We were talking with somebody yesterday afternoon about the whole Dan Brown/The Lost Symbol phenomenon, and the question came up: Is there anybody else in the book world whose books are met with such anticipation and enthusiasm? Names like Stephen King, and James Patterson and Nora Roberts were bandied about, but we wondered: Much of their sustained popularity stems from the consistent delivery of new material; was there an author who could disappear for years at a stretch, then re-emerge and have everybody line up for the new book?
(“Everybody” being a relative term, as the question was not really aimed at identifying genre writers with large fanbases like George R.R. Martin, but mainstream icons. Also, we accepted J.K. Rowling as a gimme.)
After we hung up the phone, the late Michael Crichton came to mind; after a seven-year gap between Congo and Sphere never went more than three years without a new novel, and that was close to what we were aiming for. Then we thought about writers like Charles Frazier (nine years between novels) on whom publishers pinned great hopes with mixed results. (See also Audrey Niffenegger, whose staying power will be put to the test next month, the politely-left-unspoken hope being that My Fearful Symmetry isn’t another Thirteen Moons.) Then we circled back to Tom Wolfe, who’s probably going to be able to bounce back from the less-than-ideal reception of I Am Charlotte Simmons after a roughly five-year absence when his new novel comes out.
Then it dawned on us: David Blaine. The guy disappears for years at a time, then he pops up and announces he’s going to fast in a glass box for 44 days, or swim in a glass ball for a week, and the crowd goes wild. And that’s where Dan Brown is at now: Six years past The Da Vinci Code, suddenly it’s “Robert Langdon’s going to take on the Freemasons in September!” and the pre-orders begin.
(Granted, two major film adaptations of the earlier novel helped keep the flames of reader interest alive during the years of authorial silence; we never said our metaphors were perfect.)
Another point of similarity: Dan Brown and David Blaine both inspire a certain degree of condescension for cultural elites (sometimes the same cultural elites, no doubt) who deny any artistry in what they do, dismissing it as gimmickry aimed at the lowest common denominator. Yet both DBs appear to be aiming, in their way, at something deeper—you might even make the argument that Blaine’s attempts to probe and extend the limits of human capability share an affinity with Brown’s efforts to convince readers of the unlimited potential into which their minds can tap. If you were into that sort of thing, that is…