34 | JANUARY 14 • 2021

P

assages appearing from cover to
cover in a new crime novel, The
Nightworkers, reflect author Brian
Selfon’s reactions to his actual employment
involving light undercover work — first for
Brooklyn prosecutors and later
for Seattle public defenders.
Selfon, aiming for a career
as a novelist since pre-college
years in Southfield, supported
his goal with workaday jobs
that included deskwork as a
chief investigative analyst. Not anticipating
occasional assignments to monitor wiretaps
or take on false identities for civil rights
inquiries, he found his responses to those
experiences triggered imaginings filling his
first sold manuscript.
The storyline, which introduces a make-
shift family laundering money and connect-
ed to a murder victim lured into becoming
a “nightworker,
” has brought enviable
reviews within two months of the book’s
release by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
NPR described “a great novel.
” The Seattle
Times commented about a “stunning debut”
and a “favorite for 2020.
” The New York Post
listed a “best new book to read.
”
Already writing a follow-up novel, not
a sequel but with overlapping characters,
Selfon is beginning to get — and enjoy —
unanticipated digital speaking engagements
filled with intriguing reader questions.
“The connection between the story and
my work in part has to do with feelings I
got from listening to wiretaps or prison
calls,
” said Selfon, whose plot deviates from
actual money laundering activities. “I got
the sense that [those being investigated] are
not just the thing they’re being investigated
for. They’re whole persons with families and
personalities.
“Even though I don’t condone what they
were being investigated for, very often I

had sympathy for them. Some were funny
or just interesting people, and I think that
[impression] made its way into the book.
That’s kind of why none of the main charac-
ters is sort of a cookie-cutter bad guy.
“They have interests outside of what
they’re being investigated for. People were
predominantly calling family, and that
was some of the tragedy. People would be
bringing their families into the business and
possibly putting them in danger or incrimi-
nating them.
”

Giving the storyline credibility is the
authentic sense of dialogue, which often
exceeds narration. Selfon said conversa-
tional language came from simply “being
awake in New York” and working in law
enforcement.
The author, 42, who went to Groves High
School and had religious instruction at
Congregation Shaarey Zedek supplemented
by Camp Tamarack summers, attended the
University of Michigan and graduated from
Brown University in Providence, R.I., as
a Russian language and literature major, a
direction based on his admiration for works

by Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.
“I got a job after college working for
a book publishing company because I
thought being close to the company might
be a way to make a living while learning to
write better,
” said Selfon, who found that it
did not bring all he had hoped.
“I began looking for any sort of odd job
that might help me pay my rent but also
give me story ideas, and the one that I hap-
pened to get was working for the New York
state attorney general’s office.
”
Selfon occasionally was required to be a
courtroom witness, and that added to his
thinking about investigations on behalf of
defendants, another element in coming up
with plot perspectives.
“In a lot of cases, [defendants’ attorneys]
were asking me questions, and I was won-
dering why they weren’t asking me about
[something else],
” Selfon explained. “It
occurred to me that these defense attorneys
didn’t have somebody [in a position like
mine].
“That opened up the possibility that I
might want to shift to working for a public
defender. I realized that somebody who has
been presumed innocent can be in jail for
years before trial.
”
Employment on the defense side became
available when Selfon and his wife decid-
ed to move to Seattle, where family lived,
where she had job opportunities in com-
puter work and where housing was more
affordable. With relatives and friends still in
Michigan, the family visited the state regu-
larly before the pandemic.
“My next book is going to be a mystery
that’s about a family on an emotional jour-
ney beyond the whodunit,
” said Selfon, still
intent on introducing complete characters
that reveal traits outside the criminal or
enforcement spheres. “I write whenever I
can squeeze in time.
”

Southfield native’s first novel gets rave reviews.

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The
Nightworkers

ARTS&LIFE
BOOKS

Brian Selfon

LAURA UTRATA