tale told for centuries in a lot of cultures, that of the wandering stranger coming to town to root out the bad guys: the gunslinger in the old West; the medieval knight-errant; and the Ronin of Japan, samurai who have been cast out and forced to roam the country. It’s a universal concept. “I first thought Reacher would appeal mostly to men. But the majorit of my readers are women, which is really interesting. Even in the 21st century, women struggle to express themselves, they have to shout that much louder. It is usually women who are busier at work, holding families together, making the tough deci- sions. So I think they strongly identify with the fantasy of walk- ing away from commitments. And being able to kick the crap out of other people.”
C
hild now spends most of the year in New York Cit and Wyoming (his wife is American), while Reacher’s adven- tures take place in the US. “I had to give Reacher space
I HAD TO GIVE REACHER SPACE TO WANDER. I COULDN’T SET THE BOOKS IN ENGLAND... WE ARE SO CLOSE TOGETHER
to wander,” Child explains. “There’s no frontier in Britain. I couldn’t set the books in England, where we are so close together and everyone knows each other’s business.” For the past couple of years, the literati have been taking notice. Malcolm Gladwell raved about Child in the New Yorker; Margaret Drabble said he is the writer she wished she could be. This is welcome, but not necessarily what gets him up in the morning. “I only really care about my readers,” he says. “But I’ve always been irritated by the lazy assumption among critics that what I do is somehow easier than what ‘literary’ novelists do. It’s actu- ally quite the reverse—to write something to please millions is obviously harder than doing something that only has to please thousands. I also think genre writers have a greater responsibil- it. A literary reader has no expectation that everything they read is going to be great. If you pick up the latest Julian Barnes and it doesn’t work, you go on to the next one. Many genre readers read one or two books a year— give them a bad book and they may stop reading altogether.” Child is 64 and originally planned on stopping the series aſter 20 books, yet the 24th Reacher, Blue Moon, is out in October. But the end may be nigh: “I’m born for work, and not working would feel weird.
But I’m very aware that you’ve got to get out at the right time; you don’t want to be the embarrassing guy who sticks around two books too long. [Ending the series] is going to be up for grabs from now on. I had been thinking of killing Reacher off. In a literary sense, a character like that deserves a noble end. But I’ve learned that would be gratuitously cruel to the readers who love him. Maybe it should be a metaphorical killing: Reacher on his way to the bus depot to get out of town, then he stops and thinks ‘You know what, I’ll stay here.’ Then he goes back, adopts a dog and rents a house.”
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