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Letter to the editor

Author goes inside head of a serial killer

Jeff Lindsay shares a few laughs with fans of his Dexter series.

By JACOB H. FRIES, Times Staff Writer
Published October 28, 2007

Dexter in the Dark author Jeff Lindsay speaks to an audience about his serial killer series at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies during the Times Festival of Reading. A TV show called Dexter is based on his books.
	[Edmund D. Fountain | Times]

ST. PETERSBURG - For 45 wonderful minutes, surrounded by like-minded devotees, it was safe to say it out loud. Yes, from time to time, when I'm in stuck in traffic or daydreaming at work, yes, I think about hacking up some jerk into tiny pieces.

Not that I ever would.

No, that's really a job for Dexter Morgan, the charismatic serial killer of serial killers, the hero of the sardonic books by author Jeff Lindsay and a spin-off Showtime TV series.

Lindsay, in town for the St. Petersburg Times Festival of Reading on Saturday, started the session by reading from his latest installment in the series, Dexter in the Dark. The passage was a flashback to Dexter at 14, not yet a fully realized killer, but on his way to becoming one.

Then came a barrage of questions from the audience.

How are you able to put yourself so well in the mind of a psychopath?

"It's scary, isn't it," Lindsay said jokingly before describing how he, like an actor, puts himself in character to write as Dexter every morning.

How did you come up with his character?

Lindsay recounted a tedious Kiwanis Club luncheon when the idea just popped into his head: "Is serial murder really such a bad thing?"

Why set the story in Miami?

"It just seems like a really good place to have a happy serial killer," said Lindsay, who grew up in Miami.

A young man, himself a writer, asked Lindsay for advice.

"The thing I tell all aspiring writers is to learn arc welding," Lindsay said to laughter. "It pays pretty good and it leaves you a lot of time to write."

At the end, after the thank yous and applause, the audience of 50 made their way back into the world, a place less understanding of their homicidal fantasies, a land of law where terrible people are permitted to die of old age.

Book in hand, James Pitcock, 30, of St. Petersburg smiled mischievously.

"I think everybody's got a little Dexter in them," he said.

Jacob H. Fries can be reached at jfries@sptimes.com or 727 893-8872.

[Last modified October 27, 2007, 23:32:24]