The day finally arrived.
As readers of this blog know, I am a big fan of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher book series. I own all of his published works, and just recently completed reading all books in the author’s repertoire.
Readers have a friend in the University of Nebraska at Omaha. For the past three years, the university has hosted the Marion Marsh Brown Writers Lecture Series — bringing world-renowned authors to our city for a discussion of their life and work.
This year’s featured author was Lee Child.
The event is held at Baxter Arena, which allows the university ample capacity for the event. The tickets are free to the public (a terrific outreach opportunity for the University of Nebraska at Omaha).
Child was introduced by Dr. Mike Hilt (Interim Dean of the College of Communications, Fine Arts and Media at UNO). My wife and I had Dr. Hilt as a professor years ago when we were journalism majors at the university in the 1990s. Hilt is a top-notch individual — and a fan of Child’s novels. Hilt also conducted a Q&A conversation with the author during the April 11 program.
Lee Child is an entertaining speaker. I’ve watched a number of his “author talks” on YouTube over the years.
Child never wanted to be a writer. He wanted to be an entertainer. He dreamed of being part of the Beatles when he was nine (a dream likely shared by a number of kids his age in Britain during that era).
When Child found himself out of work at 39 (laid off from a job he loved with Granada TV), he decided to try his hand at writing novels. The television network gave him the equivalent of 7 months pay as part of his severance package — so that’s how long he gave himself to write a book. He said he sold the novel with a week to spare. That novel was “Killing Floor” — published in 1997.
The author is an avid reader. He told the audience at Baxter Arena that he averages reading a book a day (two days if it is a particularly long book). He quipped that when he was a kid in the industrial heart of England, he’d have a book in one pocket, and a knife in the other.
Child set “Killing Floor” in the United States because it gave his protagonist — Jack Reacher — room to roam. The author emigrated to the United States in 1998.
Child joked that he did his research on the setting for “Killing Floor” by watching the movie “My Cousin Vinny,” figuring the movie’s Alabama setting was a close enough facsimile for Georgia.
The author eschews outlines and hard research for his novels, instead preferring to let the creativity flow. “For a writer, your whole life is research,” he says.
Sept. 1 is the start date for all of Child’s novels. It is a sentimental date for him because it is when he started writing his first novel. He believes in the principle that "the more disciplined you are as a writer, the luckier you get."
(He told our audience that he just finished his manuscript for novel #23 last Thursday).
Child doesn’t believe in protecting his main character. He feels it is a trap that victimizes novelists who write series fiction. As a result, he tries to keep the character of Jack Reacher at an “arms length” distance so readers will like him more.
Child told the audience that there is only one person Jack Reacher is afraid of, and that person is the author himself.
Lee Child is tall, with fair skin and sandy brown hair — much like his protagonist, only without the bulk.
He said he’s been asked at events why he’s so thin. He mused that his two favorite food groups are nicotine and caffeine. He estimates he drinks 36 mugs of coffee per day, and keeps three identical drip machines handy so he has a fresh brew ready to go.
Child has set novels in Nebraska over the course of his 22 published tomes. His novel “Worth Dying For” was set exclusively in the state. He said he was a bit nervous about coming to the state because the “muscle” the bad guys hired in that novel were ex-Nebraska Cornhusker football players.
The Marion Marsh Brown Writers Lecture Series is sponsored by the Paul Brown family. I have had the unique distinction of doing web design work for some of the businesses their family has been involved with over the years. It think it is terrific that family’s generosity has resulted in this series of author events.
I’ll be excited to see what author is featured at next year’s event. For what it’s worth, I’d love to see Harlan Coben in Omaha at some point down the road...
Leading up to this event, I filled in the gaps of the Lee Child books I had yet to read. Here are the links to those reviews:
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