Turned out he wasn’t quite so worried about Jong’s Fear of Dying as he was about Lagercrantz. Of course, neither of us had actually read it. ‘Bad title,’ he said. ‘Who’s afraid of dying? It’s the living too long we’re afraid of.’
6 MYSTERIOUS
I bought a couple of books: Pierre Lemaître’s Camille – diminutive hero, five-footer (his Ma smoked too much when pregnant), opposite of Reacher – why didn’t they get Tom for that part? I thought. And, of course, a copy of The Girl in the Spider’s Web. I felt a bit of a traitor, to be honest. But I had to keep up the detachment. This was research. On the other hand, I had to go and wave it in Lee’s face. ‘Can’t wait to get stuck into this baby!’ I said, cheerfully.
He looked up from behind several tall piles of Make Mes, like a Swiss yodeller calling out across the valleys. ‘Week before mine. He has seven days to rampage and maraud … before it gets crushed!’ He was nervous, though, I could tell. Trying to be confident, but edgy.
We were in Otto’s Mysterious Bookshop in Tribeca. Lee was doing a spot of pre-signing. I counted 350 books, roughly. Only took him about an hour or so. It was all part of the job. And some of those dedications were long and specific. ‘This one’s an essay!’ he gasped. But he ploughed on anyway. Readers had given instructions telling Lee Child what to write. He was now in their hands (literally, or at least literarily). Like an amiable genie, theirs to command.
This was not public, just Lee and a Mysterious guy. But even so a nice couple from Boston popped up and had their photo taken with him. ‘Could you make it out to Richard, please? He’s ninety now. But he loves your books. We are a bit worried about the mental side.’ It wasn’t clear if there was a connection between the early stages of dementia and an addiction to Reacher. ‘He’s always asking, “When’s the next one coming out!?”’ If he was asking that all year long, that could drive anyone up the wall. Maybe he’d give it a rest for a couple of days.
Lee wrote: ‘Hang in there, the next one is coming right up!’
Which was true. In a way.
‘How’s the second sentence going?’ I asked.
‘We’re getting there,’ he said. ‘Might have a shot at the third tomorrow.’
He wasn’t exactly sprinting straight out of the blocks. His mind was at least half still on Make Me. ‘I’ve got to work out what to say about it on Monday. Without giving it all away.’ He was still worrying about that.
I was just sitting there, on the sofa, flicking idly through The Girl in the Spider’s Web while Lee kept on signing Make Me. The piles were gradually getting whittled away. ‘Lagercrantz and I have something in common,’ I pointed out. ‘He was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year. Cool.’
‘I’m with Eva Gabrielsson,’ he said. ‘If she had had her way, it would never have been published. Quite right too. It’s not good enough.’ Gabrielsson was Larsson’s partner, but unmarried. Larsson left no will. Finished the trilogy then promptly dropped dead. Gabrielsson was left with nothing. The family got it all. Tough.
‘Swedish laws seem incredibly harsh,’ he went on. ‘She gets nothing? Andy, make your will now. You might be worth something one day.’
‘I think it was the self-destructive writer’s diet. Too many burgers while he was working. Sugar Puffs probably. Look at him, you can see he was overweight. Heart attack waiting to happen.’
‘Ran up the stairs, conked out. And he’d been accepted for publication.’
‘Should’ve worked out more.’
The Mysterious guy piped up. ‘I think he used to smoke too much. Very heavy smoker.’
Lee coughed. Heavy smoker’s cough. At least he was thin. ‘One thing I noticed. Blomkvist is reading an Elizabeth George novel. American, but sets her books in England. They’re fine but everything is just slightly off. I wanted to say something about that in my review, but then I thought, whoa, I’m doing the same in reverse, so I’m just convicting myself out of my own mouth.’
‘Fantasy America,’ I said. ‘That’s all anyone wants. Cowboys and injuns. Larry McMurtry without the horses. Shane! Come back, Shane!’ Lee had had to write a whole article pointing out the differences between Reacher and Shane and also stressing that the kid in the original Shane story never says that – it’s only in the movie. Come back, Alan Ladd. I was pretending I hadn’t read it.
I realized what I was doing: I was adopting the persona of the Bad Reader. Maybe it wasn’t even a persona. At the core of every Good Reader (Umberto Eco speaks of the ‘Model’ or ‘Ideal’ Reader) there is a Bad Reader just waiting to rear his ugly head. Jekyll and Hyde. Lee was doing his best to pre-empt all the potential Hydes out there. The monsters and the moaners and the bitchy reviewers.
We were paying for our books. ‘How’s The Girl in the Spider’s Web doing?’ I said to the guy at the till. I regretted it almost immediately. ‘It’s a hot one, all right,’ he says. Entirely oblivious of Lee standing there. Maybe didn’t know who he was. It was like hearing an ardent Republican raving about Donald Trump or Sarah Palin, not noticing that Obama was within earshot. ‘Very positive feedback. Everyone says it’s a worthy successor to the Millennium series.’
‘Sounds great,’ I said, trying to keep my voice down, looking over my shoulder, guiltily.
‘Oh yeah,’ enthused the guy. Upping the volume. And the inappropriate elation. ‘It’s flying off the shelves!’
7 THE PRESSURE KEEPS BUILDING
This is a story about Jean Cocteau, not Lee Child. But I wondered if something similar could apply. It was just after the Nazis had invaded Paris. They were marching up and down the Champs Elysées, having photographs taken in front of the Eiffel Tower, rounding up anyone they didn’t like the look of. Maybe Cocteau would be next? In any case, Hitler had taken Paris. Merde. A friend finds Cocteau in his apartment, in a distraught state. On the sofa, sobbing, moaning. ‘There, there, Jean,’ he says, with a dash of de Gaullian Resistance spirit. Hand on the shoulder. ‘We will overcome, in the end. We will never let the Boches win.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ says Cocteau, batting away the hand, picking up that morning’s newspaper, open at the Arts section. ‘Look at this review. They’ve completely trashed my novel!’ Or latest play. Or exhibition.
‘Writers – we have to get our priorities right,’ Lee said, sympathetically. ‘Everything else is secondary.’
We were having lunch in Le Pain Quotidien. I had automatically picked up the small pot of milk they had put on the table and was on the verge of pouring some into my coffee. Lee gave me a look. ‘Of course,’ he said, like some Grand Inquisitor keeping a stern eye on the heretics, ‘if you’re going to be the kind of person who puts milk in perfectly fine coffee …’ I put the pot down again.
I genuinely wanted to know how Lee reacted to reviews. Even though his book wasn’t technically out yet, they were starting to appear. The New York Times weighing in, then the Star-Telegram (Fort Worth) and the Oregonian. And the Huffington Post. All positive,