NEW YORK - Dan Brown's mind can be a set of codes, but no person who appears to be more mysterious than her tennis partner average. It is the smile, sandy-haired man with a dimpled chin you know from the lapel of "The Da Vinci Code," the boy sport jacket and pants.
After six years of not doing their job - a conversation that spoke softly and cried throughout the world - is back, at least briefly, to promote his new novel, "The Lost Command" and to reflect on how " The Da Vinci Code "transformed him from an unknown writer thriller symbol in its own right.
"I would not change it for anything," he says, sitting on a recent morning in a sunlit room at the headquarters of Random House, Inc. "It's great for 95 percent. My life is much more multifaceted. My experiences have become much more interesting, the people who come to meet, the conversations that get to have. "
The book is done and you do as a parent, "very happy this day has come." Your editor has blessed "The Lost Command", with an initial circulation of 5 million, large for almost any writer, except Brown, whose sales of "The Da Vinci Code" top 40 million. "The Lost symbol" has been at or near the top of Amazon.com 's best-selling novel has been announced in the spring.
The long wait for his new book, he says, is mainly due to the story, "mindboggling things, that takes time to master. In "The Lost Symbol," protagonist Robert Langdon returns from his European adventure of "The Da Vinci Code." He has been summoned to Washington, DC, and is quickly caught in a fateful race against a villainous murderer to find a secret code that supposedly discovers an ancient secret of unlimited knowledge and power.
Like "The Da Vinci Code," the new book is thriller, puzzles, research work and travel. Langdon is precipitated on the Library of Congress to the National Archives to the Washington Monument, a capsule Brown took trips to work in the novel, who travel first class all the way, as the reception staff travel Library of Congress and other buildings.
"Those things would not have happened if not for 'The Da Vinci Code'" he says.
Library spokesman Matt Raymond confirmed that Brown had visited in April 2008 and had looked in some Bibles in the library collection. He also met for about 30 minutes with the Librarian of Congress James Billington, to the debate a "private".
Unwonderful Fama 5 percent is the kind that other prominent people face: a loss of intimacy that makes it impossible for Mr Brown said the tour of his new book, be aware that briefly, a couple of months, he says, makes it difficult for him to write "The Lost Symbol".
He was also delayed for infringing copyright 2006 trial in which writers Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh said Brown's book "appropriated the architecture" of their own work. Brown and Random House prevailed.
"That was certainly a setback, especially since it was a distraction and all that energy that goes into a trial is not in their job," he says. "The worst thing was that someone question my integrity, publicly."
It was often attacked by "The Da Vinci Code," especially for claiming that Jesus and Mary Magdalene conceived a child. The students mocked him, and the religious officials were outraged, but Brown insists his theory, finding that "makes more sense than the story I was told in church."
Brown's new book focuses on Freemasonry, the secret, centuries-old fraternity that has included George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt and Harry Truman. He has a great respect for the Freemasons, especially by its policy of accepting people of all faiths. But he would not be surprised if someone gets angry.
"There will be plenty, he said, not everything will be nice," he says. "And I'm just kind of used to it."
He does not speak much to reporters, but Brown's story is as familiar as most authors, thanks in part to a mini-biography that never wanted to produce - a 69-page document filed in the court's trial London.
Born in 1964 in Exeter, New Hampshire, and still lives nearby. His father, Richard Brown, taught mathematics at Phillips Exeter Academy. His mother, Constance Brown, was a musician. The first treasure hunt I knew were those of his father organized for Christmas.
Brown majored in English at Amherst College, but she also liked the music enough to the debate after graduation if I should write stories or songs. Selection of songs, he moved to Los Angeles and caught on with anyone except for the woman who became his wife, Blythe Newlon, director of artistic development of the National Academy of Songwriters.
When I was young, he compiled a list of "187 Men to Avoid" which was quite fun for Berkeley Publishing Group to release a book in 1995 under the pseudonym "Danielle Brown". But his real breakthrough came two years ago on a vacation in Tahiti, when he read Sidney Sheldon "The Doomsday Conspiracy."
"It kept my attention, kept me turning pages, and reminded me how fun it can be to read," Brown wrote in his court papers. "The simplicity of the prose and the efficiency of the story line was less cumbersome than the dense novels of my schooldays, and I began to suspect that maybe I could write a thriller of this type one day."
He debuted in 1998 with "Digital Fortress, the thriller" an intelligence and followed with "Deception Point" (a novel bored to write) and "Angels and Demons", which presents at least a few readers to Langdon, the Harvard's incarnate teacher descriptions for many of Tom Hanks in the movie version of "The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels and Demons".
Its sales were poor, and in 2001 was in the same routine as so many authors - handling its own advertising and even selling books of his car, a process that now requires a convoy of trucks.
Brown changed agents, he changed publishers (Simon & Schuster Doubleday, a Random House imprint), their luck changed and changed the industry. "The Da Vinci Code," published in March 2003 was an instant hit that "just parked," says Brown, staying in the best-seller lists for over three years. He recalls an early sign of success - an appearance at a supermarket in Washington, not longer after the book came out.
"We went up and the tent was surrounded by people, and I thought, 'My God, there must have been a bomb threat. What are all these people?" And my manager said, 'These people are here for you. And maybe that's when I thought, 'This is bigger than I expected "."
Barnes & Noble, Inc. fiction buyer Sessalee Hensley says she knew vaguely from Brown before "The Da Vinci Code," but had never read. Encouraged by an executive of Barnes & Noble, to discuss Brown's novel was immediately drawn to the rhythm of "Breathless, intrigue - science and art were fascinating.
"But I must say that my biggest to take it was that I wanted to know more about everything he wrote about," says Hensley. "I searched on Google for my fingers off! It made me wish I had Robert Langdon and Dan Brown as a professor in my college years!"
Brown is much richer than it was several years ago, but his life's work remains stable, he says. He rises at 4 am and write until noon, seven days a week, even at Christmas. He is often too exhausted to read, so instead he will play tennis or go jogging on the beach. The religious criticism of Mark Twain, "Letters from Earth" is one of the few books I've read for pleasure lately.
Brown talk and talk about Twain, the Masons, the pyramids of spirituality ( "a work in progress," he says) and e-books (read them, and the type of paper, too), but some issues repel as if they were asked to violate a sacred oath. Ask about his upcoming book and he smiles, in a pleasant manner, and change the subject. Ask about the policy, and he revolted.
"The Lost" do not give names, but works in the criticism of waterboarding and religious intolerance, the passages that suggest the author was not a fan of the administration of George W. Bush.
"People who have read the book have told me that seems preordained when the book," he says. "And they will include, among other information, the president (Obama) and the change in attitudes toward religion."
Asked if the book was completed after the election of Obama, he replies thoughtfully, yes. Asked his opinion of Obama, is refusing comment, the very future of his book.
"What I'm trying to do in this book is to send a universal message, and the second volume firstly, it undermines everything," he says, adding that he underwent a "transformation" work in "The Lost Symbol."
"(It) really two things. The idea that science is beginning to show our true potential and that potential is much larger than most of us imagined. ... Tangentially, I feel we are entering an era where the prejudices, the prejudices of religion, in particular, begins to evaporate. "
“Mad Men” writers Kater Gordon and Matthew Weiner took home a golden statuette for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series earlier in the night.
