The Man Behind Laramie Dunaway : Tustin novelist Raymond Obstfeld adopted a feminine-sounding pseudonym when he wrote the ‘Hungry Women’ and has kept it with ‘Borrowed Lives.’

TUSTIN — Laramie Dunaway’s new novel, “Borrowed Lives,” is garnering the best reviews of her career. Cosmopolitan calls the story about a timid Orange County woman who assumes the identity of her brilliant dead best friend “an absolutely hilarious, wicked tale.”

But there’s more: The novel is an alternate selection with the Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Clubs. Warner Books took out a promotional ad in the New York Times Book Review, Dunaway’s first. And two dozen Hollywood film companies requested advance copies based on a coveted “starred” review in Publishers Weekly.

Tustin novelist Raymond Obstfeld is downright thrilled by Dunaway’s success. He should be: He is Laramie Dunaway.

“I guess it’s my fate to be anonymous,” says Obstfeld with a laugh.

The writer adopted the decidedly feminine-sounding pseudonym a few years ago when he wrote the first Laramie Dunaway novel, “Hungry Women,” the story of four single Orange County women who stick together when each of their lives starts falling apart.

Writing a mainstream novel--let alone a novel told from a female point of view--was a dramatic departure for Obstfeld, who teaches creative writing at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.

Over the past 20 years, he has written more than 30 novels ranging in genre from suspense to Western to espionage to futuristic. By the late ‘80s, he was climbing the ranks of mystery writers. He had even earned an Edgar nomination for his mystery novel “Dead Heat.”

But at a time when he was on the verge of signing even more lucrative contracts for his mysteries, Obstfeld decided he needed a change.

“I felt I had done everything I wanted to do in those genres, and I was anxious to go somewhere else with my writing,” he said.

That’s when he began writing his 1990 novel “Hungry Women,” a third-person narrative told from the points of view of all four women characters.

“I don’t think I could have explored some of the emotional content writing from a male point of view that I was able to do in this novel,” he said. “It was like taking an acting role that was so different than anything I had ever done. I was in completely new territory in terms of going into character depth. Ironically, there was more of me in this novel than in anything I had ever written.”

But, he said, he was in a quandary.

A man’s name on the cover, he felt, would be a “a distraction from the content. I wanted somebody to pick up the book and say they liked it or didn’t like without any preconceived prejudices.”

A man writing from a woman’s point of view, he said, can be tricky. “A lot of times there’s the feeling of ‘Oh, what’s he know?’ ”

After completing 100 pages of the novel, Obstfeld decided to test the waters. He sent his partially completed manuscript to his Los Angeles literary agent, Sandra Watt, with a cover letter signed by “Dunaway” saying he was a teacher in Orange County who had taken a writing class from Raymond Obstfeld and that Obstfeld had given “her” Watt’s address.

Watt wrote back to “Dunaway,” praising the manuscript.

“She was very enthusiastic and when we submitted it to the publishers we didn’t tell them who I was,” said Obstfeld, adding that he and his agent had a long discussion before submitting the novel under the pseudonym.

“I wasn’t trying to trick anybody,” he said. “I just wanted it to be an honest read. When we first sold the book, the (female) editor that bought it said (Dunaway) was one of the best young women writers she had read in a long time.”

There was one drawback to using a pseudonym, however. “When we sold it,” Obstfeld said, “my agent was trying to get a certain amount of money. But they said, ‘We’d like to give you more, but this is a first-time author,’ and we had to keep our mouths shut.

“The (publishing) company the whole time thought I was a woman. I only spoke to them through my agent or would write them as Laramie Dunaway.”

Indeed, it was only last April that Obstfeld and Watt finally fessed up.

“Every six months we talked about it, but we kept putting it off,” he said. “We just decided it was better to come out and be up-front.”

Obstfeld said some of the people at the publishing house “were surprised, but they were nice. They still supported me (but) weren’t anxious to let the world know.”

Obstfeld said Warner Books will continue to keep vague the exact gender of Laramie Dunaway unless, he jokes, “ ‘Hard Copy’ comes breaking down my door and does the big expose.” (The “Borrowed Lives” book jacket says simply that Laramie Dunaway “is the internationally best-selling author of ‘Hungry Women’ and an associate professor of English at Orange Coast College in California.”

Obstfeld, who is now writing his third Laramie Dunaway novel, even receives occasional fan mail addressed to Laramie Dunaway.

“Ironically, a woman from Texas wrote to me and said how much she really loved the book. She said what was unusual about it was how well done the male characters were. She said, in her experience, women writers tended not to do the male characters well. She was surprised how well drawn they were.”

Although he feels his “Laramie Dunaway books” represent his best writing, Obstfeld has no regrets that he didn’t use his own name on what is turning out to be his biggest literary success to date.

“I really don’t think we would have sold it,” he said. “Every editor we sent it to was a woman. I just don’t think it would have gotten past them. Maybe today it would be different, but at that time I didn’t think so.”

For now, Obstfeld plans only to go “public” locally.

“I got a letter from the English publisher and they were telling me how much they like my books. I said, sort of kidding, ‘You ought to fly me over there.’ They said, ‘We think it really helps that nobody knows who you are.’ ”