Transcript
The nation's favorite car buying site, Dundeehl Motors, is home to the largest range of new and premium used cars from all of Ireland's trusted car dealerships. That's why you'll find Frank Keane BMW on Dun Dundeele. Visit the Frank Keane BMW showroom on Dundeele to find your next car. Dundeele Motors, for confident car buying and deals to feel great about from all of Ireland's trusted car dealerships. Visit dundeale.ie today. Lee Child got fired from his job. His job became, as they say, redundant in his industry, the television industry. And he said to himself, what am I going to do with my life? And like many people, he said, well, I'll write a book. Many people do it, I'll do it. Of course, many people fail at it. Lee Chow didn't fail at it. He wrote the first Jack Reacher novel. Jack Reacher is the hero of Killing Floor, that first novel, and then the next 28 novels after that, plus a movie starring Tom Cruise, plus a TV series that my entire family watches all the time. So and 100 of millions of copies of the Jack Reacher books have been sold. Now there's a new Jack Reacher novel, The Secret, just came out. And Lee Child wrote it with his younger brother, Andrew Child, who henceforth is going to be the writer of the Jack Reacher series. It was it's a great honor to have them on the podcast, and these podcasts are always self help for me. I wanna learn how to write a thriller novel. Now I get the best thriller writers on the planet to come on, and here's Lee Child and Andrew Child. This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show. Thank you guys for coming on the podcast, and I'm a huge fan of Jack Reacher and and and the work both of you do. And I guess I would love an origin story, and I know that's, like, the cliche question. I almost hate asking that because I'm sure you've answered that a gazillion times. But, you know, everybody out there would love to know how Jack Reacher started, how you got into writing Lee, and then, of course, Andrew as well. You've been a thriller writer, and now you're you're on the Jack Reacher series. So what's how'd you guys start writing? I mean, for me, personally, it was you get asked the question, how long have you known you wanted to be a writer? When did you first wanna be a writer? And some writers answer, you know, they were 7 years old, and they were writing 4 page novels in composition books, and they're still in the bottom drawer and all that kind of thing. And my friend, Harlan Copen, has a riff about how he wanted to be a writer ever since he was a fetus and all of this kind of thing. But the truth for me is I never wanted to be a writer. All I wanted to be was an entertainer. For me, at my age, plan a was to join the Beatles. And, I thought that was a really sound plan except for 2 things. Number 1, they had no vacancies. Number 2, I had no musical talent. Number 3, I guess, I was only 9 years old. But I loved I loved loved that proposition of doing something that made people intensely happy. I just saw the look in the audience's eye. They loved it, and I wanted to do something that people would love. So entertainment was the thing for me, and I started in the theater briefly and then television. And then I lost my job in television, not due to any felony or misdemeanor on my part, but just that kind of corporate restructuring that everybody ran through in the 19 nineties. I was 39 years old. I was an expensive veteran with a big salary and a great deal and, benefits and pension and all that kind of thing, and they got just got rid of us all. Did you resent that? Oh, boy. Yes. I did. I mean, absolutely. Not just for me, but for everybody. You know? It was a magnificent organization I was working for that had taken 2 generations to build up, and it was just being trashed in that stupid way that things were in the nineties. So, yeah, I was intensely resentful, and that shows up later, I think, because the main problem was I'd also been the shop steward for our union for the last couple of years, which I was blacklisted. I was never gonna get another job in the business. So the question was, what next? What can I do? And, basically, it came down to nothing. I was incredibly hyper trained for the one job that I'd just been kicked out of. And so what next? So I took a step back, and I said, fundamentally, what is it that you can do? And, fundamentally, I know what people want. I know what they enjoy. I know what they like. I know what they respond to. And so it was a question of, alright, what else can I do that will utilize those perceptions? And I thought, you know what? I'll write a book. I've read some. How hard can it be? Well, it doesn't see well, it's first off, I love the idea of viewing a writer as an entertainer because it really is. It's the same thing as I don't wanna say it's the same thing as The Beatles because, obviously, it's very different, and it and it's not the same thing as, I don't know, being a a comedian for instance where you're directly performing in front of an audience, but you are in some sense. Like, you have to basically gauge an audience's reaction to something that you make up out of your mind and make sure it occupies their time long enough that they don't get distracted. Exactly right. Yeah. I mean, it's not the same as The Beatles, but it kinda is in a way. We we swim in this current of all kinds of different media, television, movies, books, music, podcasts, comedians, as you say, and we're all kinda different, but the same. The proposition is give people a good time. Even if it's a few hours or a couple of days, just give them a good time. Yeah. And so and so but at at the same time, the hero, Jack Reacher, this this this hero that has captivated, you know, tens of millions of people is very different from bridesmaids revisited, for instance. So, like, how did you why did you decide, okay. This is gonna be this is gonna be the the the the character I place my bet on, my I place my career on. Part of it was instinctive, and part of it was a tiny bit calculated that I looked around at what everybody else was doing with strong character driven series. And they were all doing what you might call a soap opera. And I got you know, that's not a term of denigration to me at all. Soap opera is incredibly powerful narrative medium, and it put food on my table for a long, long time. Soap opera is great, but everybody was doing it. So my idea was to do something different. Don't do what everybody else is doing. So I wanted an anti soap opera where there are no continuing characters. There is no community. It is not set in a workplace or a neighborhood. Nobody has a dog. Nobody has a favorite restaurant, all that kind of thing. I didn't want that. I wanted a a lone character thoroughly alienated from society, just wandering on his own to exploit a a gigantic geography. So it really came down to what would be a plausible background for a character like that. I mean, most kind of rambling, wandering people are, to some extent, mentally ill, and I didn't wanna do that. So who else does that kind of thing? And I found, anecdotally, the biggest source of alienation, really, is people that were in the military, man and boy, and are now no longer in the military. They're in the civilian universe, and they don't understand it. They don't appreciate it. It's it it they're a fish out of water. So that's so that's the route that I took. But, you know, it seems like it stumbled upon this neat this fantasy that everyone has. Like, can I just stand up and walk away from, you know, these hard responsibilities, the mortgage payments, the the 9 to 5 job, the whatever, and just live on my own terms? It kind of you know, whether accidentally or intentionally, you slipped into, like, the probably the biggest escapist fantasy that that people, I would say even particularly men, but perhaps men and women, that people have? Yeah. Well, you know, Andrew should really answer this because it's never up to the writer because he did run away from everything. And It's it's not up to the writer to, to dictate to the reader what they're gonna enjoy. That never works. You've just gotta put something down and hope the reader enjoys it. And Andrew was the first ever reader, because, you know, I needed to know that I wasn't wasting my time. And so Andrew is the only person that I that I was close to who would, a, give me an honest judgment, and, b, was experienced with this kind of genre. He knows about this. So I sent him the manuscript when it was still in pencil. This is Killing Floor. Yep. This is Killing Floor, still in pencil, and I was really, really depending on his reaction to know, is it worth carrying on or not? So the first impressions of the character are really are readers, not the writers. And Andrew was the first reader, so he should say what what it was he found appealing. Yeah. And, I mean, I remember that so well, you know, when when Lee sent me the that that first draft, because the tables were sort of turned at that point because I had a great job with a, you know, with a great salary and all the benefits that he was talking about before. And he was out of work, and I knew he had a mortgage, he had a family. And so I knew that writing these books was his plan to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head. So when I set out to read the book, I was terrified because I was thinking, what if it's no good? What if I'm gonna be the one who has to call him up and say, so sorry, you know, get ready for, you know, being homeless and starving, you know? Or am I gonna have to let him live in my spare room? What's gonna happen? So I remember picking up that that manuscript and reading it. It was the most nerve wracking thing. Of course, I needn't have worried because it was a fantastic book, and it laid the foundations for for everything that followed. But one thing I remember I'm just curious. Did you have any criticism or constructive criticism at all that you, handed over to to Lee? Well, I don't know if it was constructive criticism. There was one kinda one thing that popped up into my head, which was, that he had his brother killed in the book. So I'm reading this manuscript, and I get to the bit about the brother being brutally murdered. And I'm thinking, you know, is there any kind of Freudian aspect to this that I need to be aware of? But Well, it's an older brother, so you're you could've justify it that way. It's an older brother. He didn't want an older brother. He was happy with the younger brother. Exactly. That's true. Well, that was the only consolation. But, one thing that I remember also clearly was, you know, the way that that book is constructed, it's first person narrative. So you're seeing everything through Reacher's point of view. But he gets arrested in the diner. He gets dragged off to the police station. He gets questioned, and he has this thing where he's not he refuses to respond. So it's a long, long time before you find out his name. And I remember very clearly that feeling of I don't know this character's name, but I know this character. And I think that is something that really, helps the readers bond with Reacher because there's something about Reacher's experience. You know, he's being he's having a terrible day. We've all had terrible days. He's being picked on by the the authorities, you know, whether that be your boss or the police or, you know, your landlord or somebody. Everybody's had that experience of being unfairly picked on by an outsider. And so here is Reacher sharing those experiences. But what he can do that every all of us can't is he can do something about it. He can fight back. He can refuse to answer the police's questions. He can escape. He can beat up the bad guys. He can figure out the puzzles. So it's a perfect combination of everything that we all experience in our lives, but are frustrated. So we recognize it, we, bond with it, but we can't do anything whereas reach a can. So that's where you kind of bridge between recognizable everyday experiences and that kind of wish fulfillment escapism that is so powerful and so attractive. And again, the the lack of well, the lack of attachment and the lack of rules, those two things, but with a strong ethical backbone. And so these aspects, again, is this almost like you say, wish fulfillment where there's there's there's this idea of freedom. Jack Reacher is first and foremost free. He can he's free to pursue justice. He's free to move to the next town. He's he's free. He he doesn't have to get social media followers. He's not a he's not a digital guy. So, you know, there's there's I think that's a big fantasy for many people, including myself. I think so, and I think the way that everyday life has developed, you know, life in the 20th century when Richard started, 21st century now, it's it's all about accumulating things which in some ways make your life easier. You know, your car is easier to drive than walking to town. You know, a dishwasher is easier than washing dishes by hand. But at the same time, all of these things that are supposed to be extra convenient, they kind of accumulate and then end up weighing you down because what are you gonna do when the car needs new tires? What are you gonna do when the dishwasher is broken down? It's just all of these extra things which occupy space in your head more than anything else. And I think a lot of people share that experience of almost feeling suffocated or feeling weighed down by just the the accoutrement of everyday life, just all the all the stuff that we have and we have to think about and we have to maintain and we have to pay for. So I think the idea that you could just walk away from all of that, you know, different part different periods in different people's lives, it's gonna feel more attractive at some points than others. But that idea that you could just walk away, you would be burden free. You you feel like you could walk on air, I think, if you could really do that. Andrew, since you're now taking over the helm of the the Jack Reacher series, do you see it ever moving in a slightly different direction where there might be something consistent from book to book, like a girlfriend or a home base or or a dog? I mean, Jack Reacher loves animals, loves dogs. Well, I think the key to answering that question is something that Lee said earlier, which is about trying to understand what your audience wants. And so, you know, I've been part of that audience for more than 25 years, and I've been to all kinds of events. You know, before COVID, when book when books came out, you'd have the in person events. You have the tours to all the bookstores and all the libraries and everything. I would go to as many of those as I could. And, bit like I used to do in my theater days, you know, if you wanna know whether a play is any good, you don't read the reviews. You stand in the foyer at the end and listen to people as they're leaving. And that's what I would do. I'd be in the audience, and I would hear what people were saying. So we've got a good sense of what people want. And I think that people don't want Reacher to change. You know, our father was from Ireland, so he could get away with this. He used to have this expression, the same, only different. And that's what we aim for. You know, we want Reacher to have all of those consistent characteristics that people love. We we don't want those to change, but, of course, we do want the books to be to feel fresh and feel new. So we want him in different scenarios. We want him facing different kinds of villains. We want him solving new kinds of puzzles. But we don't wanna take away any of those comfortable, satisfying, welcoming aspects that people over the years have come to love and have come to look forward to. You know, if you think about, like, let's say, in the decades before Reacher, you have, like I'll I'll just name some classic series that revolve around a single hero. Like, the most classic being, like, James Bond or then you get to, like, you know, like, Jack Ryan type of of heroes. These are heroes that they're sort of anti authority, but they work for authority. And they can't really express as much as perhaps they would like their anti author authority aspects. Do you think that's what kind of, breaks Reacher out compared to, like, these older heroes? I think that, yeah, you you know, you say go back decades. I mean, really, it goes by 100 of years, if not millennia, the the idea of the knight errant. And somebody like James Bond is kinda half in and half out of the establishment. He's a commander in the Royal Navy. He's employed by the security services. He he's part of a structure, and yet he's somewhat disapproved of. He's somewhat people are suspicious of him. You know, the boss is always chafing at at the things he gets up to. So he's got one foot in and one foot out, which is part of the knight errant thing. A knight errant is a knight, you know, sir Lancelot or whoever, who then, for some reason, gets banished. He's banished from the court and sentenced to wander the land and do good deeds. And the same myth occurs practically everywhere. You know, it's the ronin myth in Japan, the samurai that is disowned by his master and banished. And so there there has to be 2 things. Number 1, a sense of previous status, and Richey has that because he was a West Point graduate and a major in the US Army. So his status is there. And the banishment is not that he's been shoved out because of a transgression necessarily, but just that the army got smaller, after the end of the Cold War, and he was one of the ones kicked out. So that he has been banished in a way. So he has this previous nobility. Now he's banished. And that is, I think, the key aspect of this character that goes back literally 100 of years. You know, it's a Western concept in the US. It's medieval in Europe. It's Scandinavian sagas, Greek tragedies. This character has always been around. And so you gotta ask yourself, why? Why has this character been reinvented over and over again over 1000 of years? You know, Robin Hood, all of these characters are really the same guy. And the answer is because we want that guy. We would love to have a guy like that just show up and solve our problems, because everybody has a problem. Might be trivial, might be super serious, but everybody's got a problem. And wouldn't it be great if there was a knock on the door and this big, huge, silent man showed up to fix your problem and then left afterward? That is, again, a super part of the key. He's got to leave afterward. He can't hang around and have all kinds of gratitude issues. He just shows up, solves a problem, and rides off into the sunset. It's a perpetual fantasy that we all want. Yeah. And I think there's another key difference with a character like James Bond because, you know, as Lee said, he's half in and half out, and the half the foot that he's got in the establishment. Bond, you've gotta think about when he was written and what extra role he was playing. So, you know, Bond was was conceived at the end of the fifties into the sixties in England, and England at that time was a grey, depressed, dour, bankrupt place where people out of you know, they they struggled. They had miserable lives. And as on top of that, the country was coming to trying to come to terms with the fact it was its place at the top table had been lost, bankrupt after the 2nd World War, no longer the key player it used to be. So people were struggling with these two issues. So along comes this character Bond who has this this extravagant lifestyle. He goes to casinos. He drives Bentleys in the in the books. He goes to Nassau. He goes you know, he has he he gives people a take he has a different kind of escapism. He gives them a glimpse into another world. And on top of that, he kinda carries this extra baggage for the country because there's this enormous international problem. The CIA can't solve it. The KGB can't solve it. So what do they do? They come to Bond to take care of it, you know, which is obviously ridiculous. But people loved it because it gay you know, he would but so the point I'm trying to make is that Bond was carrying all of this additional baggage on a kinda national scale, whereas reach, appeals, I think, on an individual scale because it's not about someone coming and fixing the problems of your whole country. It's about, like Lee said, someone knocking on your door and fixing your specific individual problems. Well, it's interesting how it goes from the national to the individual because I sort of feel like music also made that transition during those during those decades as well. Like like, you know, Lee, you sort of grew up in, you know, this period where not only the Beatles, but then punk was was rising in England. And there's, like, this punk aspect to not obeying the rules and not, you know, living by other people's boundaries, you know, not respecting authority, living on your own terms. Do you think, you know, given your ambitions initially as a musician, how much of an effect did you do you think that had on the character? I think a lot. Yeah. I mean, as a whole, in general, from from those sixties onwards, the whole world became much more connected, And that's something that I remember. One specific memory I had, I mean, I left the Beatles, and I followed all the news and all the stories and gossip and everything. And I remember the story from January 1964. This was just a little bit before the Ed Sullivan show, a few weeks. They were doing a residency in Paris at the Olympia, staying at the George Saink. And meanwhile, the PR campaign in America was cranking up. And one night after the show, they were back in the hotel room, and Brian Epstein gets a phone call from New York, which in 1964 was just impossibly exotic. Somebody's phoning you from New York, So Epstein answers the call and listens for a little while and puts down the phone, and he says, boys, you're number 1 in America. And to me, that was such a pregnant phrase. It, first of all, symbolized the way that the world was connecting, that we were all becoming the same culture. And secondly, as a personal ambition, I just wanted to hear that. And all those years later, when I did get my first number one in America, my, it went straight to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. My publisher was a smart enough guy to have remembered what I'd said about this, and he I was in Chicago on tour, and he called me. And he said, Lee, you're number 1 in America. And I just thought that I could die and go to heaven right now. And talk about the link, you know, the links to music. You know, that first number 1, that was Bad Luck and Trouble. Right? So that was a direct connection to music, and music plays a huge part in Reacher. When he's wandering the land, when he's stuck somewhere, he can just play music in his head. You know, Music is a huge support system for Reacher. Yeah. And and, you know, Andrew, how about for you? Like, now, you know, you know, Lee had all of these things going on where you could you could see it in the books. Like, Jack Reacher was redundant in the military, so, you know, just like Lee's experience with television, he's on his own. He has to figure it out. He goes from town. He he he does his thing. How do you feel you can bring yourself into the Jack Reacher character now that you're starting to write these novels? Well, it's a great question, and I think I think a lot of the the factors that that help lay, you know, a lot of the experiences have been similar. When I worked in the telecommunications industry, for example, we had a very similar path because I worked for an organization that, in its heyday was magnificent. They invented so many of the technologies that we use today and that have moved the the industry forward and that have enabled that connected world Lee was talking about. So I was very happy working for a company like that until, the management, typical same story management wanted to cut costs. They wanted to get rid of the experienced, professional people and replace them with with younger cheaper ones. I never actually got pushed out of the door. I had to make the decision to leave on my own, but, I certainly remember that that that experience of essentially being pushed aside because they didn't appreciate what you were doing. And I think that, you know, is one of the things that informed Reacher's character. And on top of that, we're very similar people. The same things make us happy. The same things make us sad. The same things make us angry. So I think, you know, all of the things that feed into maintaining Reacher's character in the same way, you know, I think they're already there. Plus, don't forget that we, for 25 years, we would anytime we hung out, we would talk about Richard in this kind of ridiculous way. We'd talk about him as if he was an imaginary extra brother. We'd be saying, what would Richard do about this? What would Richard think about that? And so we've just had this whole period of time, quarter of a century, where we had fun. You know, we were just talking about Reacher would be would just be a great way of kind of communal daydreaming. And then, you know, the difference now is that rather than just let those words float off into the ether, what we do now is we just, you know, we we we capture them and and and write them down. So it's, it's really a very natural process. And, what I'm hoping to do is just really keep going with, you know, sure enough, some maybe slightly newer scenarios because my background, I'm I'm more, up to date with some of the technological things just because of the jobs I have. But, I hope that, you know, with a slight updating of some of the scenarios that Reacher faces, like we did with the Sentinel, you know, where he had to deal with cybercrime, which was, you know, a complete mystery to him, I hope that we can really keep Reacher going just the same as he has been for the for the past 25 years. Yeah. And and it'll it'll be interesting because it's it's like what you were saying before, the same but different. Like, I, you know, I imagine, you know, this is not every Jack Reacher story, but I imagine a Jack Reacher story is someplace new. He sees something bad happening. He is determined to solve it, and then, you know, the puzzle gets unraveled. I'm I'm not I'm oversimplifying, of course. That's a pretty good summer. You could work with us if you want. Maybe. I'll pitch scenarios too. But, how do you can you veer from that? Is that or is that, like, a a a blueprint? I mean, I think the great thing about the the Risha books is that at the beginning, I had no idea what I was doing. And so I just wrote the first one based on instinct, just what I wanted, what I personally wanted to happen. And I actually, a lot of writers do that, I think. You know, they love reading. They they absolutely live by reading, and yet they are a little dissatisfied with what they're reading. And so they think, you know what? I'm gonna write a book that turns out exactly the way I think it should. So that's all I ever did. It was very random, very unstructured. Nothing was ever planned. And so that gives Andrew now the liberty to do whatever he wants. You know, Risha could get a job if he wants temporarily. Risha could do anything, go anywhere. And I think what Andrew brings that I didn't have is is really understanding the corporate world in a way that I was never exposed to. He had that period in a corporation where there was a management hierarchy and so on and so forth, which everybody has. You know, whatever your job is, you could be a medical accounts clerk or something like that, and yet and your job will include management above you, some of whom are idiots, and that is a source of frustration in your life. And Andrew really understands that very well, and that translates to everything. You could show the military that way. The military is really like a big corporation with a hierarchy, and some of the people above you are idiots. And so that experience can translate directly into practically any aspect of life. And, so I I think that also helps Andrew make the secondary characters more complex and more interesting, because he's seen how people interact in these massive organizations. And so that I think there are he's bringing extra strengths to it, and what he's bringing is 25 years of perspective as a reader, whereas I was purely the writer. And I I was so close to it, I wasn't really aware of where it was going. He was standing back a bit, and he was aware of of how the series was meandering here and there. And so that he now can use that perception to bring it back to where it should be or whatever he thinks is necessary, but there are no rules. You know? Riksha can do whatever he wants. He could he could go and be emperor of a foreign country if he wants. We'll just have to see what happens. And I I like this idea of having no plan. So and and, you know, there's always different philosophies, and there's and, of course, there's no right way. But, you know, again, with a thriller or a mystery, there's always points where you're the the reader thinks, oh, I've got it now. This must be what's happening or this must be the bad guy. And every author has different ways of of dealing with that, but it it seems like with a Jack Reacher novel, no matter what I think, I'm always wrong. And and and is that something you you know in advance? Like, you figure out, oh, the reader's probably gonna think this guy is the bad guy, and I'm just you know, we're gonna make him wrong somehow. You know, really, I am the reader. So for 2 thirds of the book, I'm thinking somebody else is gonna be the bad guy. And then somehow the logic of the story says, no. It's gotta be this other person, and so it evolves as it goes along. And the the really interesting thing about having no plan is that, actually, it's not true. You you do have a plan based on 10,000 mystery or thrillers that you've read before. It's kind of baked into your brain the basic rhythm and grammar of a thriller. So even though you think you don't have a plan, actually, you have this massive database of every other plot you've ever read, every reveal you've ever read, every surprise you've ever been subjected to. You've got all of that. So doing it without a plan is actually not quite right. You're doing it with a kind of 100 year plan that is based on everything that has worked before. Well, I was gonna say also a kinda instinct too because, you know, we respond to book reading books just the same as you were describing. You know, you you there's there's part of your brain. You know there's a puzzle there. You know there's a question. You want the answer. You want the solution. So we're used to that. We know what that feels like. We're just looking at it from the other side. And a lot of the the way that you have to do that is based on instincts. It's based on the fact that, you know, Lee grew up wanting to be an entertainer. All I ever wanted to do was be a storyteller. You know, you're just used to it. It's in you somewhere and you you you just have to trust your instincts when it comes down to when you reveal things, what you reveal, how you reveal them. And, yeah, of course, you know, who eventually in a thriller, who's to blame? Who is the bad guy? And, you know, that's that's the really fun part of it. It can be hugely frustrating if you're 3 quarters of the way through and the different strands aren't coming together, the way you thought they would, but you've gotta just embrace that and allow them to come together the way that the story dictates. And, when you when when they do, it's it's so so satisfying. And, also, it's not so much to do with revealing the bad guy in the last chapter because, again, there's no plan. There's no formula. So some of the books, it's been pretty obvious who the bad guy is from the first chapter. And then the appeal becomes, what is Reacher gonna do to him, and and exactly how is he gonna do it? That is what propels the narrative. You know, so I I read this quote once. I forgot who said it. This author said, if you're ever confused in the middle of your novel while you're writing it, kill off the main character. And, of course, you don't you can't kill off Jack Reacher, but you could kill off the main suspects. I mean, as you sort of see it, and I wonder in in some of the books that maybe you were thinking this, but I'm just I'm just curious if you ever thought of it that directly. Like, oh, I don't know how to untangle here, so I'm just gonna kill off this guy. Now I'm forced to untangle. In a way, you know, I've I've I'm ruled entirely by instinct, and I can remember a couple of books where there was Reacher, and he usually meets somebody, usually a woman, and they usually are working together in some to some degree. And I remember a couple of books where she just got shot in the head and and was gone, you know, halfway through the book or 2 thirds of the way through the book, and it I can't say why. It just it just happened. And, to create stakes and poignancy, I suppose. And so, yeah, you know, you can do you can do anything. It's a solo show. It's basically about Reacher. And the people around him are usually nice, and we want we want them to survive. But their peril is kind of a proxy for Reacher's peril. Because, as you say, the only problem with the long running series is there is no tension at the beginning. Will Reacher survive? Of course, he will. We we buy into that as a series reader, so you gotta find the tension somewhere else. Andrew, you know, you guys are are 14 years apart, which, by the way, that's a long you you have no other siblings. You have the 2 siblings. So why did your parents go 14 years without having another kid? Oh, we do. We we have 2 I I feel like one of you was a mistake. Were one of you mistakes? Well, yeah. We we do have we do have 2 other siblings. There were 3 of us. We were a family of 3 boys, you know, neat and close together at the beginning, all born in the 19 fifties. And and so we were a family, 2 parents, 3 boys. And then, I guess, it was, you know, the late menopausal mistake, the miscalculation. They thought they could get away with it. And, I remember I was 14, and and my mother was 41 years old, which back in at that time was considered very old. And she was partly happy about it and partly embarrassed about it and partly worried about how that we were gonna react. You know, I was 14, girlfriends of my own by this point, and how would I react to a baby in the family? Actual and, actually, I loved it. It was great. It was absolutely fabulous. The experience of having Andrew. And then later on, I got a dog, which made when I had my own kid, I was totally prepared. I knew how to do it. Andrew, what you said earlier that you always wanted to be a storyteller. Now, obviously, you were probably in your twenties when Lee started writing these books, but was was he an influence on your desire to be a storyteller? And you yourself have done your own, you know, thriller novels under the name Andrew Grant. How much of an influence has Lee been on you developing your style and and genre and so on? Well, you know, he's been a huge influence in a number of ways, and and one of those ways is that we we both feel really that growing because we grew up kinda independently because, you know, by the time I was coming into my own, he'd already left home. So, we both when we talk about it, we realized we both had the same experience of feeling like complete outsiders. You know, we felt, you know, growing up in that house with other people who were so dissimilar to us in every way, different outlooks, different attitudes, different values. It felt like either you were a changeling at the hospital or you were you know, I think it's one reason why I always loved spy fiction, for example, because I really felt like I was having to pretend to be somebody different to fit into this alien world just like you would if you were a spy. So we have that that shared, feeling, that shared experience growing up. But for me, it was easier because I could see that he had escaped, you know, when he was working in TV, for example. He had this fabulous glamorous job in TV. So, you know, struggling through, I could feel, well, just keep going because there are opportunities. There's there's hope at the end of this. There's light at the end of the tunnel. So that really helped. You know, I could get away. I could go visit him. We would have fun hanging I could hang out with somebody who was like me for the first time in my life as opposed to people who not only would unlike me, but, you know you know, violently disapproved of everything that I thought or did. So it was great to get up to to have that. And then as as time went on, you know, I think the storytelling part, some of that was probably it was, you know, it's this form of performance. You know, a lot of people, you know, a lot of people who wind up writing in a way they would have liked to have performed either as a musician or an actor or something like that, but you don't have the talent for that, so you have to find a different outlet. And then if you're telling stories all the time, you're creating alternative worlds that you can live in rather than the, you know, the boring one that that is reality. So I'm sure that that is another common common thread for us. But then later, it was interesting because the reason I decided you know, I've been in I've done some I had my own theater company. I'd I'd worked in theater. I'd had to leave that and work in the corporate world just for financial reasons. And then the the the sort of the creative outlet, I I for me, I I just had to read more because I wasn't in a position to participate in or even really go watch plays in the theater anymore. So I realized that I'd kind of deviate just just somehow started loving crime fiction, spy fiction, action adventure books, all of those kind of things. It wasn't a conscious choice. Oh, let's focus on these books. It just happened. And then one I remember the the critical thing, the catalyst was one day, I was reading a book that really started out as the perfect thriller, the kind of book where you won't get off the bus or the train because you're too engrossed in the story. You'll stay up all night reading it and therefore miss work the next day. It was one of those books that just grabbed you and would not let go until the end. The end was terrible. It was the worst ending of any book I'd ever encountered. And I remember thinking, well, why did the author do that? He'd set up all of these fascinating scenarios and didn't take advantage of any of them. He had these characters that you know, this character could've done this thing. That character could've done that thing. Why didn't he follow through on that? And what that did was it became an itch that I had to scratch. I had to figure out. I had to find out, could I do this? Could I be a writer? And so I looked at what Lee had already achieved, and, of course, he was he was, you know, hugely successful, which told me, a, you know, it's possible. But then the kind of devil on your other shoulder is saying, yeah, but the odds of 1 brother making it are remote. The odds of 2 are infinitesimal. But somebody said to me, the 2 saddest words in the English language are what if. And I didn't wanna get to the end of a kind of, you know, successful but mediocre career in in an, you know, an ordinary field and then look back and think, yeah, but what if I had tried to be a writer? So I thought I've gotta try. I've gotta see if it works. And at that point, it was very useful to have Lee's insight because he could tell me how the game was played. You know, you finish the book. You try to get an agent. The agent tries to get you a deal. Here are some things that's a good idea to do. Here are some things that you really better not do. That was very helpful. But then in it, like, in any industry, you know, in publishing, there's a lot of resistance to anything that feels like nepotism. You know. So the last thing I wanted was to have to to appear to be riding on his coattails. I wanted I was absolutely determined that I was gonna make it on my own. So I used a different name. I used a different agent. I went to a different publisher. Everything in the beginning was designed to be as separate as possible. Even to the point where when I was writing, I would try I I would find that my style naturally was very similar to his. And I deliberately had to change it because I didn't want it to sound I didn't want my books to sound like Lee Child knock offs. I wanted them to have their own distinctive voice. So I had to work for many years on sounding different. So then, of course, it was quite an irony when this the the tables turned, and all of a sudden, I had to try very hard to sound exactly like him. That was, you know, that was a weird weird shift. So I think that the, you know, a combination of all of those things led to, you know, that that sort of being diverted for a period of time and then then coming together where we are now. And and, Lee, what did you think of Andrew's first attempts at, at writing? What advice did you give him on the writing side? I had learned that you the only advice you can ever give another writer is ignore my advice because in order to work, a book has gotta have a beating heart of its own. It's gotta be a vivid, vital creation. And the only way you can do that is if it is the product of one person's imagination and nothing else. Even if you're certain that you're doing it wrong or that nobody else does it that way, if that's how you wanna do it, that's how you should do it. So, basically, I said to him, look. In detail, ignore my advice. But, as he said, you know, the rules of the game, I could give him shortcuts about what scenarios to avoid, mainly to do with relationships with publishers and so on. You know, this is a business where you've gotta fit into a certain extent so that most of my advice was practical rather than literary. And I loved what he did. I loved his he he wrote 9 thrillers before he he joined me on the Reacher project, and they're all good. They're all great. And I I was actually very reluctant to ask him to take over Reacher because it meant that I would not see any more of his own stuff, which I had actually been loving. So it was a double edged sword for me. It's great that Reacher continues in the world, but I feel like, as a reader, I've lost a couple of things that I really wanted to continue. Did you consider the James Patterson approach of almost like, I don't wanna I don't wanna use the word factory, but, you know, bringing on others to with with different ideas to kind of take the brand further? It I mean, it was a possibility, and I like James Madison. You know? I got no problem with him at all. He's a he's a really nice guy, and what he runs essentially is a bit like a kind of Renaissance atelier, you know, like Rembrandt used to do. Rembrandt would walk around, and he would paint the hard bits. You know, he would do the faces or the hands or whatever. And a couple of other guys would do the backgrounds. So Patterson is that's an ancient tradition, and there's there's nothing ignoble about it. But I didn't wanna do that partly because Patterson works incredibly hard. And, of course, the sub agenda here is that I wanted to retire. You know, and what I say to people in America, especially, they don't really understand that desire. I said, never forget. I'm from Europe. I have no work ethic. And so my idea was to we would do these 4 these 4 books, and and the one that's coming out now, The Secret, is the last of the 4 as a transitional period, and then I'm out of it. I'm gonna be lying on my sofa reading other people's books. So that the idea of doing a Patterson type thing, which requires, you know, dozens of projects running all at once and input for hours every day, that was not in my plan. Well, do you have a plan? Like, are like, when you say retire, do you do you plan on doing nothing? Yeah. I mean, I've done so much traveling, as part of this job. I've been all over the world. And so the the the usual thing is you you retire and travel. It's the other way around for me. I retire and I don't travel. And so I just wanna be able to read because at the every writer is fundamentally a reader, 100 of times more than he's a writer. And so the only thing that I have ever resented about being a writer is all those hours that it takes up where you're not reading something else. And so I'm I'm gonna try and catch up now in in the years ahead. I've got a very comfortable sofa. I spend most of the day horizontal with a book propped up on my chest, and I'm just in heaven that way. Well, if you guys were to recommend one book to a let's say there's someone who wants to be a writer, someone who wants to be a thriller writer, What's one book you would recommend? Obviously, not one that you've written. I think so. It's a cliche question again. I'm ashamed, but there it is. Well, I'm gonna nominate the one that actually did that for me, which was that I I was on vacation in Mexico, in the 19 eighties flying back through Miami. And at the Miami airport, I I needed a book, so I grabbed a book by a guy called John d McDonald. Never heard of him before, and it was called The Lonely Silver Rain. And there was something about that book that it was wonderful entertainment. It's the Travis McGee series, which is a fabulous series, one of the best ever. But there was something about it that not only on the surface level of a great, great story, it was a bit like a blueprint. I could almost hear McDonald telling me, this is what I'm doing. This is why I'm doing it now. This is what it's gonna mean in a few pages. It was like a blueprint, and so that, to me, was the book, The Lonely Silver Rain, by John d Macdonald. That's what showed me how to do it. Last question I've always been curious about. You don't really see a lot of crossovers in these series. Like, have you ever considered, like, okay. You know James Patterson calling up and say, listen. Let's have Alex Cross and and Jack Reacher team up on on a case. I've I've entertained that idea with loads of people. You know, you sit around, and you you kid around about it. I mean, Harry Bosch, Michael is a good friend of mine, and it it would be hilarious to do that. But, you you immediately sort of blunder head on into the reality of contracts and copyright and, you know, Harry Bosch's TV deal versus Jack Reacher's TV deal. Plus we're with different publishers and all that kind of thing. It just becomes too complicated. It occasionally crops up when we do short stories for, you know, whatever anthology is asking for 1. That attracts less attention. It's kind of under the radar a little bit, and so there have been crossovers like that. I I did one with, Joseph Finder, where our characters were together for a while. I did one with Kathy Reichs, where Jack Reacher and Temperance Brennan team up to to solve a problem, but only in short stories where you can kinda get away with it. It's it's it's so interesting. I never I never, I never knew that it had happened, so that's good. I'll have to check those out. Well, you guys, you know, Lee Child, Andrew Child, author of the upcoming book, The Secret. I read it. I loved it. It the hard thing with interviewing authors of novels is that it's hard to talk about the book because everything is kind of a reveal, you know, after the first chapter. But it's been so fascinating hearing your stories and your approach and and listening to you guys interact. So I'm I'm so thankful you came on the podcast. I really love The Secret, and obviously, it's gonna do do great, and I wish you luck with with, you know, this this merger of talents and ambitions, you know, as you go forward. And and, Lee, good luck with your retirement. I I doubt you'll be able to do it, but, we'll we'll see. Thank you. And and then next book, don't forget to come back on. I'm gonna be an avid reader of that one as well, so I'm looking forward to it.
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