Character, creator share in charades of normalcy
A look at the man behind the inspiration for Showtime's Dexter series.
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published December 26, 2006
CAPE CORAL - Jeff Lindsay doesn't seem like the kind of guy whose mind could give birth to a serial killer.
The soft-spoken, middle-aged author lives in a southwest Florida community with his wife and three daughters. He has a backyard pool and a fishing boat tied to his dock.
But when Lindsay came to the conclusion that "serial murder isn't always a bad thing," he created the character Dexter Morgan, a blood-spatter analyst for the Miami-Dade Police Department who hunts and kills criminals in his spare time.
Showtime's series Dexter, based on Lindsay's books, has just finished its first season as a critical and audience favorite and is slated for a second next fall. And fans are finding their way to the source material, Darkly Dreaming Dexter and Dearly Devoted Dexter.
Like his character, Lindsay admits his seemingly normal appearance is just an act.
"I don't know if it's possible to be a writer and be normal. It's not a normal occupation," Lindsay said. "I know I'm deeply neurotic, and I'm comfortable with that."
Despite his neuroses, Lindsay is still worlds away from his serial-killing protagonist. Because of a childhood trauma, Dexter is a sociopath with a need to kill. Fortunately for him, his foster father, a police officer, taught him how to dispatch those who deserve it.
Dexter preys on killers who manage to escape justice, and Miami is his hunting ground. Lindsay, who grew up in the city, uses his knowledge to paint an accurate picture for his characters' habitat.
Lindsay, who has no direct role in the series, said he's a big fan of the show and especially likes the way Showtime stayed true to the books' graphically violent themes.
The process that brought Dexter to the small screen started less than two years ago when executive producer Sara Colleton read a review of Darkly Dreaming Dexter. After reading the book, she said she thought it would make a great television show.
"It's a really captivating way to deal with larger issues of humanity," Colleton said.
She pitched the idea to Bob Greenblatt, who had recently taken over at Showtime, and he gave it the green light.
Lindsay said he was impressed when Colleton and the other producers came to him with the idea for the show.
"I was about three minutes into the conversation and realized they had all read the book," Lindsay said, adding that producers usually have people read the book for them.
The pilot episode was shot in Miami last winter, and the rest of the first season began shooting in the spring. After the pilot, the show continued to do location shots in Miami, but all production moved to a studio in California once hurricane season began. The insurance costs to shoot in Florida were just too high.
Watching his characters being adapted for television has been an interesting experience for Lindsay. While film adaptations normally have to cut from the original work, a television series allows the show's writers to expand on the world created in the book, fleshing out relatively minor characters and giving them solid backstories.
"There's one or two times where I would have done it differently," Lindsay said. "But 99 percent of the time they've been really, really faithful to the spirit of the book."
One of Lindsay's initial concerns was the casting of Michael C. Hall as Dexter. When producers told Lindsay they were getting an undertaker from HBO's Six Feet Under to play Dexter, Lindsay was content but unenthusiastic, thinking they meant Peter Krause, another actor from the show. But when he learned they were talking about Hall, who played Krause's gay brother, Lindsay said he just couldn't see it.
"But I visited the set the first day, and the first line I saw him say in character, I went, 'He's it,' " Lindsay said. "He's perfect. He absolutely nails Dexter. It just amazes me."
Hall recently was nominated for a Golden Globe for his work on the series.
Although Lindsay says everyone involved with the series has been great to him, "They don't, generally speaking, ask my opinion," Lindsay said. "But they bring me to all the big events, and they treat me like royalty. I'm having a great ride with it."
Part of that ride is a nice boost for the books. According to Lindsay's publisher, sales have increased, leading to seven additional printings of the first book, bringing total copies in print up to 160,000. So far, 70,000 copies of the second book have been printed.
Ryan Zernec, 27, of Haslett, Mich., was one of many viewers to find the books after becoming a fan of the show.
"I started watching the show just out of curiosity," Zernec said. "I was so interested that I went out and picked up the books because of the show."
While the Dexter novels have been Lindsay's biggest success - he is working on the third, Dexter in the Dark - he isn't new to writing. Working as a writer for more than two decades, Lindsay has written plays, films, television shows and poetry. He also writes songs with his band, Wildfire.
Along with the benefits of his recent success, Lindsay has also experienced some of the drawbacks. He said he's already had a few overly enthusiastic fans show up at his home, which is especially frightening given the nature of his books.
"If they want to show up, they should come see Wildfire," Lindsay said. "I'll talk to them there. That's part of my job as an entertainer. In fact, I usually end up signing a book or two there when we play."