© Copyright 2011, Robert Rotenberg

Author photo by John Narvali

 

Web Design by Travis West,

∞InfiniteLoop IT

   I really can’t remember a time when I wasn’t thinking of stories, then writing them. When I was seven years old, my oldest brother got a portable typewriter for his Bar Mitzvah. I was transfixed by it. I Would sneak into his room and use it. And I read everything on the bookshelves of my two very smart older brothers.

 

   When I was 15, I sent a short story to The New Yorker magazine. (I kept the rejection letter, on their letterhead no less, for years.) I wrote my first film script the next year.

 After studying English literature at University of Toronto, I took a year off to drive cab (my Razor’s Edge phase), hang out and write a book. I drove, I partied, I went to Europe and I think wrote a line or two in a journal. At law school I spent most of my time in the free legal clinic, doing criminal cases, rarely going to class. The writing faded.

  After I was called to the bar, desperate to get out of Toronto – and avoid being a lawyer - I went to the London School of Economics to get a masters degree in International Law, and managed to travel all over Europe on various scholarships.

   Back in Canada, I finished my bar exams and nine days later hopped on a plane to Paris, where I became the managing editor of an English-language magazine, Passion, The Magazine of Paris. I turned 30 in Paris, living in a tiny basement apartment, working insane hours, with almost no money – a recurring theme in my life.

  I had this plan to start a magazine in Toronto, came home and, with a partner, created and published T.O. The Magazine of Toronto. (Below, right is one of my favorite covers).

  Six years of ridiculously hard work, and, once again, very little money, ensued. We folded T.O. in 1988. I was broke, unemployed. Not a great time.

   I had a job offer in New York at Newsweek, but it was time to stop uprooting my life. I worked for a year as a film executive – hated it - then spent as year a producer at CBC Radio – not a good fit. 

 

 

 

  With our first child on the way and broke yet again, I rewrote my law exams, put $3,000 on my Visa card, rented a closet in someone’s law chambers, hung up some posters from Paris, and started my criminal law practice. I was 37 and starting all over, yet again. (I’ve now practiced for 20 years with my associate Alvin Shidlowski and am very proud of

our firm, Rotenberg, Shidlowski & Jesin.)

 

  And I started to write. I wrote another film script. I wrote a novel. My wife’s best friend married a then-struggling young writer, Douglas Preston. We became friends and, as Doug’s career took off, I read his stuff and he read mine.
 (Here’s a picture of Doug and me in New Mexico in the summer of 2008 with two of our sons.)

 

  My first book was good enough to get me an agent in New York. But not good enough. The day I was told it hadn’t sold, I immediately started Old City Hall. It was 2001. By 2004 I’d hit a wall, with the book half done. I took a nine-day writing course at Humber College and worked with two talented writers, David Bezmozgis and Michelle Berry, who were most generous with their time.

 

  I finished the book in April 2007. Doug read it and, determined to hook me up with a top

agent, introduced me to Victoria Skurnick at Levine Greenberg Literary Agency. Victoria read the book overnight, and the next day signed me up. Magic. Victoria is a wonder. Within weeks she’d drummed up a major bidding war for the book in New York. I signed a two-book hardcover deal with the talented editor Sarah Crichton at Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar Straus & Giroux. Now we have sales in all sorts of foreign languages, including French, Italian, German, Spanish, Italian and Japanese, and an audio book deal.

 

  Now, with the release of my second book, The Guilty Plea, Simon and Schuster has signed me up for a number of more novels and they want a book a year. I’m still practicing criminal law, raising our kids and, thankfully writing all the time.

 

  I’d like to mention the volunteer work I do. For a number of years I was the chairman of the Board of Directors of The Canterbury/Mark Perri Clinic. We’re a small, struggling, privately funded, on-the- street, drug and alcohol rehab clinic. As a criminal lawyer for 20 years, I’ve seen up close the ravages of serious drug and alcohol addiction. If you have time, please check out our new website. Any readers who’d like to contribute volunteer time or make a tax-deductible donation are most welcome.