PLOTTING SUCCESS: Homegrown author David Ellis
By Valerie Hardy
It is common advice to avoid judging a book by its cover, but it is rare to have the privilege of covering a book by a judge. Downers Grove Magazine got to do just that, however, when we caught up with New York Times bestselling author David Ellis after his recent novel, The Best Lies, was published.
The book features Leo Balanoff, a pathological liar with scores of secrets, who is also an attorney seeking justice no matter the price. When a drug dealer is found dead, and Leo’s fingerprints are on the murder weapon, the authorities do not believe he is innocent. They need his help to take down the dealer’s syndicate, though, and Leo accepts the FBI’s offer to go undercover and the corresponding risks to avoid prison. However, this choice comes at a cost, including encounters with his ex, Andi Piotrowski.
Ellis’s writing career took off after his first book, Line of Vision, won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 2002. Acclaimed for his crime fiction, his stories are “primarily from his imagination,” he explained, but he occasionally finds inspiration within his other career: judge within the Illinois Appellate Court for the 1st District, the youngest ever sworn in when he was elected in 2014.
Born in Kansas, Ellis and his family moved to Downers Grove when he was 4 years old. While he remains a diehard Kansas City Chiefs fan, the rest of what he took from childhood roots back to his “idyllic” time living on a cul-de-sac in Downers Grove’s Orchard Brook neighborhood and attending Belle Aire, Herrick (“back when they called it a junior high school”), and Downers Grove North, from which he graduated in 1986.
Ellis proceeded to the University of Illinois to study finance, then attended law school at Northwestern University. He began his legal career in Chicago in 1993, specializing in commercial litigation and constitutional law, which led him to Springfield, where he served as Chief Counsel to the Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. Before becoming a judge, a standout chapter in Ellis’s career came in 2009, when he was Counsel to the House Special Investigative Committee considering the impeachment of Governor Rod Blagojevich, then serving as the House Prosecutor, trying and convicting Governor Blagojevich in the impeachment trial before the Illinois Senate.
It’s hard to imagine someone with such a demanding legal career having time to write 11 solo novels – let alone nearly as many co-authored with renowned author James Patterson – but Ellis has managed to balance two prolific careers along with his role as husband and father of three.
Read on to learn more about Ellis’s writing and how it all started here in Downers Grove.
Downers Grove Magazine: How did you begin writing?
David Ellis: People always ask me if I was a writer first or a lawyer. I was a writer before anything else. I started at Belle Aire. In grade school, they teach creative writing. I not only did all the assignments, but I would also write for fun. I wrote a play – a little legal thriller, believe it or not – and my teacher let me put the play on in class. I also entered the Young Authors’ competition in fourth and fifth grade (my mother would type my stories up for me) and went to the Young Authors’ Conference. It took me years to realize I wasn’t the only “winner!”
DGM: What was your path from Young Author to New York Times bestselling author?
DE: I had always enjoyed writing, but once I got to high school, they stopped teaching creative writing. They weren’t assigning it, and I stopped doing it. I got older and had other priorities in high school: good grades, sports (I played football and baseball), and girls. That sucked up all my time. Then, I was in college and law school and had no free time. In 1995, I had been a lawyer for two years and was working until 10 p.m. most nights, but I finally got to take a vacation. I was somewhere warm, with toes in the sand, a drink in hand, thinking about my life and how I used to love to write. I made a deal with myself on that beach in Florida that I was going to write an entire novel.
DGM: How do you craft your characters, who are often criminal to some degree?
DE: I write about people who are conventional – they follow the street signs, pay their taxes – but they sin. Everybody sins a little bit, but very few transgress those mortal sins. I had a conventional upbringing in a loving family. I was a good kid, played varsity sports, got good grades, and dated the cheerleader. But I was always interested in the other side of the fence. I followed the rules, but I found those other people to be daring and interesting.
DGM: Do you ever reference Downers Grove or other parts of your life within your books?
DE: My books are from my imagination. I’ve never done the terrible things that are done in the books, but also not the heroic things. In my book Look Closer, there was a lot in there about tracking cell phones. That part came from a case I worked on. I have mentioned Downers Grove many times. I tend to do it in the books I co-author with Jim Patterson. I’ve never set a book in Downers Grove, though. I like writing about Chicago and the Midwest, especially around a major city. It gives you everything you need as a writer: a small town but also the crime.
DGM: You’ve written many books with James Patterson, including Lies He Told Me, published this fall. What have you learned from your experiences co-authoring with him?
DE: Jim gets the majority of the credit for the books we have written together: the characters, the plot, the setting, the tone. Working with him is like an actor working with a director. I learn so much from our calls after I write a section. It’s like a master class. I wish I could outline my writing process from A-Z before I start, but I can’t. Patterson does that.
Ellis tries to keep his legal and writing careers as separate as possible. He has not written from the viewpoint of a judge and said he would be “reluctant to do that, but you never know!”
Are Ellis’s books a case of art imitating life? You be the judge.
Visit DavidEllis.com to view a full booklist, subscribe to Ellis’s newsletter, or request a virtual book club conversation with the author.
Ellis with fellow Downers Grove North Alumni at his book signing at Anderson’s Bookshop in November
