Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice Special Issue Spring/Summer 2008 Volume 2 Issue 2/3 Suzanne Brockmann (Anne Brock) (5 June 1960- Suzanne Brockmann, New York Times best-selling and RITA-award-winning author, pioneered and popularized military romances. Her well-researched, tightly-plotted, highly emotional, action-packed novels with their socially- and politically-pertinent messages have firmly entrenched the romance genre in the previously male-dominated world of the military thriller and expanded the reach and relevance of the romance genre far beyond its stereotypical boundaries. The Navy SEAL heroes of her Tall, Dark and Dangerous series published under the Silhouette Intimate Moments imprint and the heroes and even occasionally the heroines of her best-selling, mainstream Troubleshooter series who work for various military and counter-terrorism agencies have set the standards for military characters in the romance genre. In these two series, Brockmann combines romance, action, adventure, and mystery with frank, realistic examinations of contemporary issues such as terrorism, sexism, racial profiling, interracial relationships, divorce, rape, and homosexuality. Brockmann’s strong, emotional, and realistic heroes, her prolonged story arcs in which the heroes and heroines of future books are not only introduced but start their relationships with each other books before their own, and her innovative interactions with her readers, have made her a reader favorite. Suzanne was born in Englewood, New Jersey on 6 May, 1960 to Frederick J. Brockmann, a teacher and public education administrator, and Elise-Marie “Lee” Schriever Brockmann, an English teacher. Suzanne and her family, including one older sister, Carolee, born 28 January, 1958, lived in Pearl River, N.Y., Guilford, Conn., and Farmingdale, N.Y., following Fred Brockmann’s career as a Superintendent of Schools. Suzanne graduated from Farmingdale High School in 1978 and began attending the School of Public Communication at Boston University, majoring in Broadcast and Film with a minor in Creative Writing. She dropped out of school in her junior year, however, to became the songwriter, lead singer, and organizer for a rock band. After achieving their only goal—to play in the Boston club The Rathskeller in Kenmore Square—on their first gig, the band waited unsuccessfully to be discovered. A lesson in setting a series of attainable goals was not the only result of Brockmann’s band experience, however; she also met her future husband, Edward Gaffney, the former freshman-year roommate of the lead guitar player in the band, and a law student. Brockmann and Gaffney married 13 August, 1983 and moved to Phoenix, Ariz. Their first child, Melanie, was born on 29 August, 1984, and their second child, Jason, was born on 11 December, 1985 after they moved to East Meadow, N.Y.. In 1986, the family moved off Long Island to Mahopac, N.Y., and has lived since in Katonah, N.Y., Wayland, Mass., and Waltham, Mass., a suburb of Boston. Brockmann’s parents were both avid readers and books and trips to public libraries were a staple in her life. Additionally, when Suzanne was in middle school, her mother wrote a series of half- hour episodes attempting to turn the play and 1972 movie Butterflies are Free into a television show. In an email, Brockmann recalls watching her mother channel her creativity into writing, which “gave me permission to do the same.” When Brockmann became a stay-at-home mother in Phoenix, Ariz., she began looking for an organized creative outlet. She describes her creativity in an interview with Allen Pierleoni: “I arranged a cappella music, I wrote songs, I sewed costumes for shows, I cooked elaborate dinners. My creativity was like I had thrown a Ping-Pong ball into a room and it was bouncing off everything.” Brockmann remembered how much she had enjoyed writing when she was in high school, surviving a chemistry class by writing a Star Trek parody with a friend, and decided to transcribe onto her new computer the “serious” Star Trek novel she had written by herself in twelfth grade. When she finished editing and rewriting the original story, she wrote a sequel, and then finally began to write with an eye to joining the Simon and Schuster Star Trek novel boom of the late 1980s. Although the result, Uneasy Alliance , was never published commercially, Brockmann shared it with her fans in 2002 on an Internet Countdown to the publication of one of her mainstream, single-title novels. During a subsequent attempt to become a screenwriter, Brockmann received what she describes in her interview with Pierleoni as “the absolute best rejection phone call” from an agent who said that he liked her scripts but asked when she was moving to Los Angeles. Brockmann, who at this time lived in New York with two small children and a husband with a burgeoning law career, admitted that she would only be able to think of another intercoastal relocation when her children went to college. The agent said that he chose not to represent her because there were ten writers as good as her who lived in Los Angeles. Brockmann decided to set herself apart by becoming a published author in genre fiction. Convinced that the large romance market—over 150 romances published each month—meant that there had to be room for her, Brockmann decided to model her career on best-selling authors like Nora Roberts and Sandra Brown who had begun their own incredibly successful careers by writing category romances for Harlequin and Silhouette. In June 1992 Brockmann outlined and finally began writing her first romance novel. Almost immediately she had what she termed in her interview with Pierleoni as “a eureka moment” when she realized that the romance genre was the “perfect outlet” for her writing voice. Brockmann wrote ten books during the year after she started writing and her first published novel, Future Perfect , was released in August 1993 by Meteor Publishing under their Kismet Romances line. The heroine, Juliana Anderson, runs a Victorian Bed and Breakfast in Bedford, Mass. and seems to be a prudish, old-fashioned spinster; in fact, she has a wild background that includes reform school because of her lifelong struggle with severe dyslexia, a topic that immediately demonstrated Brockmann’s propensity to tackle real-life, contemporary issues in her novels. The hero, Webster Donovan, a writer struggling with writer’s block, maintains a cynical front to ward off too much emotional involvement. While the themes of false perceptions and false barriers presage the dominant themes of most of Brockmann’s novels, Future Perfect had the dubious honor of being the last book Meteor ever published. Brockmann’s second published novel, Hero Under Cover (June 1994), began her long relationship with the Silhouette Intimate Moments imprint and immediately gained her a reputation as an easy author to work with because, when asked by her editor, she changed the object around which the mystery of the novel revolved and, because of a mix-up with the cover picture, the color of the heroine’s hair. Kendall “Pete” Peterson, the first of Brockmann’s heroes 2 to work for a government agency, is a CIA agent who goes undercover as a bodyguard for Annie Morrow, a suspect who has been framed both in overseas museum bombings and in an art theft ring and is also receiving death threats. When Pete’s real job is revealed, Annie refuses to forgive him, even though she believes that he loves her, until she thinks he is dead after being shot by one of the villains. This resolution brought about by a character’s realization of the precious nature of love and of the fleeting nature of the time people have together is one of Brockmann’s favorite themes. Embraced by Love (January 1995) was the first book in a multi-author, four-part series by Pinnacle Romance about heroes and heroines who are already married when the book begins. In constructing the narrative, Brockmann revealed her ability to create conflict that arises from the internal action of the novel, rather than because of external, pre-existing circumstances. The hero, Cooper McBride, also inaugurates the line of Brockmann’s famously crying heroes: throughout the ending of the novel, both when he decides to divorce Josie and also when they reconcile, Cooper expresses the depth of his emotions by crying, a trait many of Brockmann’s future heroes emulate while retaining their considerable masculinity. Although the reviewer for Affaire du Coeur claimed that the premise of the new line for Pinnacle and Brockmann’s contribution in particular would “revolutionize the romance genre,” Embraced by Love sold only 1,300 copies. Brockmann first included recurring characters with her next two releases. Not Without Risk (June 1995) and A Man To Die For (December 1995), both published by Silhouette Intimate Moments, tell the stories of two undercover police partners. In connecting these two novels, Brockmann begins to establish her series trademarks: unhappy secondary characters, short plot timeframes, and ethnically-diverse characters. Counter to the comedic trope that most other romances follow that provides happy endings for all secondary characters in relationships, in Not Without Risk , the relationship between the hero’s partner and a secondary female character is unsuccessful. Brockmann feels that the requisite happily-ever-after ending of romances denies readers “a lot of cathartic emotions” that take them out of their “comfort zone.” She explains in her interview with Allen Pierleoni: “I have a contract with my readers: ‘Dear Reader: I promise I will give you a happy ending for the two main characters in this book. But I'm going to have subplots that may end unhappily or even in death.