#BlogTour ‘The Reacher Guy’ by Heather Martin

About the book…

An exquisitely written and nuanced biography of an exceptional individual and writer who has created the # 1 international bestselling hero Jack Reacher, revered by dedicated and loyal readers worldwide.

Lee Child has a great public persona: he is gracious and generous with readers and fans. But Jim Grant is a reticent and very private man.

This rags-to-riches literary and social biography is based principally on disarmingly frank personal conversations and correspondence with the author since 2016 and privileged access to archival materials. It consists almost entirely of original material, and is the nearest thing the world is likely to get to the autobiography he does not intend to write.

There are a handful of great Lee Child/Reacher stories that have been recycled over and over again. They are so good that no one has bothered to look beyond them. This book revisits (and sometimes revises) those irresistible stories, but goes back further and digs deeper. The emphasis on chronology, accuracy and specificity is unprecedented.

The Lee Child origin myth is much loved. But mostly it sees him springing fully formed from the brow of Granada Television. There are glancing references to Aston Villa and the schoolyard, but no one has examined the social and historical detail or looked closely at where Lee really came from: the people, places and period.

This is the first time someone has described the Lee Child arc: from peaceful obscurity in the Yorkshire Dales and Upstate New York to cult figure, no. 1 in America, rock star, celebrity and publishing institution through to backlash, the changing zeitgeist, and intimations of retirement. The analysis of the emotional power and significance of Lee’s work in the final chapters—the themes of happiness, addiction, dependency, loneliness, and existential absurdity—and the first-hand retrospective accounts of his life and second-act career are all exclusive to this definitive biography.

My thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for my gifted review copy of ‘The Reacher Guy’ by Heather Martin, which is published by Penguin/Constable Books in hardcover, and e-book formats.

It must be a difficult task, writing the biography of a writer who is so beloved of his fans, and also, might hold you up to high scrutiny for putting across the message that the author wishes. I imagine you would have to be pretty strong willed, in order to stamp your own writing with your personality, whilst simultaneously telling the tale of how John  Grant became Lee Child, and also, the origins of cultural icon, Jack Reacher.

In ‘The Reacher Guy’, Heather seamlessly interweaves not only the tale of Lee Child, but also Jack Reacher, whilst clearly delineating between the two. Her scrupulous research into the background of Lee Child comes across so well, without ever being dry. Her love for his work, her connection to, and approval from, the author, to write this book, does not this book a fawning air. She admires the way that Lee is a self invented man, his work ethic and his attention to keeping to his word-punctuality and delivering the goods are non negotiable, it is reflected in his annual habit of starting a new book every September 1st, and his attitude towards his publishing responsibilities, are rock solid.

He takes his success very seriously, and the way that he has grown up is told with such heart, and style, and depth-this is someone who walks the walk, and talks the talk! Where he came from, the influence of both World Wars on his grandfathers and father begin to shape the man he became, as a writer, a husband, a father.

A confession-my husband has been asking me to read the Reacher books and report back to him, and I hummed and obfuscated until the chance to read this biography came, courtesy of the wonderful Anne Cater. As a reader, I am not entirely sold on novels that are so full of action, politics and espionage, but I wanted to try and work out why this was. Having read this quite amazing book, I am now sold on starting the series, from the beginning, and seeing what happens.

There is a constant argument about the sometimes ‘necessary’ separating of the writer, from their art, that you can have one without the other. The advent of social media makes it feel that writers are accessible, available and contactable-and sometimes you find out a person you previously admired, is so obnoxious in real life that you cannot view their output in the same way, ever again.

And whilst there is probably an angle with this book, unlike many others being published at this time of year, this is the story of a man who has lived a life. He has a legacy. And has remained quite an enigmatic personality, to my mind, anyway. ‘The Reacher Guy’ pulls back the curtain, and shows you something of what makes Lee Child, and his most famous creation, tick. And unlike in the Wizard of Oz, what is behind the curtain has made this reader warm to both biographer, and subject. It was a pure joy to read, to see a cultural figure in the context of the circumstances which made him, and I imagine when I start reading the Reacher novels, it will add a layer of pathos to the process.

About the author…

Heather Martin was born in West Australia. She grew up in Aix-en-Provence, Paris, and Perth, where she would fall asleep to the sound of the Indian Ocean. She left Australia for England to become a classical guitarist but found herself singing with a Venezuelan folk group and learning to speak Spanish instead.

She read Languages at Cambridge, where she also did a PhD in comparative literature, and has held teaching and research positions at Cambridge, Hull, King’s College London, and most recently, the Graduate Center, City University New York.

Heather is a long-time Reacher fan. While waiting to get her hands on the next in the series, she once read a Lee Child book in Spanish and wound up writing to the author about the fate of his character in translation. The Reacher Guy is her first biography

Twitter @DrHeatherMartin @TheReacherGuy @LittleBrownUK @RandomTTours