Reacher’s biceps are not irrelevant to his following, but his strongest muscle is his brain. Martin says that I considered him “a bit superficial”, and Child replies, “I’m going to have to start introducing you as my superficial friend.” What I actually wrote – and stand by – was that Martin, in following Child’s over-insistence on Reacher as the avenger with the knockout punch, missed just how much the series is about the character’s reasoning, erudition and Blue Peter-ish knowhow (mixing salt and ketchup to clean metal, and so on). There’s a scene in With Child where Child and Martin discuss the ambivalent piece I wrote for the New Statesman in 2015 about Martin’s earlier book Reacher Said Nothing. Just as important, though scanted by Child’s account, were the careful limits placed on Reacher’s tough-guy credentials. Somewhere in the background – though too distant to qualify for the 17-strong list – is James Bond, who as Child noted in The Hero, is also a man of rank engaged in “dispensing rough justice.” Among them are the hunter-gatherer, Popeye after spinach, King Kong (but with less hair), Desperate Dan, and Michael Connelly’s LA detective Hieronymus Bosch, who, having a job, a home, and a fancy name, provided Grant with a source of counter-inspiration. In With Child (2019), an account of the book tour for Child’s 20th novel Make Me (2015), the academic Andy Martin attempts to identify all of Reacher’s influences and precursors. “No middle name,” in the words of Killing Floor. He would need to be “unfeasibly tough… invulnerable”. Central to achieving Grant’s desired effect was the figure initially identified as “H” (for hero), and soon to become Jack Reacher who, after retiring as a major in the US military police, becomes a “hobo” and vigilante. He didn’t exactly get to beat up his boss, but he has certainly been able to survive without a job – and launched his new life with a book, Killing Floor (1997), in which a corrupt town official shared a surname with Granada’s then director of programmes Steve Morrison. Grant’s exercise in wish-fulfilment fantasy now stands as an exemplary case of the dream come true. “To give people what they don’t get in real life.” “What is the purpose of fiction?” he asked in his non-fiction book, The Hero (2019). The phenomenal success of the Jack Reacher books – the 20-plus bestsellers, the 100 million copies sold, the admirers ranging from Margaret Drabble to Bill Clinton – have done nothing to disturb Child’s basic tenet. The proximity of writer and reader, or the writer’s status as proxy-reader, was intensified by his decision to proceed without a plan, so that the story was decided, almost one sentence at a time, by what Grant himself wanted to see happen. Grant’s plan was to write a thriller offering what he variously called “a surrogate, vicarious, escapist mood”, an “escapist feeling”, and a sense of “escapist identification” for those who could only imagine living without a job or beating up their boss. Union-busting had radically altered the industry. He was 39, married with one daughter, and working as a transmission controller at Granada Television, in Manchester. But be warned, the violence is graphic, imaginative, convincing, memorable and frequent.“Must be action, adventure, ingenuity, unbeatable self-defence,” Jim Grant wrote in 1994, on his way to becoming Lee Child. If you’re in the mood to escape into a world where a calm-but-deadly loner reluctantly but bravely takes the fight to the bad guys, this one is for you. This is not the deepest of books but it delivers what it promises on every page. He’s a sort of anti-hero with a code of honor. willing to kill evil-doers without a second thought and yet driven to do what he thinks is the right thing in a charmingly old-fashioned way. He’s a man who has made himself a loner, detached from most emotions other than anger. more than a little scary and yet, somehow, also quite vulnerable. I’m not sure I like him but I find him believable. I’m not at all surprised to find that he spawned a long series of best selling books. He has a world view all of his own and more than a few flaws. But what sets the book apart is the Jack Reacher’s “voice”. It was the perfect airplane read: fast pace, ingenious plot, lots of action and simple, clear prose. I listened to “Killing Floor” flying across the Atlantic and back. I’m obviously late discovering Jack Reacher, brought to him by the publicity around Cruise’s movie (although only the weirdness of Hollywood would cast 5′ 7” Cruise to play 6′ 5” Reacher). I wrote this review last year but somehow forgot to post it here.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |