SUNDAY, JULY 18, 2010 Interview Richard North Patterson: A lawyer who found his thrills


Novelist revels in ‘the greatest job in the world’


by Neely Tucker


Richard North Patterson — lean, pleasant, sandy-haired, jeans and a wheat-colored sport coat, prefers you call him Ric — is prompt for lunch at Bourbon Steak in the Four Seasons Ho- tel in Georgetown. It’s on the official publication date for his 18th book, “In the Name of Honor,” now adding to the millions of copies of his books already in print. He’ll have the salad and the beef tar- tare with iced tea, thanks. This could have been your basic


Washington power lunch if he’d lived out his life as the Securities and Ex- change Commission lawyer he once was (he was the agency’s liaison to the Wa- tergate special prosecutor). Instead, he’s the rare D.C. attorney who gave up lawyering for life as a novelist — and got a pay bump for it.


“I was the unintended beneficiary of


Scott Turow’s ‘Presumed Innocent’ and John Grisham’s ‘The Firm,’ ” he said, wryly. “Publishers were looking for an- other lawyer with a book. I had just switched jobs, taken three months’ leave and written a book, really, just be- cause I wanted to. So there it was.” That was 1993’s “Degree of Guilt,” ac- tually his fifth book. The earlier four, written years before, died after small print runs. Riding the post-Grisham boom, “Degree” sold “a few hundred thousand in hardcover and a few mil- lion in paperback.” Seventeen years and a wildly suc- cessful career later, he’s back in Wash- ington for a day or two, to have this chat and to see his son, Brooke, and his daughter-in-law-to-be, Maura. The young couple have just gotten engaged.


His wife, Nancy Clair, came down with him from their home on Martha’s Vine- yard. They also have a place in his home town of San Francisco and, in 2008, added one more in Cabo San Lucas, at the tip of the Baja Peninsula. “I always wanted a place where I could have a martini and watch the sun go down over a body of water.” He has five children (“Nancy is a very


involved stepmom”), and he said they finally got the house in Mexico after paying for his adult kids’ college and graduate school expenses. He wanted them to be able to pursue careers with- out worrying about crushing college loans. He shook his head at this paren- tal good fortune, mentioning the tried- and-true adage that you’re only as hap- py as your least happy child. He got started on the writing career,


in fact, because he wanted to stay at home with his kids and leave the law (“annoying people for money”) behind. It was 1976, his national law firm had him based in Birmingham, Ala., and he was leaving home one morning on a trip to Denver. Brooke, then just a year old, was leaning against the screen door of the house, waving goodbye. “I was immensely sad and thought, ‘Why am I leaving?’ ” He got on the plane and wondered


what else he could do to make a living. He read Ross McDonald novels as a habit, 17 in a row at one point, and, there on the plane, wondered whether he could write like that, too — lean, first-person, thriller-based narratives that were fun and entertaining to read. He roughed out a first chapter on the plane. It was the basis of his first book, “The Lasko Tangent,” published three years later. He’s 63 now and writes big political books about various subjects around the globe. Researches the heck out of them. He went to Nigeria for a book about oil and international politics, “Eclipse.” He went to the West Bank and had clan-


“It’s good to surprise


your readers with the end of a book, but it’s a sin to surprise yourself.”


PATTERSON CLARK/THE WASHINGTON POST ILLUSTRATION BY


destine meetings with Palestinian mil- itants for “Exile.” Went on the campaign trail in 2004 for a book about presi- dential politics, “The Race.” When writ- ing “Protect and Defend,” about a wom- an nominated to be chief justice of the United States (but who was also entan- gled in an abortion rights case), he in- terviewed Robert Dole, who had just left the Senate, to ask how he’d bring down such a nominee, then went to the Oval Office to interview Bill Clinton, to ask what a president would do to rescue such a nominee. “I walked out of the White House that


day and thought, ‘I’ve got the greatest job in the world.’ ” The new book, “In the Name of Hon-


or,” is about two military families and the murder of a soldier returning from Iraq with post-traumatic stress dis- order. The best shorthand to describe the illness, Patterson said, came from a Vietnam veteran, who explained that if you put a cat in your back yard and spent the night lobbing grenades off the patio, “in the morning you’ll have a dif- ferent cat.” He’s an excellent lunch partner. Wit-


ty, energetic, down-to-earth, gently self- deprecating, asks good questions, tells good stories. While researching “The Race,” he met Barack Obama after his landmark speech at the Democratic Na- tional Convention in 2004. They had a terrific conversation, he said. Obama was well informed about almost every- thing. This man who writes big political books, this expert who interviews peo- ple in the Oval Office, told his wife, “This is the sanest politician I’ve ever met. There’s no way he’ll run for presi- dent in 2008.” A head-shaking laugh. “That’s why I’m not in that business.” He’s friends with big names who are


in that business, though. William Co- hen, the former senator and defense secretary, and his wife, Janet Langhart Cohen, have been close friends for years and are hosting a book party for him Thursday. John McCain wrote a blurb


for the new book. After “Eclipse,” which was partly based on the execution of ac- tivist and writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, Clin- ton called him to discuss the real-life role he had played in the attempt to save the man’s life. “He’s been really great to me,” Patterson said of Clinton. “A really good reader.” He talked a little bit about writing.


He dictates notes quickly after research interviews to avoid losing the informa- tion in the crush of reporting. Books are studiously plotted and outlined before writing. “It’s good to surprise your read- ers with the end of a book, but it’s a sin to surprise yourself.” Chapter notes and outlines are kept in a manila folder, then pulled out for writing into a rough draft, which is first penned in long- hand. He’s so efficient that he has finished


his next two books: “The Devil’s Light,” about al-Qaeda and the theft of a nu- clear weapon, and “Fall From Grace,” about a “not entirely lovely novelist who dies on Martha’s Vineyard.” He suffers from seasonal affective disorder, he said, and avoids winter at all costs. “I once spent an entire year in Martha’s Vineyard,” he said. “By Febru- ary, I was like Jack Nicholson in ‘The Shining.’ ”


Since his father’s death, he calls his mother every day. A few friends have died, people who “seemed permanent,” which left him with the sobering re- minder that “an infinite amount of time and good health” do not exist. And then, somehow, Nancy, his wife, arrived at the table. She’s thin, energet- ic, an international educational consul- tant who travels almost as much as he does. You steal a glance at your watch while they chat and are astonished that two hours have passed, that it’s a little after 3 in the afternoon. The bill paid, they get up to go, walk- ing out of the lobby. In front of them are a waiting car, a summer on the Vine- yard and visits from family. tuckern@washpost.com


Engagements | Weddings | Anniversaries ——Engagements——


To place an announcement: email: weddings@washpost.com phone: 202-334-5736 fax: 202-334-7188 ——Engagements——


Lillian Cooper Puntereri&


Nathaniel Thomas Collier —May 2011—


Nichole Danielle Jimenez& Jason Travis Cloud —April 2011—


——Engagements——


Nancy French Bunch& Constantine Basil Gogos —October 2010—


Mr. and Mrs. George Henry Bunch III of Columbia, South Carolina announce the engagement of their daughter, Nancy French Bunch, also of Columbia, to Constantine Basil Gogos of Washington,D.C. He is the son of Mrs. Basil Constantine Gogos of Washington,D.C. and the late Mr. Gogos.


The bride-elect attended Heathwood Hall Episcopal School and graduated from the University of the South,Sewanee,Tennessee, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology. Miss Bunch, a clothing designer, is the owner of frenchieshirts, LLC.


Nicole Jimenez and Travis Cloud Lillian Cooper Puntereri and Nathaniel Thomas Collier


Mr. and Mrs. Marc Anthony Puntereri of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter, Lillian Cooper Puntereri, to Mr. Nathaniel Thomas Collier, son of Ms. Millicent Olin Miller of Alexandria, Virginia, and Mr.Thomas Cleveland Collier, Jr., ofWashington,D.C.


Miss Puntereri is a graduate of Hilton Head Preparatory School and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History at the University of Virginia. She is currently a Design Coordinator for the Pottery Barn Product Development Office of Williams- Sonoma, Inc., in San Francisco, California.


Mr. Collier is a graduate of Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia,and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Spanish from the University of Virginia, and a Masters of Business Administration from the Darden School at the University. He is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, New York. Mr. Collier is currently an Assistant Marketing Manager for Ernest and Julio Gallo Winery, Inc., in Modesto, California.


A May wedding is planned.


Patricia LarkinWilson& Andrew Colella —October 2010—


Ms. Elizabeth Ardrey Wilson of Bethesda, Maryland and Mr. Francis Edmond Wilson, Jr., of Swansboro, North Carolina, announce the engagement of their daughter Patricia Larkin, to Andrew Colella, son of Mrs. Helen Colella of Evans, Colorado and the late Mr. Edward Colella. Miss Wilson received her undergraduate degree from Penn State University and her Master of Arts and Specialist degrees for School Psychology from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. She is currently employed as a school psychologist at Smoky Hill High School in Aurora, Colorado.Mr. Colella received his undergraduate degree and his Master of Arts degree in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Colorado. He is currently employed as a science teacher at Smoky Hill High School in Aurora, Colorado. An October wedding in Denver, Colorado is planned.


Colonel (US Army retired) Robert Jimenez and Sandra Jimenez of Vienna, Virginia are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter Nichole Danielle Jimenez to Jason Travis Cloud, son of retired police detective James Riddel and Nancy Riddel also of Vienna, Virginia. Nichole is a fifth grade special education teacher at Dranesville Elementary School in Fairfax County and Jason is a telecommunications engineer for HELP COmm of Manassas, Virginia. Both reside in the Centreville, Virginia area. The wedding is planned for April 2011.


Wendy Northrop&Scott Clark —2010—


Robert and Jill Northrop of Rockville, Maryland and Ed and Kelly Clark of La Palma, Cali- fornia are proud to announce the engagement of Wendy Northrop and Scott Clark. Scott proposed to Wendy at Manoa Falls in Hawaii on July 1st.


The bride-to-be earned a B.S. degree from the Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism at West Virginia University in advertising/English in 2005. She is employed by Concerro, Inc.


Wendy Northrop and Scott Clark


The prospective groom gradu- ated from the U.S. Naval Acad- emy in 2007 with a degree in economics. He has been deployed twice and is currently assigned to USS Bonhomme Richard. He is a LTJG serving as a SurfaceWarfare Officer.


PLANNING A WEDDING? FREE COPY REGISTER NOW to receive your


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washingtonpost.com/ weddingplanner


Announce your Engagement,Wedding or Anniversary in The Washington Post’s Sunday Arts & Style Section. (Birthdays, Graduations & other Special Events have moved to Thursdays.) You may provide text and photos. Color is available. Many packages include keepsake plaques of your announcement.


To place an order and for more information, including rates: Contact Alexa McMahon at: weddings@washpost.com Or call 202.334.5736, toll free 877.POST.WED, fax 202.334.7188


All materials must be received by Monday at 1 p.m.


The groom-elect attendedWoodberry Forest School and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee. He is in commercial real estate with the Lincoln Property Company inWashington,D.C.


An October wedding is planned in Sewanee, Tennessee followed by a honeymoon in Paris, France.


——Weddings——


Sheri Lea Schamerhorn Marries Theodore Jones III —April 22, 2010—


KLMNO


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Sheri Lea Schamerhorn and Theodore Jones III


Sheri Lea Schamerhorn and Theodore Jones III are pleased to announce their marriage. The couple was married on April 22 at Meadowlark Gardens in Vienna, Virginia. Sheri was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and manages her own business, flipping houses. Tad was born in Bath, Maine. He received a Bachelor of Arts in history from MaryWashington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and is manager of customer service at Fairfax Water. The couple enjoyed a honeymoon of white water kayaking and mountain hiking, and now reside in Alexandria, Virginia.


Declare Your Love!


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