Later Bloomer

No doubt, the best thing about becoming a legendary author is writing your own legend.

According to Lee Child’s official biography, he was “fired in 1995 at the age of 40 as a result of corporate restructuring.” He then spent $6.00 on paper and pencils and wrote an international bestseller.

He supposedly commutes between homes Manhattan and St. Tropez. He drives a turbocharged Jaguar, “built in Jaguar’s Browns Lane plant, thirty yards from the hospital in which he was born.”

Sacked at 40, millionaire author at 50. Does Lee Child have anything to teach Later Bloomers? And how much of his legend is true?

Becoming Lee Child

Lee Child was born Jim Grant in 1954. He grew up in Birmingham, England. Bookbrowse describes it as “the heart of the industrial badlands.”

It was the sort of place where if you fell in the river, you had to go to the hospital for a mandatory stomach pump. The sort of place where minor disputes were settled with box cutters and bicycle chains. He’s got the scars to prove it.

Despite his rough start, Lee finished law school at the University of Sheffield, though he had no intention of practicing. He wanted to tell stories.

At age 23, he joined Granada Television as a Presentation Director, responsible for trailers, commercials, and press releases. During his tenure, Granada produced the British TV classics Brideshead Revisited, The Jewel in the Crown, and Prime Suspect.

At first, Granada ran their outfit like a family business. But as time passed, they became more corporate. The new management lined their own pockets by cutting costs.

Those cuts included loyal employees and their pensions.

At age 38, Lee made a questionable career move. He became the shop steward for the Association of Cinematograph, Television, and Allied Technicians union, an unpaid job on top of his regular one.

Granada had fired two previous stewards on trumped-up grounds and wanted to destroy the union (they eventually succeeded). Why did Lee do it?

Because,

In the years ’78 through about ’91, thirteen years, [Granada] won probably four hundred Emmys. It was a factory that produced the most marvelous product—and they were vandalizing it, just trashing it from top to bottom. So initially, I was trying to protect the legacy, I guess. And then it was about protecting the actual people who were being just appallingly treated.

But in 1995, right before Lee’s fortieth birthday, Granada’s new management “restructured” him and hundreds of his coworkers out of their jobs. They gave him notice while he was on holiday with his family.

Lee had car payments, a mortgage, and a daughter just two years from college. He needed an income but didn’t want another boss. How could he keep himself immersed in entertainment?

He decided to throw all those years of television experience behind writing a thriller. Lee created “Jack Reacher,” an ex-military cop who got downsized from the Army. Reacher is 6’5″ with steely blue eyes and a 50-inch chest. He’s a loner and drifter who wanders into town, dispatches the bad guys, hits the road again. You want him on your side in a fight. He’s a man’s man and ladies’ man.

Lee needed to get the book done before his severance check ran out. His family supported him. Wife Jane (who’s American) got a job, and daughter Ruth waitressed on weekends.

His gamble paid off. The first Jack Reacher novel, Killing Floor, hit the international bestseller lists and won the Barry Award for Best First Novel.

Did Lee really just walk out and buy $6 worth of writing supplies? Actually, it was £3.99, and he’s still got the pencil:

It was a yellow shorthand pencil, and it started out the regular length, and now it’s this long [spreads fingers a tiny distance]. I’ve still got it.