Lee Child, at the Prado Museum in 2014 LUIS SEVILLANO
He measures two meters and exceeds 100 kilos, more agile than fast, relentless, brutal.
It is attractive in its own way.
He has been a military policeman for 13 years and now lives by his own rules.
He travels with a toothbrush and a debit card and can't stand injustice.
He cuts faces, breaks kneecaps and shoulders, kills when necessary.
His name is Jack Reacher and he is the protagonist of the 24 novels that have led Lee Child to be one of the great authors of the black genre, a status that is transcending to access the cult writer.
Several editors, writers and his biographer explain the scale of the phenomenon now that Child (born Jim Grant in Coventry, United Kingdom, 66 years ago) leaves the series in the hands of his brother Andrew.
More information
Is Lee Child as good as he seems to us?
"A book is difficult to read when the author did not do his job well"
Mariano Blatt, whose publishing house Blatt & Ríos - focused on poetry, essays and non-genre literature - has just published in Spain and Argentina
Luna azul
,
recognizes that it came to his books "through the recommendation of two authors of the house, great readers: Elvio Gandolfo and César Aira." The latter assures that the "passionate" interest he had in Jack Reacher's novels ("I read them all") is not different from the one he had since childhood in the novels of Ellery Queen, Agatha Christie or Margery Allingham. “I don't see any incompatibility between the detective novel and high culture. Yes between the detective novel and [the philosopher Theodor] Adorno, between noble interest and deep boredom ”, Aira says to pose the dichotomy that genre literature always faces.
Child's novels are fast, intense, violent. Reacher handles the short sentence and the poignant comment and something is always happening, everything is moving. It is literature spectacle and, something else? "I think that this distinction between minor genres and true literature is still quite current, despite the qualitative and quantitative evolution of police officers and
thrillers,
" says writer Elvio Gandolfo, another of his staunch followers. "Lee is convinced that there is no conflict or contradiction between art and commercial success," said Heather Martin, author of
The Reacher Guy
(Constable), the authorized biography of Lee Child.
“As Tom Harris would say, an easy-to-read book is very difficult to write.
And on the contrary, I would add: a book that is difficult to read is because the author has not done his job well, "Child himself assured in an interview in EL PAÍS in 2014, when he won the RBA for crime novel by
Personal
, a of the 10 novels published by this publisher before Blatt & Ríos took over with new translations by Aldo Giacometti.
I don't see any incompatibility between the detective novel and high culture.
Yes between the detective novel and Adorno, between noble interest and deep boredom
Cesar Aira
When Jim Grant lost his job on British television in 1994, he decided that he wanted to be a successful author, and that it would take three years to do whatever it took to get there. "His fear of mediocrity pushed him to work as hard as he did," says Martin. In 1997 Penguin published
Killing Floor
(published in Spain as
Dangerous Zone)
, the first novel in the Jack Reacher series. Lee Child was born and his name would forever be associated with that of his protagonist.
But, where does the success of a hero so excessive that he frustrates an international conspiracy that faces the Albanian mafia or, at 16 years old, helps to stop a psychopath in the middle of the New York blackout in 1977? "Reacher is a semi-mythical character who acts in a very realistic context, and Lee does not apologize for that," says his biographer, who adds: "We like the fact that he does not linger in decision-making, nor does he regret or reproach yourself for your actions: do what you think is right and move on. If he encounters evil, he doesn't waste time and energy trying to explain it, he just eliminates it. " Blatt adds: “He is a vigilante who travels the world alleviating the suffering of those within his reach, but never asks for anything in return. He doesn't need it, he doesn't want it ”. Finally, Gandolfo points out:"Even in novels that are a bit unsuccessful, which there are, reading always finds exceptional sections, thanks to the character." The Argentine writer finds two other factors to explain Child's success: his treatment of female characters, which has guaranteed him a legion of female readers, and his solid knowledge of the United States and the current situation in which he inserts the plots.
Lee Child with Tom Cruise in Louisiana in 2016, at the presentation of the movie 'Never Look Back'.
It is one of two adaptations in which the actor plays Jack Reacher.Ryan Theriot / WireImage
The history of criminal fiction has been frequented by authors who have turned away, exhausted, from the character that made them famous.
It happened to Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes or more recently to Ian Rankin with John Rebus.
Both had to return by popular acclaim.
Child has chosen a different path and, according to his biographer, with no possible turning back.
After writing a joint novel with his brother (
Sentinel
, 2020, whose publication in Spanish is not confirmed at the moment) it will now be Andrew Child who continues with the series.
"Maybe I'm tired, maybe bored," Blatt speculates.
Martin explains that, once the financial aspect for this and other generations of the family had been fixed long ago (which the two film adaptations starring Tom Cruise helped), the author's goal was to fulfill the emotional contract with the readers. “He sees himself as an entertainment artist who gives the audience what they want. And the audience wanted, wants, more Reacher. " But Child, who grew up in a humble family in industrial Birmingham, UK, where he learned to fight almost as well as Reacher, believes he has had enough work in his life. Now retired, he does not give interviews and it is others who speak for him. "I have no particular place to go and all the time in the world to get there", says the giant nomad in
Blue Moon
, his latest adventure from the hand of his creator.
It will be another Child who will take him to his destination.
Precise speed
Biographer Heather Martin tells in an article in
Hiterland
that, taking advantage of her command of Spanish, Child asked her about translations and that she told him that they did not quite adapt to the fast verb and the agile and cutting prose that can be read in English.
When Blatt & Ríos acquired the rights (in addition to
Luna azul they
have published two
nouvelles
gathered in
Noche Caliente
, two more novels and a book of short stories and will edit some unpublished in Spanish) they commissioned the translation to Aldo Giacometti, who has given a different rhythm, closer to the original. “I think that one of the keys may be to not become so fond of the virtues and riches of Spanish and Castilian and to do everything possible to stay close to a certain fertile and sharp roughness that the use of this particular English has, in try to import into Spanish the most salient characteristics of the language with which one is dealing, ”he assures.