The Dan Brown Enigma (15 page)

In addition, the controversy in
The Da Vinci Code
– the claim that Jesus had married Mary Magdalene and that they’d had a child – heightened the sales still further, whether out of curiosity or anger.

During the last interview he did before he began promoting
The Lost Symbol
in 2009, Brown said that the controversy was welcomed. ‘Whether someone agrees or disagrees with these ideas, at least we’re talking about them, and that can only be good,’ he said on
Entertainment Weekly
, going on to caution that everyone should remember that
The Da Vinci Code
is a work of fiction and not an academic tome or historical document. ‘All of the references in the book – whether it’s the documents or secret societies – all of that information is drawn from fact. But anyone who turns to popular fiction as some sort of historical textbook – I don’t think anybody is doing that.’

Brown believes he is presenting ideas that are controversial and people are looking for ways to either embrace or dispute them. ‘Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I think it’s great that people are talking about it. To my critics, I usually say, “Thank you, thank you for being passionate about a topic for which most people feel only apathy.”’
[141]

One interesting fact that Lisa Rogak tells us about in her book is that Brown changed the acknowledgements page of subsequent editions of
Angels & Demons.
Originally, he had thanked his first agent Jake Ellwell and the agency Wieser and Wieser. He even went so far as to refer to Ellwell as his friend. However, once the sales for his fourth novel went through the roof, Brown went back to
Angels & Demons
and thanked his new agent Heidi Lange for giving new life to the book. Ellwell is pushed down several paragraphs and is no longer referred to as Brown’s friend.
[142]

We can only speculate as to why he did this. Nitpicking? Possibly, but he remains an enigma as he has also built a shrine in his house to all the publishers who have supported him. This he calls the Fortress of Gratitude and it contains more than 500 volumes – ‘one copy of every edition of my books that have been published all around the world,’ he told Matt Lauer of
The Today Show
. ‘I have five books but they have come out in hardcover, paperback, movie tie-in editions, and it is a reminder of the good fortune I’ve had and all the great relationships I’ve made with foreign publishers around the world. It’s a good reminder of all the great stuff that has happened.’
[143]

The more the fourth novel sold, the more Brown was compared with other bestselling thriller writers like Grisham or Clancy. This success took a long time to register with Brown, who was still used to lean times. ‘I’m overwhelmed by the success of
The Da Vinci Code
, and I don’t tend to read my reviews, good or bad,’ he said. ‘I live a fairly isolated existence as far as the press goes. I’ve been on talk shows and things, but as far as buying in to what the media is saying – the next Grisham, the next Clancy, whatever – that doesn’t really change my situation. Every morning I look at a blank piece of paper, and no matter what name people want to give me, I still have to create an engaging, intellectually challenging plot.’
[144]

As the book continued to grow, Brown went on
Good Morning America
in November 2003. Doubleday had set up an online site for people to take part in a treasure hunt where they could decipher clues to crack four codes – the ones on the cover of the book. More than 40,000 people managed to decipher all four of these and hundreds of thousands more tried but failed. Essentially, once a person had cracked all four codes they could then add their name on the site. ‘When I heard that 40k had finished and that hundreds of thousands had played, I didn’t know what to think,’ admitted Brown.

In the studio there was a giant blow-up of the cover of
The Da Vinci Code
on which Brown and the show’s host Charles Gibson could point out the clues to the audience and the viewers. ‘There are four codes visible to the naked eye on this jacket,’ Brown said. But he also admitted that there might be more. ‘Perhaps you need to turn the jacket a bit, use some good light,’ he said. ‘Perhaps even a magnifying glass might help.’

Pointing to the massively enlarged cover, Brown provided Gibson with some hints on where the codes were. On the flap where it said ‘while in Paris on business’ Brown said, ‘There is something different about the word business. It is a very simple code to see.’ For viewers at home he continued, ‘If readers go to thedavincicode.com they will find a simple riddle that will see the very first location of the first code.’

Brown then showed Gibson more clues. ‘This here is a darkened letter and if you follow the word symbologist you’ll find the letter s and you’ll get a phrase that is a distress call for a secret society,’ he said. ‘Technically this isn’t a code – it’s just a hidden language,’ he said referring to the darkened letters.

Elsewhere, Brown pointed out a very faint latitude and longitude, which he said was for ‘an American sculptor of Kryptos at the CIA headquarters,’ he said. ‘It has a very strange message.’ This strange message from Kryptos is ‘Only WW Knows’, which Brown claims refers to William Webster. ‘He was head of CIA. I’ve had some people tongue in cheek refer to it as an ambigram of the initials for Mary Magdalene.’

From the forty thousand successful participants, one name was chosen. Mr Brian Shay won the contest and promptly asked his girlfriend to marry him on the show. It had taken him around 40 minutes to work out all the clues, which Brown said was a record. What he won was a trip for two to Paris, where the book is set. ‘They’ll be sent for a number of days, and I will send with them a list of a number of secret locations in Paris for their own explorations.’
[145]

By the time of the contest, Christmas 2003, Brown’s fourth novel had sold more than five-and-a-half million copies. For Brown it was ‘entirely shocking’. It was also a complete life-changer. ‘I am fairly private person,’ he said to Matt Lauer. ‘I sacrificed a fair amount of privacy when
The Da Vinci Code
came out.’ But he was happy to give that up in exchange for what he terms the wonderful things that have happened. ‘It makes research a little bit tricky because you can’t just walk in and say hey I’m writing a book, what can you tell me?’
[146]

The success of
The Da Vinci Code
gave Brown opportunities he would never have had before. Of course there is the financial gain but also Brown found himself having access to ‘an enormous number of fascinating people with fascinating ideas,’ he told Lauer. ‘At the same time, I have much less privacy. I’m recognised often, and there are intrusions to privacy that are a challenge. But nothing good comes without challenges.’

Brown travels extensively while researching his books and has sometimes sat beside someone on a plane who was reading his book. ‘I often like to say, “Is that thing any good?” Just see what they think, maybe engage them in a conversation a little bit about the book without giving them any idea who I am. That’s always fun.’

On one occasion he and Blythe were walking along a beach on a remote island and they found someone reading
The Da Vinci Code.
‘And I’ll just walk up and say, “How is that?” And they’ll look up just sort of stunned. So it’s always a strange sort of experience for people,’ he told Lauer.

Even though he’s now worth millions, Brown maintains a simple life. ‘We really feel our life needs to stay as normal as possible. We travel a lot, but we always have. We enjoy antiques but we always have.’ Brown has put a lot of his newfound wealth into charities, as he explained. ‘My father’s an educator. I grew up a teacher, certainly education is important. I’m a member of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America and I have a little brother that I see all the time, and I’m sure we’ll want to help them out.’

The fame also brought with it added pressure for him to produce another blockbuster. ‘The reality is that putting pressure on yourself, whether you are a creative person or not, it really interferes with your performance,’ he said. ‘You have to breathe in, exhale and give it to them when it’s done.’
[147]

When
The Da Vinci Code
hit the big time, Brown’s editor, Jason Kaufman, also found the limelight in the publishing world was suddenly squarely upon him. Before
The Da Vinci Code
broke, Kaufman’s projects had covered everything from fiction to non-fiction topics, but he’d had no massive break-out book. With Brown’s blockbuster success, Kaufman suddenly found himself inundated by agents trying to sell him pale imitations of
The Da Vinci Code
or of Brown’s other books. Lisa Rogak tells us that in the year after
The Da Vinci Code
was published, Kaufman bought only one fiction book.
[148]

Brown had a difficult time buying into his new celebrity status, as he told Matt Lauer. ‘It changes your life dramatically. I’m sitting on the
Today Show
, talking to Matt Lauer. That’s a new experience. The same time, I’m a writer. I spend my life essentially alone at a computer. That doesn’t change. I have the same challenges every day.’

As the momentum of the novel’s success grew and his celebrity status along with it, Brown became much more reclusive, going into what he termed retirement to write his next book. ‘There’s enormous change,’ he said. ‘There are changes to your amount of privacy. Your amount of visibility. Your workload.’
[149]

Unfortunately, that book soon became delayed as Brown’s exhaustive schedule of media interviews grew to keep pace with the runaway success of
The Da Vinci Code
. While the publishers wanted the follow-up book as soon as they could get it, they also wanted Brown to stay on the media trail to promote his bestseller, so his writing schedule began to suffer. ‘I have personal deadlines,’ he said. ‘I would like to spend no more than a year-and-a-half writing this book. Hopefully, it’s closer to a year.’
[150]

Brown denied that Doubleday were putting the pressure on him to provide a new Robert Langdon book: that pressure was coming mostly from himself. ‘They say, “Take the time that you need to write a terrific sequel to
The Da Vinci Code
… We’d rather wait for a great book than pressure you to write something that’s mediocre.”’

Brown is a dedicated author and says that the process of writing can’t be pushed. ‘I work every single morning; I’m up at 4am every day, seven days a week, at my desk. I will work five, six hours sometimes straight.’
[151]

Inevitably interviewers asked Brown about his next novel and Doubleday advised him to drop a few little crumbs to keep people’s interest but not to say more. The best he could say was that the next book would be set in Washington and that it was another Robert Langdon book with a plot that revolved around Freemasons, but that was as far as he was able to go.

At the same time other authors began asking him to pen a blurb or a foreword for their work, or to read their manuscripts or provide a positive recommendation so they could ride on the coat-tails of his success. He said that if he’d read every one of the manuscripts that were sent to him he wouldn’t have the time to write.
[152]

By mid 2005 the book had been published in 44 different languages as publishers all over the world clamoured to buy the rights for their countries. Had Brown ever thought that
The Da Vinci Code
would be such a massive hit? He admitted that he’d had his suspicions it could prove popular. ‘There were definitely moments in writing
The Da Vinci Code
that I got shivers and thought, “Wow, if this material is exciting
me
this much, and I’ve just spent a year-and-a-half with it, imagine how a fresh reader would react to this,”’ he said. ‘I never imagined in my wildest dreams that it would be this big a hit.’

With such a massive success, Hollywood also took an interest and came knocking on Brown’s door. At first he was reluctant to sell the rights to the movie capital for a variety of reasons. ‘One of the beauties of the reading experience is that everybody pictures Langdon in his or her perfect way,’ Brown said. ‘The second you slap a character [in a script] – no matter how you describe Langdon or any other character – they picture Ben Affleck or Hugh Jackman or whoever it happens to be.’
[153]

Brown’s reluctance also stemmed from his experiences in Hollywood when he’d been trying to make it with his music. He’d learned the ins and outs of how the place worked so he understood the thought processes. ‘Hollywood has a way of taking a story like this and turning it into a car chase through Paris with machine guns and karate chops,’ was how he described it.

Another difficulty was that in optioning the book for a film, Brown was essentially optioning the Langdon franchise, which was why he wouldn’t do it unless he had ‘exceptional amounts of control’.

‘The publishing industry, contrary to popular belief, is more lucrative than film, so you need to really protect yourself. Authors who have
New York Times
bestselling books make so much more in royalties than they do from optioning or selling screen rights, that, when they have series characters, they definitely need to be careful.’
[154]

Eventually Brown sold the rights to Ron Howard, with Tom Hanks playing the character of Robert Langdon.

Along with the positive response, the phenomenal book sales, something else happened: the level of criticism and controversy began to grow. ‘When you are on top of the world, everybody is out to get you,’ Brown said. ‘People come after you and make all sorts of crazy claims or threats or whatever. But 99 per cent of the contact you have with people is adulation and it’s praise and it’s wonderful.’
[155]

He had certainly been nervous about the response he would get – especially from the Catholic Church. ‘The response from priests, nuns – all sorts of people in the church – for the most part, has been overwhelmingly positive,’ Brown said.

But there were other people who took a different view and who would prove to be thorns in his side. Brown found himself embroiled in a court case after author Lewis Perdue wrote a letter to Doubleday claiming that Brown had plagiarised two of his novels,
The Da Vinci Legacy
and
Daughter of God,
published in 1983 and 2000 respectively. A writer of several novels and non-fiction books, Perdue alleged that Brown had liberally borrowed his themes and plots for the foundation of
The Da Vinci Code
.