Customer Service By Day and Detective Novelist By Night

By day bald, mild-mannered, 70ish, married grandfather and retiree Ira Berkowitz works part-time in customer relations at the front desk of the Rye YMCA.

By night, he becomes Jackson Steeg, an alcoholic, divorced ex-NYPD homicide detective who mourns the changes in the gentrified Hell's Kitchen neighborhood he loves, a NYC enclave with a bloody and sordid past where his brother now controls the rackets.

Berkowitz becomes Steeg in his imagination—and quite an imagination that is.

Berkowitz's creativity has resulted in three crime fiction books. "Sinner's Ball," is the latest in Berkowitz's award-winning Jackson Steeg mystery series novels.

And yet Berkowitz became a writer almost by accident. He was an ex-advertising executive with more than 35 years under his belt at such prestige agencies as Ogilvy & Mather and Grey when he retired and was looking for something to do.

That was around five years ago.

"Why don't you write fiction?" said his wife, the former Phyllis Witten of Gastonia, N.C.

"I don't know how to write fiction," he remembers saying.

"You can learn," she said. "And you can write."

So he learned, spending the next six months virtually gulping down novels and detective stories, studying pacing, how to build suspense, essentially learning how to tell a story. And then he took a shot at his first book. Fifty rejections from various agents and publishers later, he was wondering whether he was wasting his time.

"Show your work to another writer," his wife said. So he did, a professional who worshipped at his synagogue. She encouraged him, suggested some rewrites, the name Steeg jumped out at him from a TV commercial he was watching, and the story took on new life. He rewrote that first draft and sent his revised novel out again. This time three agents saw possibilities, one got him published and his debut novel called "Family Matters" was a USA Today Top Ten Summer Read selection, and also won the Westchester Library's Washington Irving Award for Literary Merit.

His second Steeg novel, "Old Flame" won the same Washington Irving award, and he recently talked up his third Steeg tale, "Sinner's Ball," during an author's forum at the Rye Free Reading Room.

"So you see, I became a writer almost by accident, I really wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer," he told Patch afterwards.

Becoming a Novelist

He grew up in Brooklyn, went to Lafayette High School, won a Regents scholarship that took him to New York University, and then won another partial scholarship to Brooklyn Law School.

"I loved the law, wasn't too crazy about lawyers," he recalled. "I also didn't want to keep going on my father's nickel for financial help, dad was an immigrant from Poland who ran a small business manufacturing coats for women  and he taught me how to work hard and not be afraid to go out on  my own."

So Berkowitz dropped out of law school after two years that included working part time as a reservations clerk for Delta Airlines, where he met his future wife.

"It sounds corny, but it was love at first sight," he said.

He had to earn enough money to marry Phyllis so he went into advertising and climbed the executive ladder. He married Phyllis around 45 years ago. They had two children and moved around a lot in the advertising jungle, to places like Dallas, Atlanta and New Orleans while Berkowitz helped promote clients like Volkswagen. He got good at promoting brands, so good he traveled extensively, Chicago, Los Angeles, lots of places during lots of years until he eventually wondered where his professional life had gone when it was time to retire.

That's when Phyllis said he had always been creative so why not spend his retirement years writing fiction.

"I had been creative in advertising, true, but I didn't know the first thing about being creative in fiction so I studied the genre and essentially taught myself by reading Hubert Selby Jr's "Last Exit to Brooklyn," the works of Isaac Balshevis Singer, James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux New Orleans-based mystery novels and Robert Parker's Spenser detective novels filled with great dialogue. They basically taught me how to write."

Imaginative Writing

So now he writes, five pages a day, edits and rewrites ruthlessly until he has around 100 pages a month, and, voila, in three months, he has a book.

"I write and edit my work mornings," he said. "I spend my afternoons working at the Rye Y. That takes me away from the computer. It takes me out of my head. It also gives me a chance to give back to the community."

So even as Berkowitz answers mundane questions about classes and costs at the YMCA, his subconscious is working out Steeg themes about family, loyalty and what Ira calls asymmetrical justice where the odds are stacked against the underdog.

He is wondering what his characters are going to do next, not just Jackson Steeg, but Steeg's Dartmouth-educated son, Anthony; his dad, Dominic, a retired NYPD homicide detective; his ex-wife, Ginny Doyle; his new flame, Allie Lebow, an advertising copywriter; hit man Kenny Apple (who refuses to kill on the Sabbath); Feeney's, his favorite hangout (owned by mobster  Nick D'Amico and the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood itself.

"How can you write about characters like that, how can you write that stuff, you seem like such a nice, gentle, tennis-playing elderly gentleman?" somebody asked Berkowitz during the Q-and-A session at the recent Rye Free Reading room discussion.

"That's easy, my father is nuts," said Berkowitz's son, Daniel, 37, who lives in Rye Brook, as does Berkowitz's daughter, Robin Abrutyn, both erupting with laughter. Robin's children, Allyson, 11, and Michael, 8, also chuckled, as did Berkowitz's wife, Phyllis.

"I kind of like those talks," Berkowitz said.

He's given similar talks at his granddaughter's Rye Brook school and will give another one at his grandson Michael's school at the end of April.

"I'm really a very lucky average guy who works hard and looks forward to work because I have a real passion for creativity and people," he said. "And that's what I've done with my life, advertising, travel, family, tennis, and now writing and the Rye Y. How lucky can a guy be?"