The Straits Times
www.straitstimes.com
Published on May 20, 2014
Power to write bestsellers
David Baldacci, who is releasing three new titles this year, has churned out nearly 30 bestsellers
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| Suspense novel Absolute Power by David Baldacci (above) was made into a movie starring Ed Harris and Clint Eastwood, while King And Maxwell was turned into a television series starring Jon Tenney and Rebecca Romijn. -- PHOTO: ALEXANDER JAMES |
Lawyer-turned-writer David Baldacci is known for his novels of suspense and is often mentioned in the same breath as John Grisham.
So when he wrote his first young adult novel, The Finisher, he submitted it last year to publishers under the pseudonym "Janus Pope", a nod to the two-faced Roman god of change and beginnings.
"It was also important to me to sell the book on its own merit," says the American writer on the telephone from London, where he is promoting his newest novels.
A statement like that would sound pompous coming from anyone else, but the fact is that Baldacci has had a home run with his thrillers.
He has written nearly 30 bestsellers since his 1996 debut novel, Absolute Power. It netted a US$2-million book deal plus the same again in film rights and was made into a movie starring Clint Eastwood.
The author has a jaw-dropping three books out this year, including The Finisher, acquired by Scholastic before it knew Janus Pope's identity (it has the author's real name on the cover).
Every one of his previous 27 novels headed bestseller lists in the United States and overseas, including Singapore, where local distributor Pansing Books sells 6,000 to 8,000 Baldacci titles a year.
There are 110 million copies of his books in print around the world and his works have been made into two movies - Absolute Power (1997) and last year's Wish You Well - plus a television series, King And Maxwell, about secret service agents turned private detectives. It premiered on American channel TNT last year and is currently airing on British channel Alibi.
Mention this and Baldacci immediately points out that any success began only after 15 years of non-stop rejections.
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| Suspense novel Absolute Power by David Baldacci was made into a movie starring Ed Harris and Clint Eastwood, while King And Maxwell was turned into a television series starring Jon Tenney and Rebecca Romijn (both above). -- PHOTO: UNIVERSAL CHANNEL |
Before he sold Absolute Power, about a power-mad politician trying to cover up a murder, he failed to sell any of the short stories and screenplays he wrote while working as an attorney in Washington D.C.
"As I've told people, I was an overnight success, yeah, but it took five thousand nights," the 53-year-old says with a laugh.
Based in Virginia, he spends 10 to 15 hours a day writing and often publishes two novels a year. "If I'm not writing, I'm not happy," he says.
New titles this year include two featuring familiar characters from his previous novels, such as government assassin Will Robie (The Target, out last month) and military investigator John Puller (The Escape, due in November).
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| Suspense novel Absolute Power by David Baldacci was made into a movie starring Ed Harris (left) and Clint Eastwood (right), while King And Maxwell was turned into a television series starring Jon Tenney and Rebecca Romijn. -- PHOTO: UNIVERSAL CHANNEL - |
Then there is The Finisher, the first in a new series backed by Scholastic, which also brought out the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.
The Finisher features a teenage girl born in a village where nobody leaves for fear of monsters in the surrounding forest. The heroine, Vega Jane, does not back away from fights and is determined to find out the truth about her society.
There are obvious similarities to Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games, but when asked, the author laughs again.
"I had only two choices. If I'd made her - him - male, I'd have been compared to Harry Potter."
The Finisher took him five years to write and "was something of a challenge" but also a dream come true.
"I'm just a kid who never grew up, just remained very child-like. I wanted to create my own world. I was into fantasy as a child," the author says. He read everything from Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll to the Narnia books of C.S. Lewis and The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Baldacci was born and brought up in Richmond, Virginia. His mother and father worked for a telephone company and trucking firm respectively, and every weekend, he and his older brother and sister headed to the library.
He says: "I saw the world through books, but I had no idea I could be a writer full time."
He did his bachelor's degree in political science from Virginia Commonwealth University and got a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.
He had begun writing in secret, but for the next nine years, paid the bills while working as an attorney, often on contracts, mergers and acquisitions.
During this time, the only person who knew of his dream to be a writer was his wife Michelle, formerly a paralegal. They have two children - their daughter Spencer is 20 and their son Collin, 18.
He recalls: "For 10 years, I wrote short stories, never had any success doing that. I got an agent in Los Angeles, selling screenplays - no success. I'd gotten to the point thinking writing might just be a hobby."
Then in 1994, a book he wrote over three years, about a fictional US president getting the secret service to cover up a murder, sold to Time Warner Books for US$2 million. Within that same week, he received another US$2.5 million for film and foreign rights from film company Castle Rock Entertainment.
"It was a surreal time. I couldn't believe it was happening to me. Fifteen years without selling anything and people I've never met were just chucking cheques at me."
The money made it possible for him to give up his law career and write full-time.
He has an external office, but he also writes at home, oblivious to interruptions.
"I've written with a screaming child on one lap, typing with one hand and saying: 'Please give me one more paragraph and I'll feed you,'" he says. "I tend to write in the middle of chaos."
One family legend goes like this: When Collin was younger, he got hurt while playing and went to his father for first aid. The writer, never looking away from his work, said: "See what happens when you study hard? Way to go, son!"
In spite of that, his family do not hold his obsession with writing against him. Both his children read his books and his wife often edits his drafts.
"My kids and my wife will tell you that I often zone out but they know I'll be back."
While Baldacci made his name with suspense, among the rare departures from the genre is his 2000 family drama Wish You Well, about two children sent to live with their grandmother in rural Virginia. It is based on the stories his mother and maternal grandmother told him about life in the 1940s.
His mother died a few years ago, the day before Mother's Day, and the author chokes up while recalling this. The day after, he had to make an appearance at a book signing.
"I must have signed a thousand books and they were all: 'Happy Mother's Day'. I sat in the car for three hours after that, shaking."
In 2012, he decided to adapt Wish You Well into a movie in honour of his mother. The independent film was brought out by Life Out Loud Films, Copper Beech Productions and the author's Baldacci Entertainment.
The film was directed by Darnell Martin (Cadillac Records) and starred Oscar-winner Ellen Burstyn. It was screened in March at the Sedona International Film Festival in Arizona, where it took an audience choice award.
Apart from writing and film-making, the author has thrown his weight behind his Wish You Well Foundation, in support of literacy, run by his wife. It donates funds, books or teaching to educational programmes across America.
Reading is an issue close to his heart, and not just because he is a writer, he says.
"We have a very terrible issue in the US where a lot of people can't read," he says.
"When you can't read, you can't think for yourself and if you can't think for yourself, a lot of people will step up to think for you.
"I think it's at the top of the checklist for dictators, close down all the libraries. Literacy is important to democracy."
Books by David Baldacci are available at all major bookstores.
BEST OF BALDACCI
ABSOLUTE POWER (1996)
Pan Macmillan/ Paperback/550 pages/$17.07/ Major bookstores
The book that launched David Baldacci's career and won the heart of Clint Eastwood, who directed and starred in the 1997 film adaptation.
A burglar witnesses the US president kill his lover and then enlist secret service agents to cover up the murder. Should appeal to fans of Frederick Forsyth's thrillers.
ONE SUMMER (2011)
Pan Macmillan/ Paperback/368 pages/$13.95/ Major bookstores
A US army veteran with a terminal illness struggles to hold his family together. No shoot-outs or criminal thrills here but this tear-jerking family drama will win over fans of Nicholas Sparks.
THE INNOCENT (2012)
Grand Central Publishing/ Paperback/432 pages/$13.95/ Major bookstores
The first appearance of one of Baldacci's most popular creations: Will Robie, a government assassin with a heart of gold. He must shield a teenage girl whose life is in danger, even as a botched hit job puts him in the sights of his own side.
KING AND MAXWELL (2013)
Pan Macmillan/ Paperback/400 pages/$13.04 before GST/ Major bookstores
Sean King and Michelle Maxwell are private detectives with past careers in the US secret service. In this latest and sixth adventure, they are approached by a teenage boy who received a message from his father days after the soldier was killed in Afghanistan.
THE FINISHER (2014)
Macmillan/ Paperback/506 pages/$18.94/ Major bookstores
Baldacci's first book for young adults. No one leaves Wormwood Village for fear of the monsters in the surrounding forest. But one 14-year-old girl begins to suspect not all is what it seems and there might be greater dangers within the village instead.
For fans of Veronica Roth's best-selling young adult novel-turned-movie Divergent.
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