A Reasonable Madness

Fran Dorf was born in a Philadelphia suburb in 1953. As a teenager, she read constantly, particularly science fiction, and wrote poetry and stories; she began working on a novel at age sixteen. She also sketched and painted, and studied piano for many years. After graduating from Boston University’s School of Public Communication in 1975, she worked variously as a waitress, secretary, exercise instructor, publisher for a small startup newspaper, nursing home attendant, public relations executive, advertising writer, therapist, and fund-raiser.

While Dorf has never studied creative writing in a formal setting, she believes her eclectic and voracious reading habits have helped her tremendously in her writing as has her powerful fascination with psychology. Indeed in 1985 she received a master’s degree in psychology from New York University. Five years later she published her first novel, A Reasonable Madness, a psychological thriller about a psychiatrist and one of his patients. A second novel, Flight, followed in 1992. Both were Literary Guild selections and received critical acclaim in the United States, Germany, and elsewhere.

Although these novels explore human passions and combine elements of mystery with magical or supernatural touches, they are primarily thrillers.