Meantime, he's not doing too badly. He now commands seven-figure advances, and his most recent book, The Talismans of Shannara, has been on the list for more than two months. It is Brooks's 10th book set in a mythical land where troubled heroes with magical powers do battle against tyrannical villains while struggling with the meaning of honor, duty and loyalty. All the books were best-sellers, and three have hit No. 2. But Brooks, 49, is determined to try harder. "Sure I want to be No. 1," he says. "I have to show people that I'm not just writing about elves and dwarfs. I'm touching themes that affect our lives."
Unlike fellow lawyers turned authors Scott Turow and Grisham, Brooks does not draw on his 17 years as a practicing attorney when he writes. He makes a bigger leap—from courtroom to castle. "Practicing law was nice, but I've always wanted to write," says Brooks. "This isn't a second career for me." Though most critics ignore his work, Brooks compares his stories with such classics as Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers. "Epic fantasies have a quest, a confrontation between good and evil, and the element of magic. My variation is that at the heart of everything, there is an adventure story," says Brooks.
Brooks grew up in the steelmaking town of Sterling, Ill., son of a printing company owner and a housewife. In high school, he admits, he was something of a nerd—"a little sawed-off kid, with big glasses and a haircut like Kevin Costner's in The Bodyguard." After majoring in English at Hamilton College in upstate New York and graduating in 1966, he studied law at Washington and Lee University in Virginia. "I knew that it was unlikely that I could support myself as a writer," he says.
In 1969, Brooks came home and joined a small practice, doing mostly family law. He married Barbara O'Banion, an office manager, in 1972, and the couple had two children, Amanda, now 17, and Alex, 10. Between cases, Brooks banged out The Sword of Shannara and in 1974 sent it to Ballantine. It was eventually plucked from the slush pile by editor Lester del Rey, who praised it as "the best fantasy since [J.R.R.] Tolkien," and published it in 1977. It was an immediate best-seller. Between 1982 and 1985, Brooks published two more books while continuing to practice law. Now he writes a book a year. "I'm really a work-obsessed, compulsive Midwestern moralist," he says.
Seven years ago, though, the man from the heartland lost his heart to the Pacific Northwest. On a 1986 book-tour stop in Seattle, Brooks met Judine Alba, now 50, a district manager for Waldenbooks. Six months later, he left his family and law practice and moved to Seattle. "The toughest thing I've ever done was leave my kids," admits Brooks. Amanda and Alex, who now live in Pittsburgh with their mother, fly out to Seattle at least once every six weeks to visit Brooks.
Brooks married Judine in 1987, but their happily-ever-after life nearly vanished two years ago when she developed breast cancer. Says Judine: "It seemed unfair. We had known each other for such a short time.... But Terry and I are forward-looking people and we refused to dwell on it." After months of treatment, Judine, who has two grown children from a previous marriage, is now free of the disease.
And Brooks is thrilled with his life in Seattle. When not attending the symphony and ballet or sampling the city's fine restaurants, he and Judine roam the three acres of forest along the Oregon coast that Brooks owns or relax in Hawaii at their million-dollar-plus home. All this, and still no major motion picture? Several of his books have been optioned, but the one attempt to film The Sword of Shannara fizzled early on. Brooks is philosophical. "I kind of like the fact that my characters exist in people's imaginations. I wonder if my books would lose something by putting them on a screen."
MARILYN ACHIRON
NICK GALLO in Seattle
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- Nick Gallo.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
