Ayelet Waldman (; born December 11, 1964) is an Israeli-American novelist and essayist. She has written seven mystery novels in the series The Mommy-Track Mysteries and four other novels. She has also written autobiographical essays about motherhood. Waldman spent three years working as a federal public defender and her fiction draws on her experience as a lawyer.
Biography Ayelet Waldman was born in Jerusalem. Her grandparents on both sides were Jewish immigrants to North America from Ukraine early in the 20th century.Wilensky, Sheila, "Connections speaker is an engaging, witty chronicler of women's lives" , Jewish Tucson, February 12, 210. Retrieved August 27, 2010. Her father, Leonard, was from Montreal, Canada, but was living in Israel when he met her mother, Ricki. After they married, they moved to Jerusalem.Espinoza, Galina "Author, Author", People, December 16, 2002. Retrieved August 25, 2010. After the Six-Day War in 1967, the family moved back to Montreal, then Rhode Island,"Profile: Ayelet Waldman", San Francisco Chronicle, October 22, 2003. Retrieved August 25, 2010. finally settling in Ridgewood, New Jersey, when Waldman was in sixth grade.Seligman, Katherine. "Ayelet, Unfiltered / Berkeley writer Ayelet Waldman's bald honesty about putting her husband first made her a magnet for controversy. Would she take any of it back?", San Francisco Chronicle, July 24, 2005. Accessed November 18, 2017. "Waldman said she's always felt somewhat like an outsider. Born in Israel -- where her parents moved after they married and she lived for her first two years -- she spent most of her childhood in Ridgewood, N.J., an affluent town about 25 miles but a world away from New York City.""Mystery authors you may have missed: Ayelet Waldman" . Retrieved August 25, 2010.
She was raised in a Jewish family, attended Hebrew school and Jewish summer camps, and lived on a kibbutz in Israel for a year while in the tenth grade. She has said that her parents were atheists, but very Jewish,Cantor, Danielle, "Successful women: Ayelet Waldman", Jewish Woman, Fall 2009. Retrieved August 25, 2010. and that her "whole life was immersed in Judaism, but in a very specific kind of Labor–Zionist Judaism."Irwin, Rachel, "Israel, and other impossible questions" , The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, February 9, 2007. Retrieved August 25, 2010. Despite this, she did not celebrate becoming a bat mitzvah.
Waldman attended Wesleyan University, where she studied psychology and government, and studied in Israel in her junior year, graduating in 1986. She returned to Israel after college to again live on a kibbutz, but found it too sexist for her taste. She then entered Harvard Law School and graduated with a J.D. in 1991.
Waldman has been married to fellow author Michael Chabon since 1993.Duin, Steve "Lunch with Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman", Oregon Live, February 5, 2009. Retrieved August 25, 2010. They live in a 1907 Craftsman houseYbarra, Michael, "Taking on the Law: Ayelet Waldman lashes out at drug sentencing in her new novel", Los Angeles Times, October 5, 2003. Retrieved August 25, 2010. in the Elmwood district of Berkeley, California. The couple work from the same office in the backyard of their home.Wollan, Malia, "Parents burning to write it all down", New York Times, October 16, 2009. Retrieved August 27, 2010. They edit each other's work,Barnes&Noble, "Meet the writers: Ayelet Waldman" . Retrieved August 27, 2010.Lapriore, Elaine, "Keeping Track of Ayelet Waldman". Retrieved August 25, 2010.Seligman, Katherine, "Ayelet, Unfiltered", San Francisco Chronicle, July 24, 2005. Retrieved August 25, 2010. and offer each other advice on writing, sometimes going on "plot walks" to discuss issues.Memmot, Carol, "Maternal ambivalence is Ayelet Waldman's baby", USA Today, February 23, 2006. Retrieved August 25, 2010.Rufus, Anneli, "Truth or dare: Ayelet Waldman makes love – and enemies", East Bay Express. Retrieved August 25, 2010.Buchwald, Laura. "A Conversation with Michael Chabon", Boldtype, RandomHouse.com, 2000. Retrieved August 25, 2010. In 2025, Waldman and Chabon's son Abraham, then a 22-year-old student at New York University was arrested and charged with both "rape and strangulation." The rape charge was later dropped.
Many characters in her fiction are Jewish.Kaplan Sommer, Allison, "Ayelet Waldman on writing Jewish characters and raising daughters" , The Sisterhood, August 5, 2010. Retrieved August 25, 2010. Her novel Love and Treasure is about the Holocaust.
Waldman has written several times about her 2002 diagnosis of bipolar disorder, an illness that runs in her family,"Author information: Ayelet Waldman", Internet Book List . Retrieved August 25, 2010. and has spoken publicly about parenting while having a mental illness."Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman on parenting with a mental illness" , The Take Away, June 21, 2010. Retrieved August 25, 2010."An Interview with Ayelet Waldman", Namely Marly. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
Legal and academic career After graduating from law school, Waldman clerked for a federal judge, worked in a large corporate law firm in New York for a year, and then moved to California with Michael Chabon, where she became a criminal defense lawyer. Waldman was a federal public defender for three years in the Central District of California. Chabon mentioned on their first date that it was his intention to care for his children so his wife could pursue her career, which he did after the birth of their first and second children.Thompson, Bob, "Bad Mother's Day: Ayelet Waldman takes on the cultural disquiet over parenting", Washington Post, May 5, 2009. Retrieved August 25, 2010. After the birth of her first child, she tried juggling legal work with mothering,Salter Reynolds, Susan, "Bad mother? Good writer" , Jakarta Globe, June 22, 2009. Retrieved August 25, 2010. then left her job to be with her husband and child. This was short-lived.
Waldman was an adjunct professor at the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley from 1997 to 2003.Edelstein, Wendy, "Boalt lecturer's first novel blends maternal fears with a hard-nosed view of America's drug war", UC Berkeley News, October 29, 2003. Retrieved August 25, 2010. She also worked as a consultant to the Drug Policy Alliance, a resource center advocating a drug policy based on harm reduction. While working as an adjunct professor, she found writing scholarly articles uninteresting and intimidating,Gruner, Libby, "Mysteries and Mother-daughter stories" , Literary momma.(Retrieved on August 27, 2010.) so she began writing fiction instead."Ayelet Waldman" . Lyceum Agency. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.) According to Waldman, her fiction is "all about being a bad mother." Waldman said she would not return to the legal profession.Bokma, Cindy, "Ayelet Waldman, bad mother and novelist" , Conversations with famous writers, August 2, 2005. Retrieved August 25, 2010. In her fiction Waldman has drawn extensively on her legal experience.
Literary career Waldman has written various online and print articles about mothering while at home on maternity leave after the birth of her first child"Super-secret Michael Chabon & Ayelet Waldman visit", Hot Metal Bridge, February 5, 2007. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.) and again after she left her job as a public defender. She has at various times said that she chose to write because it was not as time-consuming a career as the law,Kasriel, Alex, "Interview: Ayelet Waldman", The Jewish Chronicle Online, July 16, 2009. Retrieved August 25, 2010. because it gave her something to do during naptimes,Briggett, Marlissa, "Quantity time", Harvard Magazine, March–April 2003. (Retrieved on August 27, 2010.) it kept her entertained, because she was starved of someone to laugh at her jokesKinsella, Bridget, "The Bad Mommy: Ayelet Waldman takes the heat and keeps on writing", December 30, 2005.(Retrieved on August 27, 2010.) and because it gave her a way of putting off going back to work.
Mommy-Track Mysteries In 1997, Waldman started writing mystery novels, thinking they would be "easy … light and fluffy." At first she wrote in secret, then with her husband's encouragement. She has said that she chose mysteries because they are primarily about plot.Behe, Regis, "Sometimes, it's impossible to like your children" , Tribune Review, February 12, 2006.(Retrieved August 27, 2010.) Waldman has said that her first mystery work, eventually published as Nursery Crimes, was her first attempt at creative writing, describing it as her first piece of fiction "aside from my legal briefs."
Waldman wrote seven novels about the "part-time sleuth and full-time mother" Juliet Applebaum. Waldman has said of Juliet, "She is me, well, she was me," and "They say to write what you know … so I wrote exactly what I knew." Like Waldman, Juliet is a , red-headed former public defender with a nocturnal writer for a husband, who has become a stay-at-home mother but finds it boring. To relieve her boredom, Juliet works as a part-time detective. The collective title of the series is The Mommy-Track Mysteries. The novels are humorous and Waldman has said of her criminals, "My villains aren't villains. They're people whose crime you understand."Lara, Adair, "Cloak, dagger, carpool lane and diaper bag: There's a suspicious number of female mystery writers in the Bay area", San Francisco Chronicle, January 8, 2004. (Retrieved August 27, 2010.) Waldman has previously said that Bye-Bye, Black Sheep is likely to be the last, but her agent's website notes that she is working on more mysteries.
Novels In addition to the mystery genre, Waldman has published three other novels. Daughter's Keeper, published in 2003, drew on Waldman's experience as a criminal defense lawyer and representation of drug offenders. The first manuscript was rejected thirty-one times. It features a young woman, Olivia, who inadvertently becomes involved in the trafficking of drugs and her relationship with her emotionally reserved mother. The book is also about the impact of federal drug policy, particularly mandatory minimum sentencing, on the criminal justice system. The novel was inspired by a case Waldman handled. The book was generally well received,Abrams, David, "Minefield of motherhood", January Magazine, October 2003"Books in brief: fiction", New York Times, September 28, 2003. and was a finalist for the 2003 Northern California Book Award.
Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, published in 2006, is about a Harvard-educated lawyer with a precocious stepson who loses a newborn child to SIDS.Gaines, Luan, "Curled up with a good book"(Retrieved on August 27, 2010.) The impetus was the loss of her own unborn child diagnosed with a genetic abnormality. The book also deals with how mothers criticize each other's mothering, a theme in Waldman's nonfiction too.Salter Reynolds, Susan, "At the intersection of grief and destiny", Los Angeles Times, August 15, 2010. (Retrieved August 25, 2010.) It explores negative feelings towards one's own children. The novel was also reviewed well in places,Nussbaum, Emily, "Report from stroller central", New York Magazine, January 28, 2006.Cain, Chelsea. "Atom bomb of desire", New York Times, February 12, 2006. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)Edwards, Kim, "Lost and found", Washington Post, February 12, 2006. (Retrieved August 25, 2010.)Andriani, Lynn, "Love of her life comes with a 5-year-old boy ", February 19, 2006Bukowsky, Eleanor, "Love and other impossible pursuits", Mostly fiction book reviews, January 29, 2006. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.) although some reviews were negative.Kachka, Boris "Baggage check", New York Magazine, January 8, 2006. (Retrieved on August 25, 2010.)