Lee Child Part Two: The origin of Jack Reacher

If it weren't for the elderly lady in the grocery store, he could have been Charlie Chan, Sherlock Holmes, or Dick Tracy.

After Lee Child was fired from his producer’s job at Granada Television in England in 1995, he began to write his first thriller novel. It took Child nearly five months of long hours at the keyboard.

“I looked forward to starting every morning. There was one Friday evening—I was really looking forward to writing the next scene on Saturday morning—when my wife said we had to go shopping the next morning. I felt very disappointed.”

That Saturday Jack Reacher was born.

At the grocery store, a short elderly woman — a classic “little old lady” — asked Child if he could reach something on the top shelf for her. Because he stands well over six feet tall, he was accustomed to such requests. After he helped the lady, his wife turned to him and told him if his novel didn’t pan out, he could always become a “reacher” at the grocery store. The name stuck.

How did Jack Reacher, his protagonist in so many successful novels, become a 6 ft., 5 inch, 250-pound, muscled behemoth?

Child stands at 6 ft. 4 inches. So, he did what most writers do, he says. “Most men make their heroes an inch taller and more muscular. Women write them with better hair and thinner thighs.”

Like every writer, he wanted to create a unique protagonist. Child’s was a retired military policeman, a major. He decided Reacher would have a “voice of a rather solitary and inarticulate person.” Child has refined Reacher slightly over the years since his first novel, giving him “a little more self-awareness.” But otherwise, Reacher has remained a loner and a drifter, which allowed Child the freedom to put his protagonist in virtually any role and in any setting and still continue the series.

Think of it. Had Child not gone to the grocery store with his wife that morning, Jack Reacher could have had another name. Imagine if they had been shopping in Walmart. Would Jack Reacher have arrived in the thriller world as Jack Greeter?

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Former investigative reporter Rick Pullen is the author of the best selling thriller Naked Ambition, its sequel Naked Truth, and a stand-alone thriller The Apprentice. He’s also a magazine columnist and feature writer.

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