Interview with G H Ephron
(Donald A. Davidoff, Ph. D. and Hallie Ephron)
by Jon Jordan
GH Ephron Web Site

Jon:  I guess my first question has to be about the actual writing process. How do you do it? What is involved in the collaboration?

Don: The first thing you need to know is we have absolutely no overlapping talent, which is why the collaboration works.

Hallie: When we started working together, I was afraid Don was going to want to write. Turns out he was afraid I was going to make him write.

Don: Together, we decide what the book is going to be about, where the plot is going to go. We start with a theme. For instance, Delusion is about paranoia. In it, Peter Zak assesses the mind of a brilliant but paranoid man accused of killing his wife. He’s trying to figure out whether the man is ill, or is he a great actor trying to get away with murder? Or is he really surrounded by assassins?

Hallie: After we have our idea, we create an outline. Don takes the lead in defining the plot and developing characters. I do most of the dialogue, pacing, and creating dramatic tension, as well as most of the actual writing.

Don: Hallie’s the one who breathes life into the ideas, makes them live on the printed page. The way we’ve been able to work together has been truly synergistic. The lack of friction continues to amaze me.

Jon:  How would you describe the books? Are they straight up mysteries, or medical thrillers, or something else?

Hallie: A reviewer once called them ‘medical mystery thrillers.’ I like that. On one level they’re good old -fashioned whodunnits.

Don: On another, they’re each really about something. We want the reader to come away with a new understanding of human psychology.

Jon:  So who is Peter Zak, and why put him at Cambridge?

Hallie: Peter is Don. Only a little taller, a little younger.,,

Don: (Laughing) Right. But I’m better looking.

Hallie: They’re both neuropsychologists, consult as an expert witness for the defense --

Don: Right. I evaluate people accused of murder, I live in Cambridge, row on the Charles, appreciate great wine. Ditto on down the line for Peter Zak. I remember the first batch of pages Hallie e-mailed me. I was so surprised. It was like a weird, out-of-body experience, reading about my better half -- me but not me.

Jon:  So far each different book seems to focus on a particular malady. Is this something that’s going to continue?

Hallie: Absolutely. The human psyche makes a great starting point for a murder mystery.

Don: What fascinates us is the borderland between mind and reality. So AMNESIA is about memory, and how the desire to remember or the desire to forget can play tricks with a person’s recollections of past events. ADDICTION is how psychological craving can make people do the unthinkable. DELUSION is about paranoia – and how if you think everyone is out to get you, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We’re working on OBSESSED.

Jon:  Obviously you aren’t writing about actual people and their cases, but are some of the things in the books drawn from real situations?

Don: Peter falls into the Charles while he’s rowing. Unfortunately that really happened more than once. But for the most part, no. The people and the cases are made up.

Hallie: Though with Don’s real experience working in the criminal justice system, running a psychiatric unit at McLean, living in Cambridge -- it all pulls together to make the fiction ring true.

Jon:  What kind of things did you two do before the things you are doing now?

Hallie: I’ve been a teacher, a trainer in high-tech, a marketing writer. I once managed a hotel.

Don: She’s got a Ph.D.

Hallie: In education.

Don: I run a unit at McLean, Harvard’s psychiatric hospital. I also teach at the Harvard Medical School. I’ve been doing forensics for about 15 years.

Jon:  Hallie, with your Hollywood related background, would you consider optioning your characters for a movie?

Hallie: Of course! That would be so great. Maybe Julia Roberts as Annie Squires, George Clooney as Peter?

Don: And me humming all the way to the bank.

Jon:  Are there any subjects that would be taboo for the series? And if so, why?

Hallie: A subject would be taboo only because one of us doesn’t want to write about it. I really don’t want to write about serial killers, or kidnapped children. Those are things I don’t much like to read about either.

Don: I keep wanting to write Fetish, but Hallie’s not interested.

Jon:  Do you think having a website is important? And do you get a lot of feedback?

Hallie: I love having a Web site (ours is www.peterzak.com). Yes, I do think it’s important. We have an “Ask Dr. Zak” feature which invites people to email their questions about psychology to Dr. Zak. We answer them all, and the questions are fascinating. It’s also been a good way for readers to contact us.

Jon:  What’s the coolest part of being a writer, and what part could you really live without?

Hallie: Truly the coolest thing is meeting people who’ve read (and liked, hopefully) our books. Writing is a very lonely, more or less one way conversation – it’s so cool when there’s someone out there talking back.

Jon:  Signing tours, a pleasure to do, or a vacation from hell? Any horror stories of being on the road?

Hallie: Like I said earlier, we have absolutely no overlapping skills. I love signing tours. I love meeting people, going to bookstores, doing readings.

Don: I like it too, but in smaller doses.

Jon:  Do you try to play fair with the reader, giving them a chance to solve the mystery?

Don: Absolutely – it’s great when people write and say they were so surprised by the ending they went back and reread the whole thing and found the clues.

Jon:  How would Peter Zak describe himself?

Don: A neuropsychologist. Ethical. Compassionate.

Hallie: A hunk.

Jon:  What’s the best way to spend a weekend?

Hallie: For me it’s traveling somewhere I’ve never been.

Don: Great food and wine.

Jon:  Who are some of your favorite people to read?

Hallie: Val McDermid. Naomi Rand. P.D. James. Jan Brogan. Linda Barnes. And the oldies: Ngaio Marsh, Josephine Tey, Dorothy L. Sayers

Don: James Connelly. James Lee Burke. J. A. Jance. Linda Barnes.

Jon:  If you were to do an episode of Trading Places, would you trust each other to redecorate each other’s homes?

Hallie: I’d trust Don but I don’t think he’d trust me.

Don: Right.

Jon:  What are some of your favorite movies?

Hallie: I confess, I love my sisters’ (Nora’s and Delia’s) movies. You’ve Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle – it doesn’t get much better. My all time favorite movie is Some Like It Hot. I’m a child of Hollywood.

Don: The Graduate, Some Like It Hot, Mean Streets, Memento. Anything of Scorcese’s

Jon:  Do you have a favorite scene or passage from your books?

Hallie: A favorite is the scene in Amnesia where the reader realizes who the killer is. I love it because when I wrote it, I was surprised too.

Don: I like the opening of Delusion – when Peter and Annie finally get together.

Jon:  Can you say anything about the next book?

Don: It’s about obsession.

Hallie: And MRIs. Peter gets a chance to look inside his own brain and watch it work.

Don: Pretty scary.

Jon:  What is the one thing always in your respective refrigerators?

Don: Fresh coffee beans..

Hallie: When my daughter is home, empty ice cube trays.