James Patterson: By the Book

Published: August 20, 2013 - The New York Times

The author behind Alex Cross, the Women’s Murder Club and the Middle School series is disappointed in the movies adapted from his books. “My current paranoid theory is that I’m a victim of ‘caricature assassination.’ ”

James Patterson - Illustration by Jillian Tamaki

What’s the best book you’ve read so far this year? 

I spent several eventful and exhilarating summers at a mental hospital outside Cambridge, Mass. I was working my way through school there — honest. But I do love crazy people. Crazy authors especially: William Burroughs, Jean Genet, Ken Kesey, Sylvia Plath, Cormac McCarthy. Maybe that’s why “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” is my favorite novel so far this year. It’s funnier than a season’s worth of “Modern Family,”  “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Justified” episodes; it’s also the most original and imaginative fiction I’ve read since “The Invention of Hugo Cabret.” 

If you had to name a favorite novelist, who would it be? 

I’m much more comfortable writing about “favorite” books than I am proclaiming “the best” of anything. I’m afraid I have to talk “favorites” — plural — though. Gabriel García Márquez, James Joyce and Günter Grass are important to me because their writing made it crystal clear that I wasn’t capable of the write stuff. Those three dream-killers are still among my favorites. So is George Pelecanos in the thriller-mystery game. Also Richard Price, who seems to remember every good line and phrase he ever heard. This was even true in his first novel, “The Wanderers,” which made me sick with envy way back when I was young, carefree and more susceptible to jealousy. 

Who do you consider the best thriller writers of all time? 

There’s that gnatty “best” word again. Soldiering on, I love Pelecanos. Also Nelson DeMille, Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke, Dennis Lehane, Walter Mosley, Don Winslow and Richard Price, of course. As one-offs, “Night Dogs,”  “The Ice Harvest,” “Marathon Man,” “Different Seasons” and “Cutter and Bone” are among my “besties.” I believe that thrillers should thrill — and most don’t, at least not for me. I also don’t think that thriller writers need to play by the constricting rules of realism. Sometimes I come across reviews carping that a certain thriller isn’t very “realistic” or that such and such a scene “would never happen in real life.” Makes me think of an art critic accusing Klee or Chagall of not being very realistic.

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