Lee Child: Killing Is His Business and Business Is Good

By Colin Drury · Mar 2014 · 9 min read

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How author Lee Child went from headbutt beatings in a Coventry school playground to selling 70 million books worldwide…

In the corner of Lee Child’s Manhattan office, there’s a box filled with women’s underwear. It is where, everyday, he throws the knickers that female fans have sent him in the post. “It’s funny,” he says. “When you become an author you hope for success and you want people to like your work, but you never imagine that one day you’re going to end up opening Jiffy envelopes containing women’s lingerie.”

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Child is no ordinary author. Rather, he’s the Midlands boy – and one-time street brawler – who has created the most alpha-male literary hero of all time: a shit-kicking, headbutting, 6ft 5in ex-military detective called Jack Reacher. Child has sold some 70 million copies of his books about the character – an American who wanders the West righting wrongs using fists and fire-power while carrying no luggage apart from a foldaway toothbrush – in 40 different languages across the globe. Somewhere in the world, a Jack Reacher book is bought every four seconds. Bill Clinton is a fan – the ex US president personally writes to Child after he’s finished every one. So too is Tom Cruise, who persuaded the author to sign over movie rights and (bizarrely, perhaps, given the actor’s diminutive frame) starred as Reacher in a £37 million adaptation released in 2012.

Child is one of only two 21st century authors to have topped both the US and UK hardback and paperback bestseller lists simultaneously. The other is JK Rowling. Men write to him saying they want to be Jack Reacher. Women write saying they want to be with him. “That’s the thing with the underwear,” says the 59-year-old today over a brew in a London greasy spoon. “It’s being sent to Reacher really. Not to me. It makes my wife laugh.” He thinks for a moment. “Although there are definitely worse things to get through the post.” And, all things considered, it’s not a bad sign of success for a man who only started writing aged 40 after being made unemployed and vowing that he would never work for anyone again.

The first thing you notice when you meet Lee Child is that, basically, he is Jack Reacher. That doesn’t mean he’s Ramboing around the country dispensing rough justice and saving damsels in distress. But he’s the same height as his character, the same build, and he has the same sandy-coloured hair, piercing blue eyes and handsome features. He is also – despite being incredibly friendly – very intimidating.

When FHM asks about his recent admissions in a national newspaper that he has smoked cannabis almost every day since the age of 14 and has a dealer on speed dial, he says simply, “No point in commenting. Everyone knows the tabloid press is always truthful and ethical, right?”

Clearly, the subject is off limits, and remembering how Reacher – who first appeared in the 1997 novel Killing Floor – has broken necks for less, we decide against bringing it up again. Neither character nor author are strangers to violence, and both have a way with women that could sicken lesser mortals. More of which later.

For now, Child – real name Jim Grant – is explaining how, at the age of 40, with not a single bit of previous writing experience, he sat down at his dining-room table one day and came up with the character that would turn him into a multimillionaire.

Back then, before Lee Child existed, Jim Grant was angry. It was 1995 and after 18 years working for Granada Television in Manchester – a job he took after graduating with a law degree from Sheffield University – he had just been made unemployed. Bosses told him restructuring meant his role as a presentation director had disappeared.

More likely, he suspects, his reputation as a tough-talking trade union man had resulted in him being blacklisted. “I was so pissed off at the system that I didn’t want to work for anyone ever again,” he recalls. “I’d never written anything before but I was a huge reader of crime fiction. I bought six pads of paper and some pencils that weekend, and on Monday morning I sat down at my dining-room table and forced myself to do it. I didn’t over-think it. I knew I wanted my character to be wandering around America solving crimes, but there was no master plan. I made it up as I went along. I saw where Reacher took me.”

Where he took him was to an almost immediate book deal. One of the very first publishing companies Child got in touch with, G P Putnam’s Sons, agreed to release Killing Floor. It came out barely 18 months later (an outstandingly short time in the world of publishing), and won the prestigious Anthony Award and Barry Award. Reacher – a quiet man who uses his brain and brawn to solve mysteries – was an immediate hit with readers.

Shortly after, Child and his wife Jane – an American he met and married while in Sheffield – uprooted from Manchester to Manhattan with their daughter Ruth. Since then, they’ve barely looked back. Child has released 17 more Reacher books in the intervening 17 years – the most recent of which was last year’s Never Go Back. There’s also been that Hollywood movie starring Tom Cruise as the eponymous hero, and the first of a likely franchise. Child himself had no editorial control over the film, but did have a small cameo role as a police officer. “If it’s good enough for Alfred Hitchcock, it’s good enough for me,” he notes.

He puts his phenomenal output down to the working-class work ethic he grew up with. “I’m an artisan, not an artist,” he says. “People ask if I get writer’s block. Of course not. Does a truck driver get truck driver’s block? Writing is my job. I go down to my office – it’s in the same apartment block where I live – and I do it. I want to be the best, but I’m not a drama queen about it.”

Sometimes he gets dismissed by so-called ‘serious’ literary critics. “I’ve sold 70 million books,” he says, matter-of-factly. “That’s not an achievement that should be underestimated. But I never wanted to create a literary masterpiece. I was writing to make a living. I’ve done that.” The holiday homes in Sussex and the south of France, the guitar collection, the first-class travel, and the donations to America’s Democratic Party are the proof.

So are the fans. They call themselves Reacher Creatures and can be – to put it politely – incredibly enthusiastic. And that’s not just the underwear senders. “I’ll get emails from new parents saying they’ve named their baby after the character,” says Child. “Or a message from someone who has suffered with cancer, saying the books have helped them get through. That means a lot. But then you get some fans who think Reacher exists. They’ll ask me at conventions where he is. That’s strange. I tend to say, ‘He’s left early today.’”

There’s the odd spot of hate mail too. When one novel featured criticism of the Iraq War, Child received death threats. “Some were covered in excrement,” he says laconically. “You could let it scare you, but I don’t.” He thinks for a moment as he takes a sip of his coffee. “I can handle myself,” he smiles.

Ah, yes, fighting and fists. Child has experienced his fair share. Like his character, his signature move was always a clean, clinical headbutt. It’s more than 30 years now since he last dealt one out, but as a youth in the West Midlands he found himself brawling on a weekly basis. His older brother was small for his age and regularly found himself targeted by the area’s less-savoury types. So Child stepped in. Head first. “I felt it was my responsibility,” he says. “And the only language people like that understand is violence. So I learned to fight. After a while, people realised they wouldn’t beat me.”

The last time he used his bonce as a weapon was in a Sheffield chip shop while he was still a student. Two skinheads demanded he hand over his change. “So I nutted one,” he remembers. “No one expects that. I kept my money and my fish supper. “A headbutt is cheating in a way because it’s so unexpected,” he adds. “But I’m of the opinion that if you’re in a fight, you’re there to win. That’s what Reacher does. He’s got brains too, but he’s happy to resort to dirty tactics if need be.”

Child’s youth also had its fair share of the fairer sex. He lost his virginity when he was just 14 to a girl of 16 who was having a house party. The next night, he went back and slept with her 17-year-old sister. “That was a good weekend,” he smiles. “It was the ’60s. It was sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll, and I threw myself into that. Why wouldn’t I?”

Reacher, you suspect, will always be a loner. He likes his own company too much. He’s the ultimate wandering man, a knight errant. Child has been criticised for it, but he takes pride in the fact that his hero is almost unique in modern literature because there is virtually no character development. “When they started to make the movie, the one problem they had was that Reacher has no ‘character arc’,” says Child. “He is the same person at the start of each novel as he is at the end. There is no introspection or development. He’s just Reacher and always will be.”

Although, it turns out, not forever. For now the books will keep coming, but it isn’t something Child plans to do indefinitely. The author is determined his hero will bow out at the top – while Child is still opening knickers in the post. “I don’t want him to fade,” he says. “I want the last book to be at the height of his popularity. That’s very hard to judge, but it is something I am determined to get right. I’ve thought about killing him off, but I’m not sure I will. I think I’ll have him ride off into the sunset. Then I don’t plan on writing ever again. I don’t want to do a book that doesn’t feature Reacher. I’ll put my feet up. We’ll both have earned a rest.”

The wisdom of Jack Reacher

He’s known more for his brawn than his brain, but this quiet giant is no stranger to philosophical musings either…

On The Man: “I worked 13 years, got me nowhere. I feel like I tried it their way, and to hell with them. Now I’m going to try it my way.” (Killing Floor)
On repetition: “Hit them fast, hit them hard, and hit them a lot.” (Without Fail)
On intelligence: “I know I’m smarter than an armadillo.” (Echo Burning)
On travelling light: “I carry a spare shirt, pretty soon I’m carrying spare pants. Then I’d need a suitcase. Next thing I know, I’ve got a house and a car and a savings plan and I’m filling out all kinds of forms.” (Bad Luck And Trouble)
On honouring thy mother: “I have to warn you. I promised my mother, a long time ago. She said I had to give folks a chance to walk away.” (Nothing To Lose)
On mortality: “I’m not afraid of death. Death’s afraid of me.” (61 Hours)