On the side of Goliath

According to which bit of hype you read, there’s a copy of one of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher thrillers sold somewhere in the world every four seconds, or every seven, or every nine. It’s a cute statistic and (as Child wryly notes), there’s an element of Barnum & Bailey hucksterism to it. But suffice to say he sells a lot of books —around about the 100 million mark to date, in 42 languages.

Reacher fans tend to binge-read the lot, and nobody (including Child) can remember the titles. The novels tell the story of a former military policeman called Jack Reacher who hitchhikes around the United States with nothing but a folding toothbrush, a bank card and the clothes he stands up in. Reacher doesn’t look for trouble, but it seems to find him. And when it does — Reacher being 6ft 5in and as badass as anyone decently needs to be — trouble regrets it.

‘I was just obsessed as a kid with David and Goliath,’ says Child when we sit down to record The Spectator’s books podcast. ‘It’s probably the ultimate conflict paradigm in literature. But I was always on the side of Goliath. I loved Goliath. I didn’t like David at all and I wished Goliath could win.’

You’re righting that wrong?

‘Yeah, exactly,’ says Child. ‘The Bible got it wrong. I thought: how would it be if Goliath was the good guy?’

That, as Child sees it, is the core of his books’ appeal. ‘We turn to fiction for the satisfactions that we don’t get in real life. In reality you know that if a crime is committed against you they’re never going to find who did it. If your house is broken into they probably won’t even show up, and if they do you’ll never get your stuff back. If your car is stolen you’ll never see it again.