think they were on the chamber of commerce payroll. "St. Louis has been just like finding an oasis for us," says Pearson, his eyes twinkling behind black-rimmed, neo-nerd glasses, his light-brown curls bobbing. "We just love it here." Marcelle Pearson stops just short of gushing when she talks about their adopted hometown. "It's been wonderful for us here. The people in this community are so warm. They've been so warm and so welcoming," she says. "And we've been so surprised by the treasures that we've found here -- one of the first being the Symphony, which we subscribe to. "And we love the Zoo, the Botanical Garden, the museums, and oh . . . the sports," she continues, eyes widening. "Go Rams!" and she pumps her fist into the air. "We love the Rams, and we go to Blues games. We haven't been to a Cardinals game yet, but we'll go this summer. We're just having so much fun!" Welcome to the Midwest For a city with a sometimes palpable inferiority complex, the Pearsons' praise rings loud. But to be honest, St. Louis had never been on the Pearsons' direct-flight agenda. It was more of a flyover. But then they adopted Storey, who is nearly 2, while they were living in Sun Valley, a tony resort community for the rich and beautiful -- the kind of place where Bruce Willis is the volunteer dad for story time at the local elementary school. The Pearsons already had a biological daughter, Paige, who will be 4 in April. Despite the physical beauty and amenities of Sun Valley, they didn't want to raise their children there. "Storey would have been one of three Chinese kids in all of Sun Valley, which includes Sun Valley, Hailey, Bellevue and Carey. Actually, in all of Blaine County, Idaho," Pearson says, his eyes growing wide at the thought. "We wanted cultural diversity, we wanted Midwestern values, we wanted an urban hit that we had been lacking." Marcelle Pearson's mother, Louise Marsh, who moved here with the couple and works as her son-in-law's secretary, adds her two cents' worth about life in Sun Valley. "It was beautiful, but there were no people there my age," says Marsh, an attractive, grandmotherly looking woman. "Everybody was about this big" she says, holding her fingers a few inches apart. "They didn't even carry my size in the clothing stores." Pearson chimes in to tell Stephen King's joke about traveling to the resort town: Each of the mountains a person crosses while en route to Sun Valley -- which is in the midst of vast mountain ranges between Pocatello and Boise -- is actually a giant lyposuction machine sucking the fat out of the traveler. The Pearsons spent about six months checking out life in Connecticut before they stumbled onto St. Louis. Pearson grew up in Riverside, a township of Greenwich, and went to the Pomfret School, also in Connecticut. The couple thought they might like to try the Constitution State with their children, reasoning that it was close to New York, where Pearson often travels to deal with publishers, and that it had some rural flavor, which they liked. But after a winter, Marcelle Pearson says, they decided Connecticut wasn't right for them. It was too remote and not really close enough to New York to be much help with Pearson's traveling schedule. Pearson was familiar with the Midwest. His father is a Kansas City native, and his mother was born in Salina, Kan. They graduated from the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Pearson had a stint as a pre-med student at KU, but transferred to Brown University in Providence, R.I., where he studied music theory. At Pomfret, he had been a class vice president and an Eagle Scout, and had played soccer, squash and tennis. He describes his young self as a "goody-goody, go-getter." A child-centered place When the Pearsons visited some of Marcelle Pearson's old friends in St. Louis, they found out that St. Louis has an active chapter of the FCC, which has nothing to do with federal communications. The acronym stands for Families with Children from China. "I researched it and found that they just have a wonderful group here," says Marcelle Pearson. "They're very active, and they have a lot of members. We went to an FCC Christmas party, and there were hundreds of families there. It was wonderful." She perceives St. Louis as being child-centered. In Sun Valley, she says, people were nervous if you brought children around. They worried that something might get broken or dirtied or ruined in some way. The result was that couples were discouraged from bringing their children to events. Unlike St. Louis, Marcelle Pearson says, where people expect you to bring your children when you go places. Where there are places like the City Museum and the Magic House, specifically for children. Where there is a Butterfly House and a free zoo and a special place for kids at the baseball park. And the Pearson family hasn't even been here in spring and early summer, when children and families really rule. Another attraction, from Pearson's point of view, was St. Louis' position as the Trans World Airlines hub. He says he can get to New York and be back home in time to kiss the kids good-night, which he could never do from Idaho. It's also about as easy to get from here to Los Angeles -- another frequent destination for him -- as it was to travel there from Sun Valley. To fly anywhere outside of Idaho requires a trip through Salt Lake City, which adds a lot of time, he says. Pearson's a tad concerned about what might happen with the pending sale of TWA but remains convinced that the result could be even better travel times into and out of St. Louis. Travel time in general is a big deal from his point of view. At work and play Pearson has a small office in a pleasant strip mall about two miles from their home, in a west St. Louis County suburb. The Pearsons would prefer that the community not be disclosed because they get the occasional odd communication, which, given the nature of Pearson's books, may go with the territory. Still, they'd like to keep the potential for strange contacts to a minimum. Even better than working near home, Pearson says, would be to work at home. They are looking for a new house that could accommodate an office for him and Louise Marsh, but that wouldn't be a constant draw for two very busy toddlers. Pearson's work schedule is very routine, he says. He's up about 5 or 5:30 "cracking jokes the minute I get up," and has a cup of tea before driving the five minutes or so to his office. He immediately starts writing, usually on at least two projects at a time -- at least one a book and maybe the other a screenplay, a documentary, a piece of music or even another book. Nearly all of his novels have been optioned for film, although none has made it to the big screen -- yet. Some have been developed by the Arts & Entertainment network, although none has shown up on television yet. He wrote an "Investigative Reports" program for A&E on Alcoholics Anonymous -- the first in AA's 65-year history -- that aired last June. He is sanguine about the peaks and valleys of dealing with Hollywood and just plugs along on those sorts of deals. He is represented by Creative Artists Agency and has the same agent as thriller writer Ken Follett, and the same editor as courtroom drama writer Steve Martini. "My philosophy as a writer is that I should try everything people suggest," Pearson says. "And I worry to death. I'm a worrier." Pearson aims to finish between 2,000 and 3,000 words within the first five hours of his day. Even if he's rolling on one project, Pearson says he will switch to another, depending on his timetable. He spends another five or so hours working in the afternoon, writing or outlining a plot or doing research. That's not a prodigious output, by Pearson's standards. "I've intentionally slowed down because I'm on such tight schedules," he says, adding that his publishers have him on a book-a-year deadline. "I've found that haste makes waste. If I slow down a hair, I only have to do maybe four drafts instead of six." Pearson's books are meticulously researched and his plots have about as many curves as the Missouri River has bends. The books also cover a vast range of topics, which, Pearson says, are usually inspired by something he reads in the back pages of the newspaper, by a conversation he has with a cop or by some technological breakthrough. His 1995 best seller, Chain of Evidence, dealt with using castration as a cure for sex offenders and splicing chromosomes to correct antisocial behavior. An upcoming release, Parallel Lies, is as much about trains and the railroad business as it is about the thriller that is so central to the plot. Beyond Recognition, his 1998 best seller, called for Pearson to research top-secret government labs where high temperature accelerants are tested, and to attend an annual explosives convention near Lake Havasu, Ariz. While he was looking into adoption for his books The Pied Piper and The First Victim, he found out about the need for adoptive parents in China. That resulted in the Pearsons' adopting Storey, who was living in an orphanage in Kunming, in Yunan Province. Beneath the sinuous plots and the fascinating characters, Pearson says each of his books has a big overriding concept. "Art of Deception is about fear. Middle of Nowhere is about trust. Parallel Lies is about truth," he says. "I'm not writing great literature here, but it has to have literary potential or you're not going to like it." He scribbles down notes in a small red spiral-bound notebook that he carries in a pocket. "Can I see it?" he's asked. "No," he answers, smiling and pulling the notebook close to indicate there is no need for another appeal. "I listen a lot," he says. "I'm a pretty bad dinner companion because I am always listening to the people at the table next to us. And I take notes." Books, bands and a yurt Pearson's bookshelf is lined with audiotapes of his own books and with research materials: "Introduction to Forensic Sciences" and "Techniques of Crime Scene Investigation," to name a couple. "The genre is one that requires authenticity, so the more research I put in the books, the more you're going to like them," he notes. For someone whose interests are as eclectic as Pearson's, it's no surprise that his books would lead the reader into unexplored terrain. He's an accomplished musician who played acoustic rhythm guitar throughout New England in a band called Big Lost for about 11 years after he left Brown. Pearson wrote about 200 original songs for the band, which played a national college tour and recorded an album, "Big Lost Rainbow," which was reissued last year. Aside from touring with the Rockbottom Remainders, which is named after the unsold leftovers of a book's print run, Pearson still plays with a band in Sun Valley. Mother-in-law Marsh says the band is named "The Toast Points," and Pearson quickly corrects her: "The Sensationalo Toast Points." He plays to raise money for various charities. The Remainders have donated more than half a million dollars for Literacy Volunteers of America and other charities. Despite the good cause, Pearson says the band is an incredible amount of fun. He also delights in having met and jammed with such famed musicians as Springsteen and Al Kooper. But Pearson says his first love is marine biology. He is a more-than-lip-service environmentalist. He drives a nifty Toyota Prius, which gets between 35 and 50 miles to the gallon and runs half on electrical energy, half on gasoline. He and his wife used to go on weekend retreats in Idaho to spend time in a yurt -- a Mongolian tent-like structure. Pearson heated his yurt with wood and used a combination of propane and solar energy to power the electrical devices inside. Oh, and another sign of how diverse Pearson is: He was the first American to be awarded the Raymond Chandler/Fulbright Fellowship in Detective Fiction at Oxford University. He is currently on a trip to Fort Yukon, Alaska, about 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle, where the average temperature is between 10 degrees and minus 40. He will speak to native children there from kindergarten to eighth grade about what it's like to be a writer. "I was so helped through my career by mentors. I just think it's very important to help kids," Pearson explains. "I love to give back. I just love it. And I'm grateful that I can." All content © 2001 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH and may not be republished without permission. Back to main interviews page...