Lee Child

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury, that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds. Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:48

My castaway this week is the author Lee Child. His fictional creation, Jack Reacher, is a giant, literally and figuratively. Six feet five of pure muscle, with book sales to match. Apparently everyone stopped counting once they shot past 100 million. For thirty years, Reacher has travelled across America from town to town and book to book, uncovering dirty secrets and meting out rough justice before disappearing off into the sunset.

Presenter1:14

The man behind the Enigma may have been born a world away from his hero, in 1950s Coventry to be precise, and grown up in Birmingham, but they do share a few qualities. There's their height, which inspired Reacher's name, and their initial motivation, revenge. Leechild was born Jim Grant to the son of a tax inspector and a housewife. His buttoned-up childhood led him to escape into books, and after winning a prestigious scholarship, he studied law and found a career in television. His Reacher moment came when costcutters arrived at the company he'd been with for 20 years and began instigating rafts of redundancies. He led the fight back as union rep, then when they eventually got him, turned to writing, determined to prove them wrong with his success. Reacher was an instant hit, and 30 Books On has inspired Hollywood films and a major TV show. He says, It's an accurate self-diagnosis that I'm seeking the love and approval that I never got as a child. Leechild, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Lee Child2:11

Thank you. It's great to be here.

Presenter2:13

So Lee, you'd always start a new book on the 1st of September. I mean, tell me about that moment when you're staring at the blank screen in front of you. What's going through your mind?

Lee Child2:22

That is the best moment of all because there is something unique about the first line, obviously. It is the only line that doesn't have to follow a previous line. So you can do anything. And actually, I never really know how it's going to start. And every year I have this sort of imposter syndrome thing where I'm like, yeah, I've got away with it 25 times before, but now I'm going to blow it. Now I'm going to be found out. So in August, I'm feeling kind of desperate, no ideas. And then toward the end of August, suddenly an opening line or something might pop into my head. And I always write it down, even if I do not know where it's going. I put that down, the first line, the first paragraph, and I never ever change a first paragraph because it has a freshness, it has an organic quality, and if you start messing with it, it just gets worse, not better.

Speaker 13:08

Yeah.

Presenter3:21

And interestingly, on that note, you're not one of these writers who has index cards all around their study and intricate kind of spider webs of plots laid out around them. You are pulling this story out of where?

Lee Child3:35

I just want the story. And if I mapped it out in advance, if I did the outline, then I would have told myself that story. And I'm done with it. I'm ready for the next one. For me, it's really important to have the same feeling that I have as a reader sometimes, where I'm sure you know what it's like. You're into a great book, but you've got to go to work or whatever, or got to do something else. And then you get back to your book and you pick it up with that joy. Oh, I can't wait to find out what's going to happen. I need to feel that every time I sit down to write.

Speaker 14:01

Yeah.

Speaker 44:04

Uh

Presenter4:12

And what about that idea of Ritu as a kind of independent entity, you know, out there existing in the world in people's imaginations?

Lee Child4:19

Yeah, that's the whole point of it. When it comes to film or TV, people say, are you worried about giving it away? But the whole point is to give it away. And especially, you want it as a mark of success. You want it to become outside of just the book world. And that happened with Reacher. He is quoted or mentioned in all kinds of contexts. In the New Zealand Parliament, one of the ministers stood up with a policy and he said, like Jack Reacher said, we have to hope for the best but plan for the worst.

Lee Child4:55

And I thought, yeah, that is the mark of success, that it has migrated outside of just the world of books. Now it is a cultural reference in all different kinds of contexts.

Presenter5:05

Lee, it's time for your first choice today. What are we going to hear?

Lee Child5:09

I was eight, going on nine, and I was depressed because I was trapped in this strict home, this grey post-war austerity. I felt no horizons. And we were on some dreadful family holiday in a caravan in Wales, and the rain was lashing down, and my other family members were getting me down. So I went out to sit in the car and I turned on the radio.

Lee Child5:40

And it was an old Valve radio. It sort of warmed up slowly, crackly. And the first thing I heard was Brian Matthews on the Saturday Club. He said, Here it is, the new one from the Beatles. And it was She Loves You, which starts out with a little, tiny little drum fill from Ringo and then the first chorus. It's about 11 seconds, I think. And in those eleven seconds, my life changed totally. I felt the sun had come out. I felt there was joy, there was happiness, there was energy in the world. Most of all, I felt there was something for me.

Speaker 46:17

She loves to be careful

Speaker 46:20

Hello, J.

Speaker 46:29

You'll think you've lost your love. Well I saw her yesterday, ayy It's you she's thinking of And she told me what to say, ay She said she loves you And you know that can't be bad

Presenter6:47

Still sounds like the sun coming out all these years later. The Beatles, and she loves you. So, Lee, child, you were very unhappy at just eight years old. I mean, that is that is so little to feel like that. What was going on in your life?

Speaker 16:49

Yeah.

Lee Child7:00

I was this happy, energetic kid, but my parents were boring, repressed, very restrictive types. They grew up during the Depression and then as teenagers, young adults, they grew up during the war.

Speaker 47:15

Or is

Lee Child7:16

And our generation, I think objectively speaking, we were the luckiest generation in all of human history. We had none of the problems that the other generations had had before us. And parents at that time had a binary choice. You could either celebrate that fact that, yeah, we've managed to deliver better times for our children. But in my case, my parents were jealous. They were jealous of the freedoms and the prosperity and the cornucopia that we had.

Speaker 17:38

Yeah.

Presenter7:49

So so you mentioned, you know, your parents' wartime experiences and I know that your father, you know, he fought in in the Second World War. Did he tell you, you know, what what he experienced?

Lee Child7:57

Only very late in his life it was that classic thing where uh he never hardly ever mentioned it at all when we were young, other than

Speaker 18:04

The wall

Lee Child8:07

The occasional sort of wince of disgust, you know, we'd be playing cowboys and Indians or something, shooting each other. And I remember just randomly one thing he said. He said, if you'd ever smelled a dead body, you wouldn't be doing this. But, you know, very, very few clues. Other than if there was ever any documentary footage of the concentration camps, he would leave the room because he'd been in the armored column that had arrived at Belson before anybody else. And there was a kind of bleak greyness at the center of his soul because whatever else happened in his life, you know, his kids did well, this, that, the other, whatever it was. It was as if an invisible voice was saying to him, yeah, but there was Belson. I think it really, really stunted him in a way.

Presenter9:00

And what about your mother? You know, your your father worked as a tax inspector, the Inland Revenue. Audrey, your mother, she was a housewife. How do you remember her? How would you describe her?

Lee Child9:10

Well, she was a talented artist and designer. She could have been an architect. She could have been anything like that, really. But there was zero thought given to she would ever go to college or anything. I mean, partly my grandfather, her father, was in dire straits because of the Depression, and it was just a question of living hand to mouth. And she got a job when she was about 19 or 20, also working for the Inland Revenue in a completely separate office, no relation to what my father was doing. But when they did meet and got married, she had to leave because back then...

Presenter9:45

You had to, didn't you?

Lee Child9:46

You did. Civil service in particular, many jobs. Married women were not allowed to work in them. So she was frustrated in that sense and bored, frankly. It was just awful. But she ended up a martyr and very bitter woman. And I didn't enjoy the result, but I totally understand where it came from.

Speaker 19:57

Awful.

Presenter10:06

You talked about running into emotional brick walls with your parents and have said that as a writer, actually, you are receiving the love and approval that they weren't able to give you. What was your relationship with them like?

Lee Child10:21

They wanted the boys to grow up to become something notable, not so much for our own sake, but for their sake, as if they were merit badges on a Boy Scout uniform or something. There were three of us in the beginning, and then a fourth one much, much later. And so it was really the three of us as the classic nuclear family. And the other two were, especially my elder brother, really smart guy.

Speaker 110:41

Bring it.

Lee Child10:47

He really was a success, you know what I mean?

Presenter10:49

As a scientist or something.

Lee Child10:50

Yeah, he became a nuclear engineer.

Lee Child10:53

And he did a PhD at Cambridge that for a time was, you know, groundbreaking work about.

Lee Child10:59

the fluid mechanics of turbine blades and so on.

Presenter11:02

They must have been pleased with that, surely.

Lee Child11:04

Well, not really. You know, it wasn't quite identifiable enough. They wanted him to be Isambard Kingdom Brunel. And so that whatever we did, we would have been disappointments.

Presenter11:13

And what about the status that they crave? Did they ever feel like they achieved it, do you think?

Lee Child11:18

No, it was really sad because my dad was from Northern Ireland. He was a Northern Irish Protestant from Belfast, a Unionist. He was more British than the British, and it was his absolute dream to be an English professional gentleman, you know, on nodding terms with the local solicitor or this or that. But of course, because he was Irish, he was always regarded as an outsider, just a paddy. He never got anywhere near it.

Presenter11:48

Lee, I think we'd better have some more music. Your second choice today. What's it gonna be?

Lee Child11:53

Well, having said how, and I really mean it, the Beatles saved my life, but I was awfully disloyal because within a year and a half or so I'd moved onto the Stones because they were more me, I think. They were sort of more rough and more street. And so my second choice is the classic Stones satisfaction.

Speaker 412:18

No satisfaction

Speaker 412:24

Can you get to know me Santa's affection? Cause I drive

Speaker 412:31

And I'll try

Presenter12:48

I can't get no satisfaction. The Rolling Stones. Lee, child, you learned to read when you were only three. How did that happen?

Lee Child12:56

It was my br elder brother started at primary school, obviously before I did, because he was elder.

Lee Child13:02

And my mother she would sit him down at the end of every day when he got home from primary school and go through his lessons. And I would sort of eavesdrop from a yard away. And I sort of over a couple of months of doing that taught myself to read and to write.

Presenter13:19

I mean, that's incredible. Nowadays, obviously, parents would be putting that up on Instagram and and telling the world, wouldn't they? W did did you get a sense of your parents being pleased that you were so bright?

Lee Child13:24

Telling the world

Lee Child13:30

Uh

Lee Child13:31

You know, I don't want to be too negative about this whole experience, but really not. And also,

Lee Child13:38

In their mind, things were to be done at a certain time. And I remember them saying to.

Presenter13:43

Yeah, exactly.

Lee Child13:44

Yeah, exactly. I remember them saying to my elder brother that when he learned to tell the time, they would buy him a watch. And I said, if I learned to tell the time, will you buy me a watch? And they said, yeah. And so I immediately taught myself to tell the time. It was like three or four. And then they said, no, you can't have a watch because you're too young.

Lee Child14:07

I didn't fit the pattern. And that was their problem. They couldn't look at their children as individuals. They looked at them as preprogrammed accessories in a larger scheme.

Presenter14:19

We'll books an escape for you, after all.

Lee Child14:21

Absolutely, totally, absolutely.

Presenter14:24

What were you reading then, and and where were you getting your material?

Lee Child14:28

Got it from Elmwood Library, which was about half a mile from our house. And I started out with Enid Blyton, like everybody else. I mean, I'm not one of these writers who pretends in retrospect that I was reading Tolstoy at the age of six or something.

Speaker 114:42

Thanks.

Lee Child14:43

I read Enblight and the Famous Five. I loved The Famous Five. And looking back on it in retrospect, you see why. You know, it fundamentally it's an orphan fantasy. The parents are not involved ever. The kids are just running free. And that was a dream.

Presenter14:55

Good.

Presenter14:59

You are six foot four now and you were tall as a kid. Were you tough at school? How uh did your physique kind of play a part in how you were received by the other kids?

Lee Child15:07

Oh yeah, it was great. It really was. I was huge. And, you know, I wasn't like some psycho or anything, but it was an earlier era. And Birmingham was an emotionally inarticulate place. Nobody ever talked about a problem. Nobody ever negotiated anything. It was always a fight and a double whammy for us because, as I said, our parents were aspirational. They wanted us to do well at school. And in that weird way, if you're doing well at school, you have a target on your back. But I was great at it. I was huge. I was nasty. I was a good fighter.

Presenter15:46

Nasty how? What do you mean nasty?

Lee Child15:48

You had to get through you know, you had to negotiate certain circumstances. And I had a rule that if you pulled a knife on me, I would break your arm. And I had to do it twice before people got the message.

Presenter16:00

So these are proper fights. This is not just a playground scrap.

Lee Child16:02

This is not just a three-grand scrap. No, this was not. Because there was also a strange kind of gang culture that was neighborhood-based. But I was very good at it and had no problem. And the kids that weren't good at it, this was really one of my earliest Jack Reacher moments. You know, I had a kind of unofficial club. If they gave me one of their biscuits that their mother had sent them or something, they were in my club and I would look after them if they had a problem. So if they were getting bullied, they would come and say, this guy's hurting me or something. So I would follow him home or something to deal with him. And then, you know, sometimes then the mother of this other kid would be calling my mother and I'd have to say, I don't know anything about.

Presenter16:40

Get a

Presenter16:48

Well, no wonder that Jack Reacher came out of your imagination later. But he he's an expert pugilist, isn't he? I mean, you've written many a kind of balletic.

Lee Child16:57

Exactly. And the ballet is just me remembering what it was like when I was nine.

Presenter17:02

Time for some more music, Lee Child. What's next?

Lee Child17:06

During my teenage years, I was friendly with a guy called Andy whose dad was a dentist living on the posh side of town. And in that sort of dentist cliché, he had a great hi-fi. And in the late 60s, early 70s, hi-fi was a thing. And we had all rubbish, you know, where I would buy mine from components from a porn shop or a second-hand shop or whatever and sold them together myself and try and make them work. This guy's dad had a beautiful hi-fi. And his favorite record at the time was Kind of Blue, the album by Miles Davis. And we would listen to that on his hi-fi. And it seemed like a different world, a sophisticated world, a world of taste. And it was the first fork in the road that I came to musically. Not that I gave up on what I was already into, but it was now another option. That was a transformative record for me.

Speaker 418:06

Uh

Speaker 118:06

Yeah.

Presenter19:06

Miles Davis, and so what? Lee Child, you studied law at Sheffield University and after you graduated you joined Granada Television as an assistant transmission controller. What did the job involve?

Lee Child19:19

Transmission controller was essentially an air traffic controller. You were bringing programs in from the outside, you were feeding programs out to the rest of the network, you were doing your own local commercials and trailers and so on, and it all had to fit to the second.

Presenter19:34

As well as becoming senior in such a kind of important and technical role, you put yourself forward to become shop steward. So that was representing the television and technical staff. What made you put yourself up for that?

Lee Child19:47

That was just my personality and again a sort of proto-Jack Reacher moment where we were going through major, major industry upheaval. It was when there was BBC, BBC2, Channel 4 and ITV and then it was all getting broken up again because of satellite coming in and so on and so forth and the first thing they had to do was bust the union basically and there was an old shop steward who'd been there for years and he was going to retire anyway due to age and they put the word out the whisper that nobody should stand for the vacancy because if you do you'll be fired in a week and never work in the industry again and something in me just thought wait a minute that's not right so I put myself forward for election and I was elected unopposed and sure enough you know a manager bumps into me the next day and says you're crazy you know you'll be gone in a week

Speaker 120:32

Wait a minute

Lee Child20:48

I said we'll see about that.

Presenter20:50

You've described that then as as a reacher moment for you. Did you know you had it in you?

Lee Child20:53

But

Lee Child20:56

Yeah, I did. Because it was a sort of amalgam of the physical from my childhood to the um verbal, which I had become good at. And

Presenter21:06

And your legal background is too.

Lee Child21:08

Yeah, absolutely. And that was key in finding where the bottom was for them, because there was something going on, and I read the case law, and they were clearly in contravention of one particular precedent. So I thought, if you want to get down in the gutter, then I'll show you what the gutter is all about. The fatal thing that management never realizes, they're there from 9 till 5, and we're working 24-7. So as soon as they were gone at 5, I had this SWAT team of cleaners who would search every waste bin. They would look under every photocopier lid. They would find anything that looked like a memo or a draft of something or anything torn up. And they would bring it to me, bushels of this stuff every night. I was the most informed shop steward in the history of labor relations. I just fought back and not so much for me, because I don't worry about myself. I thought I'd be all right. But Grenada was a magnificent cultural institution at that time that had been built up by two generations of really dedicated and talented people. And it was being laid to waste just simply for profit. And that really annoyed me. I wanted to defend that. And a lot of the people, especially the ones that were kind of more just past halfway through their careers,

Speaker 121:58

Street library.

Lee Child22:30

They were never going to get another job and I wanted to protect them as best as I could.

Presenter22:34

But what about you? How much thought had you given to w what you would do next? Because you you were eventually fired in 1995 and and it wasn't a surprise to you.

Lee Child22:42

It wasn't an about five years before, I'd accidentally stumbled across a series of books by an American writer called John D. MacDonald, the Travis McGee series, which were great entertainment. I mean, superb series. I mean, I've got to warn people, a little dated in terms of gender attitudes and so on, but just really great thrillers. And as well as loving them as entertainment, I could suddenly see what he was doing. A bit like the commentary track on a DVD. Remember that? Where you would be seeing the action and somebody would be explaining it. I could almost hear that voice and I thought, wow, this is great. I could do this. But of course, I was real busy, so I put it just in the back of my mind. And then five years later, push came to shove and I had to do something else. So I thought, this is the time. You've got to put up or shut up now. You've got to try it. And yeah, so that was my investment, £3.99, three pads of paper, a pencil, a pencil sharpener, and an eraser. You know, that's a pretty good return on £3.99.

Presenter23:50

Lee Child, it's time for some more music. Your fourth choice today. What are we going to hear?

Lee Child23:55

Well, this is a lovely, great, magnificent piece of music, but I have to say I came to it through the most ignoble motives. Ken Russell had just made a film called The Music Lovers that had Richard Chamberlain playing Tchaikovsky and Glenda Jackson as his wife. And I was a middle teenager, I think, at this time, and we knew that there was nudity in it. And so I went, to be completely candid with you, I went to see the movie For the Nudity and came out being absolutely in love with Tchaikovsky. So this is it, Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto.

Presenter25:22

The opening of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. One performed by Stephen Hoff with the Minnesota Orchestra conducted by Osmo Vanska.

Presenter25:33

Lee Child, by nineteen ninety five then you were married with a a child, a daughter and a mortgage. You were forty and you didn't have a job, but you had started writing what would become the first Jack Reacher book, Killing Flaw, and you were determined that it would be a success. Where did your confidence come from?

Lee Child25:50

I do not know. I think it was a ludicrous position to take. But I I conned myself basically. In order to give myself the energy and the confidence to do it, I just said, Yeah, of course this is going to work. Like night follows day. It's going to be a success.

Presenter26:04

And what about your parents? Did you tell them what you were planning?

Lee Child26:08

I didn't tell them. I didn't tell them I'd lost my job because I just knew that would be like back to the nineteen thirties for them. So I didn't tell them. And then next time they were passing by, they dropped in.

Lee Child26:21

And I said, Oh, by the way,

Lee Child26:22

I lost my job. And my father said, Well, what are you going to do now?

Lee Child26:27

I said I'm writing a novel.

Lee Child26:29

And he said, I'll bet you ten thousand to one it's a failure.

Lee Child26:33

And objectively, he was quite correct, you know. But this is what I'm saying: there was so little feeling and emotion there.

Speaker 426:40

Um

Lee Child26:41

He would say something that was actuarily correct.

Speaker 426:43

Correct.

Speaker 126:44

Uh

Lee Child26:44

without thinking how it would land on the person listening to it. But by then, of course, I was fireproof. I was you know, I'd had that all my life. I was used to

Speaker 126:52

Yeah.

Lee Child26:54

lack of encouragement, which actually turned out to be a pretty good

Lee Child26:58

preparation for being a writer because, you know, it's the stumbling blocks at every corner and difficulties at every step along the way. So if you're not used to constant praise and encouragement, you're better equipped for it, I think.

Presenter27:10

Yeah. So you've described the Reacher story of revenge stories, but this was personal, wasn't it? Not just for Jack Reacher, but for you.

Lee Child27:19

It was, and early on, I mean, it was very explicitly revenge about having been done down, I wanted to succeed to show them.

Lee Child27:27

But it was also petty revenge that I would name the bad guys after the management that fired me.

Presenter27:33

I think that was eight books later. So the early days.

Lee Child27:36

Yeah, it lasted about eight books, until I ran through them all. Eventually everybody got their justice, yeah.

Presenter27:36

That's it about a

Presenter27:43

And speaking of names, what about Reach's name? Where did it come from?

Lee Child27:46

The weakest thing about my writing is coming up with character names. And I remember one Friday night, my wife said, we've got to go to the supermarket. You've got to help me carry stuff home. Because she's a tiny woman, my wife. And I remember two things about that. First of all, feeling frustrated, because I was really looking forward to sitting down and starting writing the next morning. And that sort taught me something. I thought, yeah, this could work, you know, if I feel like this, or if I feel frustrated if I can't get to it. And the other thing happened at the supermarket, because every time...

Speaker 128:16

Yeah.

Lee Child28:23

Literally, every time I go to the supermarket, there is always a little old lady who says, oh, you're a nice tall gentleman. Will you reach me that can? And so Jane, who was putting on a brave face, being very supportive, she said, you know what, if this writing gig doesn't work out, you could be a reacher in a supermarket.

Speaker 128:38

Can I

Lee Child28:43

And I thought, that's a good name. And so that was the Asda in Kendall. And they've made their own little blue plaque.

Presenter28:51

I love that.

Lee Child28:52

Jack Reacher was born here.

Presenter28:54

And talking about that that desire for revenge, that need for something to kick against and also that sense of kind of proving your parents wrong and and needing that that kind of single focus that you had to develop.

Presenter29:07

Do you always need something to kick against? And how does that work when you become successful? How do you maintain that?

Lee Child29:14

It it is vital, not just for the writer, but for the reader. Because you know what what is the purpose of fiction really? It's to get what you don't get in real life. And people rage about things. Everybody's got

Lee Child29:29

You know, a lousy boss here or there somewhere in the chain of command. Everybody is annoyed or frustrated about something, and they need a sense of revenge as well. And of course, they can't get it in real life. But you can read a book where Reacher shoots the bad guy in the head. And even though you know it's wrong, at a gut level, at some kind of elemental level of your brain, you just love it. You thrill to it. It's consolation for all the frustration you have to put up with in your regular week. What would you like to do if you could get away with it? And read Reacher books. You know what I would like to do if I could get away with it.

Presenter30:08

I don't quite know how to take that, having read a few. Lee, it's time for some more music. Your fifth choice today. What's next?

Lee Child30:15

I've chosen Joe Pass playing his own composition, Joe's Blues. He does a little experiment where he plays his guitar in numerous different styles. In other words, he demonstrates, he illustrates all the different approaches you can take to musical phrasing and note choice and so on. So I thought I'll put this one in because it's a sort of composite for a dozen songs that I really love.

Presenter31:45

Joe's Blues by Joe Pass. Lee Child, we've talked about the origin of Jack Reacher's name. What about yours, I wonder? Your real name, as we know, is Jim Grant. Where did Lee Child come from?

Lee Child31:56

Well, years before we had been in New York visiting Jane's parents and we were there all summer and we'd gone to see a show on Broadway and we were heading back on the last train out to the suburbs where they lived and I was next to this guy that turned out to be from Texas and he started talking and I talked answered and he noticed my accent being foreign and apropos of nothing he made the connection and he said I've got a European car.

Speaker 132:05

Right. Mm-hmm.

Lee Child32:26

Back then in the nineteen seventies, Renault of France sold in America. And what we called the Renault V here, they called Le Car over there in order to make it sound chic and Parisian. But he mispronounced it. He said, I've got Lee Carr.

Lee Child32:44

And it's a universal truth that in writers' households there are constant word games. And so from that moment onwards everything was Lee this and Lee that. And when our daughter was born she was Lee baby and then as she grew up she was Lee child. And so I thought that was a sentimental thing for me but it was also smart business because when I started in the middle 90s everything was still physical and analog and people browsed in bookstores. And in the West we browse from left to right and we get fairly fatigued fairly quickly. And it was proven statistically that the letter C for an author's name was optimum because people got that far they still had attention, they weren't burned out yet, weren't bored. And there were extraordinary number of bestsellers beginning with C authors. So I thought that'll work on that level too.

Presenter33:41

Did you show the book to anyone while you were working on it?

Lee Child33:44

I did not. I uh I wanted to get it finished and then I sent it to my brother Andrew for h his opinion'cause he was the only person I knew who really read thrillers the same way I did. Uh and I still don't like I never show a book to anybody before it's finished. I don't like showing it to anybody.

Presenter34:00

It's not about them.

Lee Child34:03

I really can't explain it to people that the editor will say.

Lee Child34:08

Wouldn't it be better if this happened after that? And I'll say, yeah, probably, but it didn't.

Presenter34:14

Uh

Lee Child34:15

And, you know, to change it.

Presenter34:15

You know, to change it.

Lee Child34:18

Yeah, absolutely. This is what happened. And to change it feels dishonest to me.

Presenter34:24

And what did Andrew say? That must have been a a big thing for him to to read your book and to give it the thumbs up or thumbs down.

Lee Child34:26

Big thing.

Lee Child34:30

Nightmare for him. You know, he was either going to have to say, Sorry, mate, this is rubbish or he he he had to say, Yeah, it's worth it and launch me into an uncertain future that might crash and burn. So it was hard for him, yeah.

Presenter34:43

Luckily he liked it.

Lee Child34:44

You did.

Presenter34:45

And you picked out an agent from the Writers and Artists Your Book. What made you choose him?

Lee Child34:50

This guy was the only guy that used the word commercial and he was the only guy who actually mentioned in figures how much he had gotten for his last first-time author. You know, I wasn't looking to win the booker prize or, you know, nothing fancy. I wanted a down and dirty commercial agent that would make me a living. So I sent it to him. Well, in fact, I sent him the first half because I hadn't written the second half yet, because I had heard I was laboring under a misapprehension. I had heard that publishing is really slow. But this guy, he reads everything the day it comes in. So he read it instantly and sent me a postcard. This is how long ago it was. You know, not a... Email wasn't even invented yet. Didn't call. He just sent a postcard saying, yes, I like this. Please send me the other half. And I hadn't written it yet. So I sent him a postcard saying, I'm just making a couple of changes to the second half. And then I wrote it as fast as I could and sent it in.

Presenter35:51

To what extent would those pressured circumstances that you were under, because you were doing it to make money, allow you to kind of have the luxury of focussing on the craft of writing?

Lee Child36:02

Well, because the craft is all there is. If you're going to make it work, it has to be appealing to everybody. And there is an enormous amount of craft in that. And the only thing that slightly annoys me about the book world is the rather lazy assumption that writing a book that is going to a highfalutin book that's going to attract a very small audience is somehow harder than writing a popular book that's going to attract an enormous audience.

Presenter36:34

Lee Child, it's time to go to the music. Your sixth choice. What are you taking to the island next, and why?

Lee Child36:40

The Birmingham Connection is right here because Led Zeppelin, half of Led Zeppelin, ripped in the Midlands. And I would see Robert Plant and John Bonham around at various clubs in various different ad hoc bands that they were in. And if a Martian came down from Mars and said, what is this thing called rock music? you would play him a Zeppelin track and you might well play him this which just has some of the greatest guitar sound on it. My friend James Patterson, the writer, says that this track is Why We Were Born With Ears. This is the Lemon Song by Led Zeppelin.

Speaker 437:26

I should have quit you!

Speaker 437:31

Long camera

Presenter37:47

Led Zevlin and The Lemon Song. Lee Child, what did your parents make of your success?

Lee Child37:53

If you go back to my feeling that they had us in order to sort of bolster their own status as trophy children, they liked it later. My mother ignored the whole thing until one time she was in the hairdresser and in the next chair along they were having an animated conversation about how wonderful Jack Reacher was. And she thought, oh, maybe there's something in this. I mean, it's a terrible thing to say, really, and a mean emotion. But the key for me was they needed to move house. And they wanted to buy the show house in development, but it had to be done quick, probably quicker than they could sell their own house in the normal way. So they phoned me up and asked for a loan.

Speaker 138:28

Uh

Speaker 438:28

Uh

Speaker 138:28

Yeah.

Lee Child38:35

And I thought that is, you know, massive turning point in any family's life, you know, when the parents ask the kid for a loan, but also in my particular life where they say, yeah, we have to face this, that he's a success now.

Speaker 138:40

Yeah.

Presenter38:40

Now on the

Lee Child38:47

Uh

Presenter38:47

And did that allow you to release something that you've been holding on to emotionally?

Lee Child38:51

A little bit, yeah, a little bit, but it took, I mean, on that subject, it took a long, long time. And when I stepped back from writing, you know, my brother now continues the series. When I stepped back from it, I did it partly because I was old and hypersensitive to the idea of the artist running out of energy and just phoning it in. I never wanted to do that, so I quit. And people said, are you happy now you've retired? And my answer to that is no, I retired because now I'm happy. It had taken me, you know, literally 24, 25 books to feel, yeah, you know what, you are a worthwhile person, you have achieved something, you are okay.

Presenter39:37

That's so interesting. What what was the turning point and why did it come at that then, do you think?

Lee Child39:41

Just the accumulation, I think, of because it's been completely bizarre.

Presenter39:44

It's because it's been

Presenter39:49

As you mentioned, Lee, in twenty twenty you started thinking about retirement and you began handing over the Reacher franchise to your younger brother Andrew and you wrote the next few books together then. Were you ever tempted to kill Reacher off and just walk away for good, make a clean break, rather than handing over the the character to continue?

Lee Child40:08

I was initially, yeah. That was my assumption that, you know, obviously it had to come to an end sooner or later.

Lee Child40:15

And I was in a quandary. I was upset. You know, this was going to come to an end. And I started fantasizing, wouldn't it be great to be, you go down to the crossroads at midnight and you sell your soul for a magic potion that would make you 15 years younger, full of the old energy, full of the ideas, full of the stamina that you used to have. But then I thought, wait a minute, I know somebody who is me 15 years ago, my younger brother.

Presenter40:43

who was already an established author.

Lee Child40:44

He was. He was already he'd done nine thrillers of his own and he was he's a good writer and he he and I shared the same upbringing, we share the same DNA, we're as close as two humans can be to the same person. So I thought, I'll ask him, does he want to continue it?

Presenter40:59

How is writing together?

Lee Child41:01

You know, writing together was impossible. It's such an individual thing. And so what we did basically is just in the broadest terms discuss kick ideas around, you know, what about this? What about that?

Presenter41:15

So who does the the lion's share of the writing?

Lee Child41:18

Oh, he did at that point out of the collaboration, yeah. I mean I wasn't going to collaborate and do all the typing as well.

Presenter41:26

Some critics have been a bit dissatisfied with the co-written books. I mean, does that bother you?

Lee Child41:31

Uh

Lee Child41:32

I mean, I think it illustrates a thing that had its pre-echo in the Tom Cruise controversy about the movies.

Presenter41:41

So when he was cast a uh as a as someone who isn't as tall as Richard.

Lee Child41:43

Yeah, you know, in other words, this belongs to the reader and they do not want it messed with. And whatever you do, whatever you do, it's perceived as messing with it and negative. But Andrew co-writing, I think objectively speaking, they're just as good. I think that it was inevitable, though, that there would be disgruntlement because something had changed.

Presenter42:10

It's time for some more music, Lee Child. Your seventh choice, please. What are we going to hear next?

Lee Child42:15

I had a classical music over the

Lee Child42:18

Decades, definitely my favorite is Beethoven. But when people think about Beethoven, me too included, you start thinking about the big, huge, the hugeness of it. You know, the Ninth Symphony, huge. The Fifth Symphony, bombastic. But I've picked one of the smallest Beethovens that you can pick. This is a man desperately in love, just loving every second of being in love, but also scared that it's not being returned. This is the smallest Beethoven, but the most poignant, I think, ever, for at least

Presenter43:53

Beethoven's Fur Release performed by Lang Lang. So what did you do on September the first when you didn't have to start a new Reacher book for the first time?

Lee Child44:04

I very deliberately and consciously lay down on the sofa and thought today is a day of rest. And my wife sneaked around in the garden and took a picture through the window of me in repose and that became a kind of symbol that it was supposed to be all over. It hasn't quite worked out. I haven't spent every day horizontal, but I do as many as I can.

Presenter44:26

And did it feel good?

Lee Child44:28

It did. It felt like job done, mission accomplished.

Presenter44:32

It's been all change for you over the last few years, Lee. You've had homes all over the world for many years, but after twenty six years of mostly being based in the States, you moved back to the UK last year following the reelection of Donald Trump. How have you found being back here?

Lee Child44:47

I'm really enjoying it. You know, it is an odd thing after 26 or almost 27 years that you come back to a different country. You know, it has totally changed in lots and lots of ways. Very positive, really.

Presenter44:57

Yeah.

Presenter45:01

What are you seeing that that you think is positive?

Presenter45:04

I think

Lee Child45:05

You know, I don't want to be too heavy about this either, but the acceptance of the reality that people have mental health problems, I think is hugely important. Because, you know, look back on my life. I started out in Birmingham, as we said, inarticulate sort of place, emotionally distant sort of a place. And people suffered, you know, they really did. But there was no potential, no possibility, no mechanism by which they could say that. And I remember something that Simone Biles, you know, the U.S. gymnast at the Tokyo Olympics. She had that problem and she said, it's okay not to be okay. And I wish somebody had told me that as a kid. It's okay if you feel screwed up. It's not your fault. It's not a weakness in you. I think that's a hugely encouraging thing that people are able to say, I'm not okay, whereas we were never able to say that before.

Speaker 445:41

Yeah.

Presenter46:10

Lee, it's almost time to cast you away to our desert island. How do you think you'll get on there? Are you practical?

Lee Child46:16

I am fairly practical. Yeah, I can fix things. I can do more than you think. Yeah.

Presenter46:21

What will your survival strategy be on the island?

Lee Child46:24

I have no strategy because as long as I've got enough I can sleep somewhere and eat and have something to drink, I never get bored. If you've got an active imagination, it is not possible to be bored. I would literally lie there just dreaming stuff up, thinking about things, writing imaginary conversations in my head. I would be fine. A lot of the time I would enjoy my solitude. I'm a very solitary person. I'm probably the best equipped castaway ever.

Presenter46:50

Well, one more disc before we send you away to your island. Your final choice today, what's it gonna be?

Lee Child46:55

This one is completely typical of Mia music that I heard it randomly years, I mean literally decades ago on BBC Radio 3, as it happens. I thought this was the loveliest sound that I'd heard for a long time. And it had a knock-on effect, actually. It was because I'd heard it and remembered it, I used it on a TV trailer that I made at Granada. And it played on the network, including on the London stations. And somebody at Saatchi and Satchi heard it. And by a long chain of calling and trying to get in touch, found out what it was and used it for themselves for a very famous series of commercials. But I have no clue what it's about. I don't know anything about it other than this is just the most gorgeous sound. And this is from the Delib opera Lacme. It's the flower duet.

Speaker 447:53

Lord be made your name, just fire, all the song.

Speaker 448:03

Three morning, three old man.

Speaker 448:09

Cause this one is

Speaker 448:27

The baby is sad.

Speaker 448:44

It was, it was, for sure.

Presenter48:54

The flower duet from De Leibes' opera Lacme, performed by Renee Fleming and Season Graham, with the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Sebastian Lang Lessing.

Presenter49:04

So Lee, child, it's time to send you away to the island. I'm going to give you the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can take one other book with you. What will it be?

Lee Child49:12

Well

Lee Child49:14

I won't read the Bible. I already read it. You do not need any other books than the complete works of William Shakespeare. Everything that any reader or any human needs is right in there. So I would take a battered paperback copy of Killing Floor with me, just to remind myself that I'm at the very bottom of the same trade as William Shakespeare.

Presenter49:40

So the first Reacher book.

Lee Child49:42

Yeah.

Presenter49:42

Any particular edition? Would it be, you know, have you got the the first one that came off the press? I've got all of them.

Lee Child49:47

I've got all of those, yeah, but I wouldn't take that. I'd go to a charity shop and find the most worn out copy, battered, creased. Yeah, because that's what they're for. You know, they're for people to consume.

Presenter49:53

Ground mode.

Presenter49:56

Yeah.

Presenter49:59

Fantastic. You can also have a luxury item. What would you like?

Lee Child50:02

Oh the only luxury item I really like are watches. Plain looking. I don't like all those multiple dials. I don't like automatic movements. I don't like quartz or battery. I like the sort of old fashioned watch you have to wind up. Wind it when you get up, wind it when you go to bed and just wear it.

Presenter50:22

And finally, Lee, which one of the eight tracks that you've shared with us today would you save from the waves first, if you had to?

Lee Child50:28

Yeah. Oh gosh.

Lee Child50:30

I would probably save the Miles Davis. I'm not putting myself in the same bracket as Miles Davis, but I've read a lot about how this album was made and they just got together and made it up as they went along in a couple of days. And that's exactly how I write. So I would recognize the feeling behind that.

Presenter50:49

Lee Child, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Lee Child50:53

It's been a real pleasure to be here.

Presenter51:16

Hello, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Lee, and I'm sure that Miles Davis will inspire him creatively on the island. We've cast away so many writers, including Margaret Atwood, Bernardine Evaristo, and David Nichols. The studio manager for today's programme was Giles Aspen, the assistant producer was Christine Pavlovsky, the executive production coordinator was Susie Roylance, the content editor was Mugabe Turia, and the producer was Paula McGinley. Next time, my guest will be the actor and director Kate Winslet. I do hope you'll join us.

Speaker 452:15

I'm Philippe Sands and from BBC Radio 4 and the history podcast, this is The Arrest, a race against time to apprehend a seemingly untouchable man.

Lee Child52:25

He had filed a flight plan at either six: thirty in the morning.

Speaker 452:29

A former dictator accused of crimes against humanity and I found Laura there and she says they killed Dad.

Speaker 452:38

We cannot go in history having been those who abandoned the Spanish victim.

Speaker 152:45

And there is General Pinochet sitting in his bed in his striped pajamas. I thought, oh my god, it really is him.

Speaker 452:51

The Arrest.

Speaker 452:53

Listen first on BBC Sounds.