Daniel Handler (born February 28, 1970) is an American author. He is best known for his work under the pen name Lemony Snicket.
Handler was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Sandra Handler Day (née Walpole), an opera singer and retired City College of San Francisco Dean, and Louis Handler, an accountant. His father was a Jewish refugee from Germany, and he is distantly related to British writer Hugh Walpole through his mother. He has a younger sister, Rebecca Handler. He attended Commodore Sloat Elementary, Herbert Hoover Middle School and Lowell High School. Handler graduated from Wesleyan University in 1992. He is an alumnus of the San Francisco Boys Chorus.
He is married to Lisa Brown, a graphic artist whom he met in college. They have a son, Otto Handler, born in 2003. They live in an old Victorian architecture house in San Francisco.
Handler is politically active and helped form LitPAC. In the June 10, 2007 edition of The New York Times Magazine, Handler reveals ambivalence toward his wealth, and the expectations it creates. He states he is often asked for money for charitable causes and often gives. He has supported the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Handler describes himself as a secular humanist. In addition, he says, "I'm not a believer in predetermined fates, being rewarded for one's efforts. I'm not a believer in karma. The reason why I try to be a good person is because I think it's the right thing to do. If I commit fewer bad acts there will be fewer bad acts, maybe other people will join in committing fewer bad acts, and in time there will be fewer and fewer of them."
Four of Daniel Handler's major works have been published under his name. His first, The Basic Eight, was rejected by many publishers for its subject matter and tone (a dark view of a teenage girl's life). Handler claims that the novel was rejected 37 times before finally being published.
Watch Your Mouth, his second novel, was completed before The Basic Eight was published. It follows a more operatic theme, complete with stage directions and various acts. Described by HarperCollins, the book's reprint publisher, as an "incest opera", it mixed Jewish mythology with modern sexuality. Watch Your Mouth's second half replaces the opera troupe with the form of a 12-step recovery, linguistically undergone by the protagonist.
In April 2006, Handler published Adverbs, a short story collection that he says are "about love."
His most recent novel under his own name is titled Why We Broke Up, published in January 2011. Why We Broke Up received a 2012 Michael L. Printz honor award.
He served as a judge for the PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship in 2012.
Handler has stated that his next adult novel is about pirates – or, more specifically, a modern-age pirate who "wants to be an old-fashioned kind of pirate." The book is titled We Are Pirates and will come out in 2015
Handler began writing A Series of Unfortunate Events under the Snicket pseudonym in 1998. The books concern three orphaned children who experience progressively terrible events following the alleged death of their parents and burning of their home (done by a man named Count Olaf and his troupe of associates), and Snicket acts as the narrator and biographer of the fictional orphans. He has also narrated the audiobooks for three consecutive books in the series, before deciding to quit because he found it too difficult, handing back the narrating job to the original narrator, Tim Curry.
Handler has also appeared at author appearances as "Lemony Snicket's handler," as well as appearing as Snicket himself in various other books and media, including the commentary track for the film version of his books, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. He also wrote an introduction to Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography under his own name.
The Lemony Snicket books have been international best-sellers, and the 13th and final installment of the series came out Friday, October 13, 2006. On the day the thirteenth book came out, Handler appeared on the Today show as Lemony Snicket's representative.
Handler has also written some short fiction and picture books under the Lemony Snicket pseudonym. As part of his support of Occupy Wall Street, Handler wrote "Thirteen Observations made by Lemony Snicket while watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance," which was published on the Occupy Writers website.
Currently, Handler is working on a new series of novels, All the Wrong Questions, which serve as prequels to A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Lemony Snicket has his own website which has a section about "The Afflicted Author." In this autobiographical section, Snicket is very vague, saying things such as: "His family has roots in a part of the country which is now underwater" and, without any previous mention of this scandal, "The aftermath of the scandal was swift, brutal and inaccurately reported in the periodicals of the day." Also on this site, Mr. Snicket discusses his "representative" to the public, Daniel Handler. He does not go in depth about Handler, but states, "Mr. Handler has had a relatively uneventful life..." HarperCollins Publishers published a short interview with Lemony Snicket on their website, asking personal questions, such as "What were some of your hobbies as a child?" to which Snicket answered, "Taxidermy and playing the harpsichord."
Handler has also had some success in film work. He produced the screenplay for Rick, which was based on the Verdi opera Rigoletto, as well as Kill the Poor, which was based on the novel by Joel Rose.
Handler was involved in the screenwriting process for the film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, but was ultimately removed from the project. He had completed eight separate drafts of the film before giving up following a change in those who were producing the film. Robert Gordon (screenwriter of Galaxy Quest) was hired to replace Handler and eventually received credit for the film's screenplay, under Handler's request.
Handler did submit a commentary track for the DVD version, alongside director Brad Silberling. In character as Lemony Snicket, he derides the Lemony Snicket in the film – played by Jude Law – as an impostor, as well as choosing to play accordion and sing about leeches rather than pay attention to the film. At numerous times during the track he shows great sympathy towards the Baudelaire children, and implies that he is being held captive by the director in order to do the commentary.
