Lee Child

To Blurb or Not to Blurb

3/1/2011

It gives me great pleasure to see the paperback edition of HIGH CRIMES back on shelves today, 13 years after its original publication. Like most paperback versions of books originally published in hardcover, it carries a few excerpts from good reviews — “Fast and furious,” according to The New York Times, right there on the front cover.

Pick up the hardcover of VANISHED, though, and you’ll see not a review, but a very nice quotation from Lee Child. I won’t reproduce it all here, but he says, among other things, that he thinks Nick Heller and Jack Reacher would “go for a beer together and set the world to rights.” This is what we in the business call a “blurb.” The word was originally coined to mock excessive praise on book jackets, but I don’t think of it as a derogatory term; it just means “A short description of a book, film, musical work, or other product written and used for promotional purposes.” Publishers like to use blurbs to promote hardcovers, particularly for new authors, as they give readers some advance confidence about the quality of a book before the reviews come in.

Lee’s blurb for VANISHED was unusual in the business (though not unusual for Lee), because it gave potential readers specific information about the book and its main character, Nick Heller. It’s clear from the quotation that Lee actually read VANISHED, as I know he reads all the books he recommends.

I too read every book I blurb, which is why I don’t give many recommendations. Some authors I know (naming no names) don’t feel the need, as long as the book comes to them from a trusted source. The columnist Calvin Trillin once wrote that anyone giving a blurb should have to disclose his or her relationship to the author under the quotation —“Brother-in-law,” “Share the same agent,” “Met him in a bar.” Several years ago, I ran into an author who told me he’d just read THE DA VINCI CODE, and it was great. It would have been rude to point out that this author had blurbed the book when it had come out the year before.

Do I blame the authors who blurb without reading? No. On a book-a-year schedule, it’s hard enough to reread your own drafts, much less the books people send you for endorsements. It gets to be a vicious circle, too: the more successful the author, the more requests for blurbs, the less time to read the books. It’s hard to say no, especially if it’s a friend asking. It’s tempting to say yes, because really, what harm does it do?

I learned this lesson the hard way. Once upon a time – I won’t say when – I gave a book a quotation without having read it. As it turned out, the book wasn’t very good, and what surprised me was how many people let me know. They felt betrayed. They had trusted my recommendation, and I let them down. I was embarrassed and sorry. If I’d read the book first, I’d have saved everyone some time.

As it happens, this week also marks the publication of a book I did blurb: BRINGING ADAM HOME, by the crime writer Les Standiford with Detective Sergeant Joe Matthews. It’s the harrowing true story of the hunt for Adam Walsh’s murderer, and my recommendation is right on the back cover. Like Lee’s quotation for VANISHED, it’s a little too long to reprint in full here, but among other things, I called the book “heartbreaking and hypnotically suspenseful.”

And now you know I really meant it.

Why Write a Serial Thriller?

12/7/2010

Today marks the paperback publication of WATCHLIST, the print edition of two serial thrillers I had the honor of participating in — THE CHOPIN MANUSCRIPT and its sequel, THE COPPER BRACELET. Both books were based on ideas by Jeffery Deaver and edited by Jim Fusilli, and a total of 22 authors participated in the projects, including genre masters such as Linda Barnes, Lee Child, David Liss, and Lisa Scottoline.

The books have been successful beyond all expectations. Not only were they bestsellers in audio format, but THE CHOPIN MANUSCRIPT won the Audie for best audiobook of 2008. It’s always a great feeling to be part of a successful project, but as I’ve given some interviews and participated in a roundtable discussion about these books, I’ve realized that I got some big benefits from the projects as well.

First, the process gave me new insights into my colleagues’ imaginations. One of the main attractions of writing a novel is the control it gives you over the world you create. I get to decide who the characters are, what they do, and what happens to them; I might never rule the world, but I rule my worlds. But it was exciting to see what Jeff Deaver came up with, and riff on his ideas. Likewise, especially in THE CHOPIN MANUSCRIPT, I was almost overwhelmed by the variety of ideas and plot threads jammed into those first eight chapters.

Second, I got some new insights into structure and pacing, or at least was able to use what I knew in a different way. I wrote Chapter Nine of THE CHOPIN MANUSCRIPT. So much had happened by that point that I had to work hard to make my chapter fit into the different storylines — not only from the writer’s point of view, but from the reader’s. By the time I got the story, other authors had given the reader several terrific action sequences. I wanted to write an action sequence, too, but I stopped myself; it would have been overload. What the book needed, at that point in the story, was something quieter. (I learned another lesson from that, too. When it came time to write the second book, I asked editor Jim Fusilli for an earlier chapter, and got Chapter 6 of THE COPPER BRACELET.)

Third, I got to use some ideas and material I hadn’t been able to fit into any of my own books. Every author has more ideas than he or she will ever have time to write, and I do so much research that I’ll never be able to use everything I know about a given topic. For THE COPPER BRACELET, I got to use research I’d done for VANISHED, and explore a subject that’s always fascinated me: how someone would get into Russia secretly. It had been much too long since I’d set anything in Moscow, which was my first love and my first area of expertise. I jumped at the chance to set a scene there, using both old memories and information from a more recent visit. I set a scene in a club for retired KGB officers that’s based on a real place, a place I was invited to. Few Westerners have ever been in there, and I was delighted to be able to write something based on the experience.

It’s been great to see these books have such a long life, and find their way to readers in both audio and print formats. I’m glad to have been involved, and I hope they’ll send readers to other works by all the authors who participated.  

Agents of Treachery

3/9/2010

Legendary editor Otto Penzler has put together a collection of riveting spy fiction with short stories from me, Lee Child, James Grady, Stephen Hunter and other bestselling thriller writers. Find out more about AGENTS OF TREACHERY, coming June 2010.