Before I Say Good-Bye [Paperback]

Mary Higgins Clark (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Pocket; First Printing edition (2001)
• ISBN-10: 1416511784
• ISBN-13: 978-1416511786
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (136 customer reviews)

More About the Author

If I were to define myself in one sentence, I would say, "I'm a nice Irish Catholic girl from the Bronx."

I was a Christmas Eve baby all those years ago, the second of the three children of Nora and Luke Higgins. Mother was pushing forty when they married and my father was forty-two. My older brother was named Joseph. Nineteen months later I, Mary, was born. Three and a half years later, my little brother, John, came along.

We lived in a very nice section of the Bronx on a street off Pelham Parkway. I loved our house. I still love it. After my father died, when I was eleven, my mother had to sell it.

I went to Saint Francis Xavier Grammar School. Two years ago I went back and was Principal for a Day. Escorted by two of the tiniest children, I was led into the auditorium while the whole student body sang "Hello Mary. You're back where you belong." I still tear up thinking about it.

I was awarded a scholarship to Villa Maria Academy which is in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx, otherwise I couldn't have afforded to set foot in it.

I went to Woods Secretarial School and at eighteen had my first full-time job as Secretary to the creative director of Remington Rand's in-house advertising agency. If I were making that choice now I would have gone to college even though God knows we needed the income. On the other hand the three years I spent in Remington Rand was a tutorial in advertising which served me well when I was widowed with five small children. Another plus was that I left Remington to be a flight stewardess with Pan American Airways and when my contemporaries were seniors in college, I was flying to Europe, Africa and Asia.

Warren Clark and I were married on December 26, 1949 and had five children in the next eight years; Marilyn, Warren, David, Carol and Patricia. Warren died of a heart attack in 1964. The highest compliment I can pay my kids are that they are like him.

I sold my first short story when I was twenty-eight. It was alled 'Stowaway'. It had been rejected forty times before a magazine in Chicago bought it for one hundred dollars.

My first book was about George Washington. It was published in 1969 and disappeared without a trace. Three years ago Simon and Schuster co-published it with the Mount Vernon Historical Society and retitled 'Mount Vernon Love Story', it became a bestseller.

My first suspense novel 'Where Are the Children' was bought in 1974 for three thousand dollars by Simon and Schuster. Thirty-three books later, I'm still with S&S.

Time to wind up - at least for the present. As soon as I sold 'Children' I enrolled in Fordham College. Went there for five years at night and earned a B.A. in Philosophy. Summa cum laude, if you please.

I never thought I'd marry again but ten years ago I threw a cocktail party on St. Patrick's day. My daughter, Pat, urged me to invite John Conheeney. Her opening words about him were, "Have I got a hunk for you!" He came to the party and we were married eight months later.

I'm Honorary Chairman of FraXa Research. My grandson, David, has the Fragile X syndrome, which is the second leading cause of retardation after Downs Syndrome. Basically the brain of the people who have it can't send out the proper signals because there's a kind of short circuit in the synapses that carry the signals. We raise money for research with the goal of finding a medication that will work around that short circuit. I go all over the country to the fund-raisers as new chapters of FraXa are opened.

I'm always asked to name my favorite book. They're ALL my favorites. If there is one book that is very special to me, it is my memoir 'Kitchen Privileges' because writing it made me relive my early life including those first struggles to become a writer. I think 'Kitchen Privileges' is both tender and funny and it's me.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An exciting 'Page-Turner'!, May 2, 2000

By 

[e-mail] - See all my reviews

This review is from: Before I Say Good-Bye: A Novel (Hardcover)

I thoroughly enjoyed Mary Higgins Clark's latest thriller "Before I Say Goodbye" -- An Exciting and suspenseful 'page-turner' that kept me guessing 'who-done-it' til the very end.Nell McDermott is a distraught young woman whose husband Adam is killed along with 4 others in a boat explosion. Nell is doubly upset because she and Adam had a big fight before he left for the boat trip over her decision to run for a Congressional seat once held by her grandfather. It soon becomes apparent that the explosion was no accident but a planned murder. As Nell begins to discover that her husband was involved in illegal real estate deals and bid-rigging the story becomes increasingly intriguing and suspenseful.Many interesting and well-defined supporting characters add to the mystery and Mary Higgins Clark, in her own wonderful stye, has weaved them all into another winner!

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Holds the readers interest, although the plot is shaky., May 14, 2000

By 

E. Bukowsky "booklover10" (NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Before I Say Good-Bye: A Novel (Hardcover)

Mary Higgins Clark is a smart writer. She knows her strengths and she sticks to the type of writing that she does well. Clark's latest novel, "Before I Say Goodbye," is the story of Nell MacDermott, a newspaper columnist who wants to run for her grandfather's former Congressional seat. She has been married for three years to Adam Cauliff. Adam is an architect who has been acting secretively of late. He is vehemently opposed to Nell's idea of running for office, and this is a source of friction in their marriage. Suddenly, a terrible accident occurs on Adam's cabin cruiser, and Nell's entire world is turned upside down. The man whom she loved is suddenly a stranger to her, and Nell must come to terms with some harsh truths about her husband's secret life. Clark's plot is intricate, with many characters woven in to the narrative. One problem with the book is the large number of coincidences that tie all the characters and plot elements together. Too many unbelievable things happen to bring the story to a "logical" conclusion. To her credit, Clark avoids writing gloppy romantic scenes, and she limits the melodrama to the very end of the novel. "Before I Say Goodbye" is good escapist fiction, a genre at which Mary Higgins Clark excels.

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Page-turning, April 20, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Before I Say Good-Bye: A Novel (Hardcover)

BEFORE I SAY GOOD-BYE includes a lot (romance, corruption, envy, politics) and makes full use off all of them. It's a fabulous who-done-it. The best suspense thriller since Michael Crichton's TIMELINE and Craig Furrnas' THE SHAPE. And I think it's a treat that this novel is longer than a lot of Clark's novels. More words to savor!