If you were made redundant aged forty, how would you react? Would you worry, whinge and take up a menial job in the meantime? Or would you turn an idea you had, into a multi-million pound franchise?

The latter is exactly what Lee Child did when he was sacked from his job with Granada TV. He decided to give writing a go and what he came up with, turned into one of the most successful fiction projects of modern times. Lee Child created the wildly popular character of Jack Reacher and he has never looked back.

Now, he owns two apartments in Manhattan (this will give you an idea of just how successful the Reacher series has been) and has so many awards he may soon need to buy another apartment to house trophies.

Last night, Lee Child was in conversation at Tyneside Cinema and it was packed. Both the Circle and the Stalls were full of people waiting to hear what he had to say. Child has managed to cultivate a huge following, who know his books by heart and yearn for the next instalment. Following a conversation, he happily answered questions from members of the audience which ranged from how he felt about Tom Cruise stepping into Reacher’s (much larger shoes) to the current controversy regarding authors using sock puppet accounts on social networking sites to garner support for their novels while trashing other authors’ works. He also provided some really great advice for people who might be thinking of writing their first novel: ignore all advice!

Lee Child appeared confident yet candid during his answers. He is, however, aware that the people in the audience last night are the people who put him at the top of the best seller list and, during the signing session, he took the time to chat to everyone who stood at his table. He seemed genuinely pleased that people had come to see him. It looked like everyone who had been in the audience wanted at least one book signed and Mr Child stayed at his desk until every last book was signed: I was really impressed with that – I’m not sure my hand could have coped with that amount of signing!

Following Lee, there was a screening of David Fincher’s classic movie ‘Se7en’. Lee had been asked to choose a film to screen after his appearance and he chose this film because of its simple but effective narrative. Having seen ‘Se7en’ before, I found this viewing utterly enchanting. Despite knowing what was going to happen at the end, I felt tense throughout and Kevin Spacey’s John Doe was chilling to the point of leaving me looking over my shoulder all the way home.

All in all, a great night out.

elementaryvwatson

By Vic on September 6, 2012