Clark, Mary Higgins 1929(?)–

PERSONAL: Born December 24, 1929 (some sources say 1931), in New York, NY; daughter of Luke Joseph (a restaurant owner) and Nora C. (a buyer; maiden name, Durkin) Higgins; married Warren F. Clark (an airline executive), December 26, 1949 (died September 26, 1964); married Raymond Charles Ploetz (an attorney), August 8, 1978 (marriage annulled); married John J. Conheeney (in business), November 30, 1996; children: Marilyn, Warren, David, Carol, Patricia. Education: Attended Villa Maria Academy, Ward Secretarial School, and New York University; Fordham University, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1979. Politics: Republican. Religion: Roman Catholic. Hobbies and other interests: Traveling, skiing, tennis, playing piano.

ADDRESSES: Home—Saddle River, NJ; and 210 Central Park South, New York, NY 10019. Agent—c/o Publicity Department, Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

CAREER: Writer. Remington Rand, New York, NY, advertising assistant, 1946; Pan American Airlines, flight attendant, 1949–50; Robert G. Jennings, radio scriptwriter and producer, 1965–70; Aerial Communications, New York, NY, vice president, partner, creative director, and producer of radio programming, 1970–80; David J. Clark Enterprises, New York, NY, chair of board and creative director, 1980–. Chair, International Crime Writers Congress, 1988.

MEMBER: Mystery Writers of America (president, 1987; member of board of directors), Authors Guild, Authors League of America, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Society of Journalists and Authors, American Irish Historical Society (member of executive council).

AWARDS, HONORS: New Jersey Author Award, 1969, for Aspire to the Heavens, 1977, for Where Are the Children? and 1978, for A Stranger Is Watching; Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere (France), 1980; Women of Achievement Award, Federation of Women's Clubs in New Jersey; Irish Woman of the Year Award, Irish-American Heritage and Cultural Week Committee of the Board of Education of the City of New York; Gold Medal of Honor Award, American-Irish Historical Society; Spirit of Achievement Award, Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University; Gold Medal in Education, National Arts Club; Horatio Alger Award, 1997; thirteen honorary doctorates, including Villanova University, 1983, Rider College, 1986, Stonehill College and Marymount Manhattan College, 1992, Chestnut Hill, Manhattan College, and St. Peter's College, 1993; named Dame of the Order of St. Gregory the Great, Dame of Malta, and Dame of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem.

WRITINGS:

Aspire to the Heavens: A Biography of George Washington, Meredith Press (New York, NY), 1969.

Where Are the Children? (also see below), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1975, 30th anniversary edition, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 2005.

A Stranger Is Watching (also see below), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1978.

The Cradle Will Fall (also see below), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1980.

A Cry in the Night, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1982.

Stillwatch, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1984.

(With Thomas Chastain and others) Murder in Manhattan, Morrow (New York, NY), 1986.

Weep No More, My Lady, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1987.

(Editor) Murder on the Aisle: The 1987 Mystery Writers of America Anthology, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1987.

While My Pretty One Sleeps (also see below), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1989.

The Anastasia Syndrome and Other Stories, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1989.

Loves Music, Loves to Dance (also see below), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1991.

All around the Town (also see below) Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1992.

Missing in Manhattan: The Adams Round Table, Long-meadow Press (Stamford, CT), 1992.

Mists from Beyond: Twenty-two Ghost Stories and Tales from the Other Side, New American Library/Dutton (New York, NY), 1993.

I'll Be Seeing You, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1993.

Remember Me, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1994.

The Lottery Winner: Alvirah and Willy Stories, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1994.

Silent Night: A Novel, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1995.

Mary Higgins Clark: Three Complete Novels (includes A Stranger Is Watching, The Cradle Will Fall, and Where Are the Children?), Wings Books (New York, NY), 1995.

Let Me Call You Sweetheart, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1995.

Moonlight Becomes You: A Novel, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1996.

Mary Higgins Clark, Three New York Times Bestsellers (includes While My Pretty One Sleeps, Loves Music, Loves to Dance, and All around the Town) Wings Books (New York, NY), 1996.

My Gal Sunday, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1996.

Pretend You Don't See Her, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1997.

(Editor) The Plot Thickens, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1997.

All through the Night, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1998.

You Belong to Me, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1998.

We'll Meet Again, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1999.

Before I Say Goodbye, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2000.

(With daughter, Carol Higgins Clark) Deck the Halls, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2000.

On the Street Where You Live, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2001.

(With daughter, Carol Higgins Clark) He Sees You When You're Sleeping, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2001.

Kitchen Privileges (memoir), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2002.

Daddy's Little Girl, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2002.

Mount Vernon Love Story, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2002.

The Second Time Around, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2003.

Nighttime Is My Time, Thorndike Press (Waterville, ME), 2004.

(With daughter, Carol Higgins Clark) The Christmas Thief, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2004.

No Place Like Home, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2005.

Two Little Girls in Blue, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to books, including The Best "Saturday Evening Post" Stories, 1962; I, Witness, Times Books (New York, NY), 1978; and The International Association of Crime Writers Presents Bad Behavior, Harcourt Brace (San Diego, CA), 1995. Author of syndicated radio dramas. Writer, with John Rutter, of the television story Haven't We Met Before? in 2002. Contributor of stories to periodicals, including Saturday Evening Post, Redbook, McCall's, and Family Circle.

ADAPTATIONS: A Stranger Is Watching was filmed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1982; The Cradle Will Fall was shown on CBS-TV as a "Movie of the Week" in 1984; A Cry in the Night was filmed by Rosten Productions in 1985; Where Are the Children? was filmed by Columbia in 1986; Stillwatch was broadcast on CBS-TV in 1987; Ellipse, a French production company, produced Weep No More My Lady, A Cry in the Night (starring Clark's daughter Carol), and two stories from The Anastasia Syndrome. Many of Clark's books have been adapted as sound recordings. Filmed adaptations of Lucky Day, Loves Music, Loves to Dance, You Belong to Me, All around the Town, Pretend You Don't See Her, and Haven't We Met Before? were released as Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Movie Collection, Lion's Gate Home Productions, 2004. Simon & Schuster planned to rerelease all of Clark's works in e-book format.

SIDELIGHTS: "You can set your bestseller clock each spring for a new Mary Higgins Clark winner," observed Publishers Weekly contributor Dick Donahue in 2001. The prolific mystery author began her writing career as a newly widowed mother of five and has instilled her passion for suspense stories in her children, including daughter Carol, also a best-selling novelist. Clark's stories have proven so popular that her publisher, Simon & Schuster, signed her to a then-record-breaking $11.4 million contract in 1989 to produce four novels and a short story collection and in 1992 to a $35 million contract for five novels and a memoir. By 2000, Clark had over fifty million titles in print and enjoyed bestseller status around the world.

Clark had always intended to become a writer. "When I was fifteen I was picking out clothes that I would wear when I became a successful writer," she told Powells.-com interviewer Dave Welch. "I was sure I'd make it." For the first nine years of her first marriage, Clark wrote short stories. "The first one was rejected for six years," she confided to Welch. "Then it sold for $100." Confronted with the daunting task of supporting five young children after the early death of her husband, Clark turned to suspense novels. Her first, Where Are the Children?, became a bestseller in 1975, earning more than $100,000 in paperback royalties. She followed that with another thriller, A Stranger Is Watching, which earned more than $1 million in paperback rights and was filmed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1982. For Clark, this meant financial security. Her writing earnings "changed my life in the nicest way," she told Bina Bernard in People. "It took all the choking sensation out of paying for the kids' schools."

The key to Clark's popularity, according to several critics, is her technique. Jean M. White of the Washington Post maintained that Clark "is a master storyteller who builds her taut suspense in a limited time frame," noting that Where Are the Children? takes place in one day and A Stranger Is Watching in three. Carolyn Banks, moreover, pointed out in the Washington Post that there is a kind of "Mary Higgins Clark formula" that readers both expect and enjoy: "There are no ambiguities in any Clark book. We know whom and what to root for, and we do. Similarly, we boo and hiss or gasp when the author wants us to. Clark is a master manipulator." Although Clark wants to provide her readers with entertainment and romance, she once commented: "I feel a good suspense novel can and should hold a mirror up to society and make a social comment."

Clark's style is to write about "terror lurking beneath the surface of everyday life," observed White. She "writes about ordinary people suddenly caught up in frightening situations as they ride a bus or vacuum the living room," such as the characters in Loves Music, Loves to Dance, who encounter a murderer when they agree to participate in an experiment involving newspaper personal ads. Other stories play on readers' fears of unfamiliar or undesirable situations. For example, Clark explores mental illness in Loves Music, Loves to Dance, in which the killer's behavior is caused by a personality disorder, and in All around the Town, in which the main character is afflicted with a multiple personality disorder attributed to severe sexual abuse in her childhood. In I'll Be Seeing You Clark's characters find themselves victimized by villains more knowledgeable than they in the issues of genetic manipulation and in-vitro fertilization. Many of the events and details of Clark's stories come from the lives of her friends and family, news events, and even her own experiences. Clark told New York Times interviewer Shirley Horner that the burglary the heroine interrupts in Stillwatch was based on break-ins Clark herself had endured. "Everything that a writer experiences goes up in the mental attic," she told Horner.

In Clark's more recent novels, nice people vanquish the powers of darkness with great flair. In Moonlight Be-comes You, Maggie Holloway, a young photographer and amateur sculptor, visits her deceased stepmother's home in Newport, Rhode Island, in order to investigate the woman's mysterious death. Maggie's search leads her to a nursing home plagued by a series of sudden deaths, and she begins to suspect that she, too, is being targeted by the killer who does not want her to expose his diabolical plot. A reviewer for Booklist acknowledged that, "though this is not her finest book, Clark's popularity will surely put Moonlight on the lists."

In her short-story collection My Gal Sunday, Clark introduces a new detective team. Henry Parker Britland, IV, is a former U.S. president enjoying an early retirement, and his wife, Sandra—nicknamed "Sunday"—has just been elected to Congress and appointed the darling of the media. Henry and Sunday specialize in solving crimes that occur among their friends in political society. In one story, when Henry's former secretary of state is indicted for the murder of his mistress, Henry and Sunday determine he is willing to take the fall for a crime of passion he did not commit.

In Pretend You Don't See Her Clark takes on the federal witness protection program. While working as a real estate agent in Manhattan, Lacey Farrell witnesses a client's murder and is given a new name and a new identity by the government. However, merely changing her name does not protect her from the web of danger and deceit that surrounds the crime. As new clues emerge, Lacey realizes that a link exists between her family and the murder. In the meantime, romance enters her life and leads her to embark on a perilous journey to reclaim her old identity. A Booklist reviewer found the story "briskly paced," though with few surprises. Kimberly Marlowe noted in the New York Times Book Review that in her fifteenth novel, Clark covers "a lot of ground … life, death threats and the perfect date."

By the late 1990s some critics began to suggest that Clark's writing was growing rather stale. In a review of You Belong to Me a Publishers Weekly contributor commented that the book gives fans "the page-flipping perils they expect without challenging them … one whit." However, Clark's popularity remained as strong as ever among her fans. We'll Meet Again, in which a greedy head of a Connecticut H.M.O. is murdered, shot straight to the top of bestseller lists after just one week. New York Times Book Review contributor Marilyn Stasio appreciated "the diabolical plot that Clark prepares so carefully and executes with such relish," while Booklist reviewer Jenny McLarin deemed We'll Meet Again "first-rate entertainment." Before I Say Goodbye, also an immediate top-seller, was hailed as one of Clark's "page-turning best" by Booklist contributor Kristine Huntley. And On the Street Where You Live, Clark's third novel in a row to capture the number-one slot in its first week, intrigued critics with its premise: that a serial killer from a century past might be stalking young women in a present-day New Jersey resort town. "Clark's prose ambles as usual," commented a reviewer for Publishers Weekly, "but it takes readers where they want to go—deep into an old-fashioned tale of a damsel in delicious distress."

When reviewing The Second Time Around for Booklist, Mary Frances Wilkens commented: "Clark isn't the subtlest crime writer, but she knows how to spin an intriguing tale." A Publishers Weekly reviewer echoed that sentiment: "There's something special about Clark's thrillers, and it's not just the gentleness with which the bestselling writer approaches her often lurid subject matter … Special above all is the compassion she extends to her characters—heroines, villains and supporting cast alike."

In 2004, Clark published Nighttime Is My Time. In the story, members of the high school popular crowd become the targets of a serial killer as they attend their twentieth reunion. The murderer, whose alter ego "The Owl" developed due to his nighttime killing preference, is one of many former geeks seeking revenge. "The final revelation is anticlimactic," noted one Publishers Weekly contributor, "but Clark's multitude of fans will be happy enough … to participate in the guessing game." Mary Frances Wilkens, a reviewer for Booklist, found some of the characters to be "relatively shallow," but she concluded that "fans will enjoy the comfort of watching the Clark formula unwind yet again."

Clark followed Nighttime Is My Time with No Place Like Home. Celia Foster Nolan's past comes back to haunt her when she is given a new house by her husband as a birthday present. Little does he know that Celia is the grown-up little girl Liza Barton, who, at ten years old, shot both of her parents in the very same house. Mystery ensues as incidents, such as the death of their real estate agent, surround the couple as they move in. Marilyn Stasio, writing in the New York Times Book Review, complimented Clark's "intuitive grasp of the anxieties of everyday life that can spiral into full-blown terror."

Writing has become a family affair for the Clarks. Daughter Carol Higgins Clark's first novel, Decked, appeared on the paperback bestseller list at the same time as her mother's I'll Be Seeing You was departing the hardcover list after seventeen weeks. Reacting to critics who suggest that Clark may have contributed to her daughter's books, Sarah Booth Conroy noted in the Washington Post that Clark "writes deadly serious novels about the sort of chilling fears that come to women in the middle of the night" while her daughter "spoons in a bit of bawdy, a soupçon of slapstick." Carol Higgins Clark has, however, exerted some influence on her mother's writing: she is responsible for restoring to readers two of Clark's most popular characters, Alvirah, a cleaning woman who wins the lottery, and Alvirah's husband, Willy. When they first appeared in a short story, Alvirah was poisoned and Clark planned to finish her off, until Carol convinced her mother to allow Alvirah to recover. The two have since become recurring characters and are featured in The Lottery Winner: Alvirah and Willy Stories, published in 1994.

Mother and daughter took their literary bond to a further level with Deck the Halls, a mystery novel they co-wrote that featured both Alvirah and Carol Higgins Clark's popular sleuth, Regan Reilly. Since then, the duo has published two more Christmas-themed novels together, He Sees You When You're Sleeping, and The Christmas Thief.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Bestsellers '89, number 4, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1989.

Newsmakers 2000, Gale (Detroit, MI), 2000.

St. James Guide to Young Adult Writers, second edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999.

PERIODICALS

Best Sellers, December, 1984.

Booklist, October 15, 1994, p. 371; April 15, 1996; April, 1998, Mary Frances Wilkens, review of You Belong to Me, p. 1277; September 15, 1998, Kathleen Hughes, review of All Through the Night, p. 172; April 15, 1999, Jenny McLarin, review of We'll Meet Again, p. 1468; April 15, 2000, Kristine Huntley, review of Before I Say Goodbye, p. 1500; November 1, 2000, Stephanie Zvirin, review of Deck the Halls, p. 492; April 15, 2001, Kristine Huntley, review of On the Street Where You Live, p. 1508; May 1, 2003, Mary Frances Wilkens, review of The Second Time Around, p. 1538; April 1, 2004, Mary Frances Wilkens, review of Nighttime is My Time, p. 1330.

Chicago Tribune, September 20, 1987; July 31, 1989.

Cosmopolitan, May, 1989.

English Journal, December, 1979, p. 80.

Good Housekeeping, November, 1996, pp. 23-24.

Kirkus Review, November 1, 2000, review of Deck the Halls, p. 1519.

Newsweek, June 30, 1980.

New Yorker, August 4, 1980; June 27, 1994, p. 91.

New York Times, January 22, 1982; December 6, 1989; May 18, 1997.

New York Times Book Review, May 14, 1978; November 14, 1982; May 2, 1993, p. 22; December 15, 1996; May 5, 1996; April 19, 1998, Marilyn Stasio, review of You Belong to Me, p. 30; June 29, 1997; May 23, 1999, Marilyn Stasio, review of We'll Meet Again; April 16, 2000, Marilyn Stasio, review of Before I Say Goodbye, p. 32; April 10, 2005, Marilyn Stasio, "Blues Clues," p. 27.

Observer (London, England), May 7, 1978, p. 34.

People, March 6, 1978; May 9, 1994, p. 35; December 16, 1996, pp. 54-56.

Progressive, May, 1978, p. 45.

Publishers Weekly, May 19, 1989; October 14, 1996, pp. 28-29; March 30, 1998, review of You Belong to Me, p. 70; September 14, 1998, review of All through the Night, p. 52; October 30, 2000, review of Deck the Halls, p. 47; April 2, 2001, review of On the Street Where You Live, p. 41; April 30, 2001, "Clark's Spark Marks," p. 20; April 7, 2003, review of Second Time Around, p. 47; March 22, 2004, review of Nighttime is My Time, p. 62; March 28, 2005, review of No Place Like Home, p. 56.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), June 8, 1980.

Wall Street Journal, May 29, 1996, p. A16; December 7, 1998, Tom Nolan, review of All through the Night, p. A28; December 11, 2000, Tom Nolan, review of Deck the Halls, p. A38.

Washington Post, May 19, 1980; July 17, 1980; October 18, 1982; August 10, 1987.

ONLINE

Powells.com, http://www.powells.com/ (January 12, 2001), "Mary Higgins Clark Reveals."

Writers Write, http://www.writerswrite.com/ (January 12, 2001), "A Conversation with Mary Higgins Clark."