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     New additions!   May 2007 - New Pie-making Video!   
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NEW!
The actual case which got me thinking about writing this novel concerned a young, pretty woman named Pamela Smart. Smart had been working with young people at a New Hampshire high school, where she met, and ultimately embarked on a sexual relationship with, a fifteen year old boy named Billy Flynn. She was charged with having enlisted the aid of Flynn and several of his friends to murder her husband, Gregory Smart. Found guilty by the jury, she was sentenced to life without possibility of parole. She is currently serving her sentence at Bedford Hills Correctional facility in Bedford Hills, New York. I have never denied that it was reading about that case -- most specifically, the role of the media, over the months leading up to the arrest of Pam Smart, that inspired me to create this novel. But the character I invented -- Suzanne Maretto -- and the themes of the novel, were my own invention. I never interviewed, or even met, Pam Smart, or any other characters involved in the murder, and that remains true. The first draft of the novel was actually finished, and delivered to my publisher, before the Smart trial even began -- though I did ultimately borrow a couple of events from the trial (including the judge’s speculation that Clint Eastwood should play him in the movie version, and a single line uttered by Gregory Smart, on the night of the murder) for my novel. I did not conduct research for my novel, beyond watching television. (Another event that inspired me in the writing of To Die For, actually, was the airing, some years earlier, on public television, of a series called An American Family, that followed a real life family over the course of many months, as their lives fell apart, on camera.) It was television -- and not any living, breathing human being -- that served as the subject of my book. What I wanted to explore was the role the camera plays in our lives, the influence of celebrity on our culture, and the utterly unprecedented form of ambition that now exists, spawned in our media age -- not to be famous for some accompishment, but simply, to be famous. To Die For was first published in 1992 -- long before any of us had ever heard of “reality television” or You Tube or Paris Hilton. (Though her idea of having a television camera trained on her, round the clock, was actually a dream my character, Suzanne Maretto, talked about in the book, just as -- long before any movie existed -- she imagined “Tom Cruise’s wife” playing her in the movie version of her life.) In the years since the publication of my novel, of course, many of the ideas and fantasies Suzanne Maretto entertained in To Die For have actually come true -- and it is fascinating (and a little chilling, to me) that what once seemed like a comic farce (which was how I envisioned my book) has become very real and believable. I will add here, over the years since her conviction, I gather Pamela Smart has continued to maintain her innocence in the murder of Gregory Smart. Whether there is merit to her assertions is not something I’m in a position to comment on. My book -- which ends with the murder of Suzanne Maretto, arranged by the parents of the murdered husband -- has nothing to do with the facts of her life. To those who would see my novel as a portrayal of Pamela Smart, I want to say very clearly: It is not. It is also not a portrayal of Pamela Smart’s family, or the stories of any other characters whose lives were changed forever by the murder of Gregory Smart. The world of literature and film is filled with examples of creative works that bear some connection to real events, without being about those events. (Look at Citizen Kane, An American Tragedy, The Last Tycoon. Ragtime. And dozens -- hundreds -- of others.) Every writer I know uses what he or she takes in of the world -- from personal experience, from books, from films, from friends, newspapers, magazines, conversations overheard on airplanes and in supermarkets, scraps of old letters at the dump, you name it. In this way, and in this way only, I used the superficial outlines of a real murder to touch off my story. But ultimately, To Die For is a creative work, an invention, a product of my imaginatition, and an exploration into my own obsessions and fantasies, and nobody else’s. And now, the book, To Die For:
In a brilliant, shocking novel of ambition and sexual obsession, Joyce Maynard tells the chilling story of a young woman who arranges the cold-blooded murder of her husband. Written in a unique documentary style, To Die For exposes with disturbing accuracy a community for whom television is more real than their own lives. Suzanne Stone is a golden girl, her family's favorite, a lively accomplished young woman with one driving ambition: to be a network anchorwoman -- a television star. The job she lands at a local cable station os merely an expected stepping stone to the big time. What is unexpected is her husband's murder. As those around the case -- and Suzanne herself -- start talking to the media, a fascinating picture of seduction and fixation emerges. Has Suzanne promised a sixteen-year-old boy unlimited sex to shoot her husband? Why would three teenagers become pawns in a depraved plot to kill? The people closest to Suzanne see her as a role model, a woman striving to become like her television idols. Others see her as a self-centered, coldhearted manipulator, a woman who considers the media celebrity that follows her husband's murder a career opportunity. Who Suzanne really is and what impels a young boy to swear he will not only die for the woman he thinks he loves, but will kill for her, combine to form this riveting novel of sexual and phychological domination. Joyce Maynard brilliantly and insightfully captures the odd combinations of personality, sex, class, culture, and chance that shape and destroy these lives.
Now's when I'm suposed to put the gun up to his head and blow him away. There's no point having a big discussion. Only I can't move. It's like someone pulled the plug on me, and I can't do nothing but stand there looking at him. I guess I never really thought about him before. Or if I did I pictured him more like somone's dad. Some guy in a suit. But basically, this guy looked like he could go to my school. He wouldn't be the type to hang around with me or nothing. He'd be one of the guys that plays on a team and dates the prettiest girls. But you knew he was an OK guy. Just because you lived over by the clam flats, that didn't mean he wouldn't ask you how's it going when he bumped into you in the hall. He's the type that's friends with everyone. Now Russell's getting antsy. He says my name. "Now," he says. And when he says that, you knew the guy understood what he was talking about. So I figure, right. Now's the time. Here I go. Just like I'm on the basketball court you know. And I'm about to take that foul shot. Just like I'm playing Super Mario Brothers," and in one-tenth of a second is the time I'm supposed to push my zapper. "Wait," he says. That's enough to where I miss my opening. I'm off center again, you know. I got to build myself up again. Russell there, he's pissed. You knew he'd grab the gun and do it himself, only he's got to hold the guy down. But he's giving me this look. OK, I think. I make myself picture Mrs. Maretto again, and the December Penthouse Pet. I'm getting back on the track. I put the gun up against his hair. Russell tells him to hand over his gold chain and his watch. "Now the ring," says Russ. "Not my ring," says Larry. "My wife would kill me." Well that shook me. Even Russell, you could tell he wasn't prepared for the guy to say something like that. Neither one of us can think what to do next, so we just stand there, holding him down. Larry's on his knees at this point, with his hands in front of him, like he's praying. "Hold on," he says. Man, he's desperate now, you can smell it. "Just wait a second," he says. "Don't do anything." Russell says "Now, Jim." Another minute and I figure he's going to blow us both away --Larry, and me too. And I'm practically thinking that would be OK. For a second there, I can't even remember why we're even doing this. Larry turns to Russell and looks him right in the eye. "You know my wife?" he says. That's when it's like I got a new energy pack. I wake up. All the static goes away. I'm clear again. It's like I'm just playing Nintendo again, and alls I got to do is push the buttons, nothing else matters. I pull the trigger. He goes limp. Blood everywhere. But what I seen was his mouth, just hanging open like one of them sea gulls. Or like a guy that just finished fucking, came all over the place, and fell asleep. I mean, if you saw a dead person like I did you'd know it too: dying and coming look about the same. Only when you die you don't wake up again naturally. And there's the blood.
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