| Clea Simon | |
| Birth Date: | 27 July 1961 [1] |
| Birth Place: | East Meadow, Long Island |
| Occupation: | Writer |
| Alma Mater: | Harvard University |
| Period: | Contemporary |
| Genre: | Mystery, non-fiction, noir |
Clea Simon (born 1961) is an American writer. She is the author of World Enough, a psychological suspense thriller set in the Boston music scene, and the Blackie and Care, Theda Krakow, Dulcie Schwartz, Pru Marlowe, and Witch Cats of Cambridge cozy feline mysteries. Her non-fiction books include Madhouse: Growing Up in the Shadow of Mentally Ill Siblings, Fatherless Daughters and Feline Mystique: On the Mysterious Connection between Women and Cats.[2] [3]
Simon was born in East Meadow, Long Island. Her father was a doctor and her mother an artist. Her older brother and sister were mentally ill; her book, Mad House, documented the impact of their illness on her family.[4]
Simon moved to the Cambridge area in 1979 to attend Harvard University. Interested in journalism since junior high school,[5] she wrote for The Harvard Crimson during her junior and senior year. She graduated magna cum laude in 1983 with an A.B. in English and American Language and Literature.[6] [7]
Focused on music, Simon began her career as a freelance journalist, writing for publications including The Boston Phoenix, the Boston Herald, the Boston Globe, the New York Times, 'and Salon. She was a staff writer and editor at the Boston Globe from 1990 until 1999. Her 1997 memoir, Mad House: Growing Up in the Shadows of Mentally Ill Siblings, was an outgrowth of a well received article on the subject she wrote for the Globe's Sunday magazine.[8] [9]
In 2001, following her father's death, Simon wrote Fatherless Women: How We Change After We Lose Our Dads.[10] In 2002, her third non-fiction book, The Feline Mystique: On the Mysterious Connection Between Women and Cats was published. An examination of the relationship between women and cats, and how they have interacted in mythology, science and literature, Kirkus wrote that it was "Wide-ranging and perfectly pitched: both sensitive and sensible."[11] The book was dedicated to Simon's late cat, Cyrus T. Cat.[12]
Simon, a mystery fan, was a regular at Kate's Mystery Books, the "acknowledged hub" for mystery writers and readers in New England. During a conversation about The Feline Mystique, Kate Mattes, the store's owner, told Simon that there was a "huge overlap between women who love cats and mystery readers." She suggested that Simon write a feline mystery, and that night Simon began work on her first mystery, Mew is for Murder. [5] The book's protagonist, Theda Krakow, was a freelance writer.[13] Released in 2005, Publishers Weekly wrote that it was an "auspicious fiction debut with a well-plotted cat mystery that's not your usual four-footed cozy caper."[14] Mew is for Murder was the first in what became a series of Theda Krakow mysteries. The Krakow books were followed by the Dulcie Shwartz, Blackie and Care, and Witch Cats of Cambridge series and the Pru Marlowe "Pet Noirs."
In 2017, Simon's 23rd mystery, World Enough, was published. A "rock n' roll noir" that departed from her feline cozies, Simon drew on her past as a music critic, setting the book in the Boston music scene. Jay Stafford of the Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote that "Simon's dark story shimmers with brilliance - and stands as her finest." [15]
The first book in the Witch Cats of Cambridge series, A Spell of Murder, was published in 2018.Publishers Weekly said of it, "You don’t have to be a cat lover to appreciate this paranormal cozy’s witty observations, entertaining dialogue, and astute characterizations."[16]
Published in 2021, Hold Me Down won a 2022 Fiction Mass Book Awards Must-Read from Mass Center for the Book.[17] The Boston Globe said, "In electric prose, Simon conjures the rock-and-roll world, its drink, drugs, and band-dynamics, and the twin seductresses of excess and success, as she makes a penetrating portrait of friendship."[18]
Simon's husband, Jon Garelick, is also a writer. Married in 1998, they live in Somerville. They have a cat.[19]