The Dan Brown Enigma

by Graham A Thomas

  Now we know how Brown writes, let’s take a closer look at his literary formula. We have seen that the Sidney Sheldon book was Brown’s eureka moment and inspired him to write thrillers, but he has also been influenced by Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne series. ‘Ludlum’s early books are complex, smart, and yet still move at a lightning pace,’ he pointed out. ‘This series got me interested in the genre of big-concept, international thrillers.’[27] He has recurring themes that he brings into each of his novels – the hero pulled out of his or her familiar environment and plunged into a dangerous, unforgiving new setting where a life-and-death struggle needs to be resolved within a very short space of time.

  Brown writes stories where good and evil battle it out. ‘In all the ancient myths there are monsters that haunt your hero,’ he said. ‘I am always fascinated by the mythological resonance of these villains and they are by far the most interesting and pathetic. They are almost monsters but they are almost superhuman too and they are going up against somebody and your hero on some level is a little bit more than ordinary.’[28]

  In three of his books the protagonist is symbologist Dr Robert Langdon, an academic and the kind of man the Brown would like to be. Largely because Langdon is prepared to take risks in order to solve his puzzle, Brown puts his character into danger so he can find the solution. ‘He’s very curious,’ Brown said. ‘Intellectually curious and that’s what I hope these books will do for readers is make them intellectually curious. He’s not an action hero and yet he finds himself in these situations where he finds himself uncovering ancient historical truths and having to decipher codes and puzzles to solve mysteries.’[29]

  He has also said that he loves building tension in his novels. Having a female lead in his novels, either as a companion to Langdon or as the heroine of the story, gives the novel romantic and sexual tension, which in most cases is implied. This adds an extra dimension while also building the tension. Brown finds smart women very attractive so he has given Langdon that same trait.[30]

  Brown also says his character must have some form of Achilles heel, some weakness otherwise he is simply a cardboard cutout. ‘The classic weakness is hubris and Langdon doesn’t have that. I would say that his fault is that he is curious to a fault. He puts himself in dangerous situations to find things out and that is something I would not do.’

  Brown is fascinated by veiled or hidden power – those organisations that operate in the shadows. ‘The idea that everything happens for reasons we’re not quite seeing. It reminds me of religion a little. The power that religion has is that you think nothing is random. If there’s a tragedy in my life, that’s God testing me or sending me a message. That’s what conspiracy theorists do. They say, “The economy’s terrible? Oh, that’s not random. That’s a bunch of rich guys in Prague who sat down and…”’

  Yet Brown still remains a sceptic. He is not a conspiracy theorist and doesn’t believe in UFOs. ‘I think one reason my books have found mainstream success is that they’re written from a sceptical point of view,’ Brown said. Langdon is a sceptic as well, which connects the reader with someone who will not take anything at face value but whose first reaction is disbelief. ‘If I’m doing my job,’ says Brown, ‘then what happens is that you, the sceptical reader, move through my stories and start to say, “Oh my God. Maybe. Maybe.”’[31]

  The astonishing success of The Da Vinci Code not only propelled him into the spotlight but also brought detractors out of the woodwork. ‘I am aware there are those out there who disagree with me,’ Brown has said, ‘who say awful things about me, who make little pictures and I know that a lot of them have published long lists of my shortcomings, my errors and my mistakes.’[32]

  Because of that success people came out of the shadows to hang on Brown’s coat-tails in any way they could. ‘There is something that comes along with success that you have people who are gunning for you, who want to say, “That’s not worthy. Why is everybody enjoying that?” and it comes with the territory.’[33]

  Critics claim that his writing is awkward and that he is no literary genius. Brown’s response is that he never set out to be a great literary author. The point is for the reader to have fun. ‘There are some people who understand what I do and get on the train and go for a ride and have a great time, and there are other people who should read something else.’[34]

  How Brown measures his success is how well he connects with his readers. His official website regularly gets hundreds of emails and most of those are complimentary. ‘The nicest thing I ever hear and I often hear it and it makes me happy is that somebody will say, “After I got out of high school I really didn’t read much but somebody made me read The Da Vinci Code – they hit me over the head with it and finally I read it and now I can’t stop reading. You reintroduced me to the love of books” and for me that’s the most gratifying and rewarding thing about it.’[35]

  CHAPTER SIX

  * * *

  MRS BROWN, YOU’VE GOT A LOVELY HUSBAND

  Both Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code are dedicated to Blythe, whom Brown has given a great deal of credit, stressing her invaluable help as a co-researcher.

  DAVID A. SHUGARTS

  The old saying that ‘behind every successful man is a successful woman’ is certainly true of Dan Brown. When Brown gave his evidence in the High Court at the Old Bailey in a detailed witness statement responding to two historians claiming that he plagiarised their ideas in The Da Vinci Code (which we will look at in detail later), he gave his fans a unique insight into the story behind the most successful thriller ever written.

  Blythe has been the driving force in Brown’s life ever since they met in Los Angeles, and together they make an impressive team. It was her networking that got him into the studio with top musicians and a top producer for his first CD. She sent out the press releases proclaiming Brown as the next big singer-songwriter. It was her contacting agents and publishing companies that got Brown the publishing deal for 187 Men to Avoid.

  He cites her as his inspiration but there is more to her than that. As an art history enthusiast and Leonardo da Vinci fan, she contributed some of the more interesting art ideas to the novel. As Joanna Walters and Alice O’Keeffe noted in The Observer in March 2006, ‘The older, more glamorous half of the Browns is emerging as, if not the “real brains” behind The Da Vinci Code, then certainly a creative energy as indispensable to her husband as the Mona Lisa herself.’[36]

  Blythe has had an influence on every Dan Brown novel with the exception of Deception Point. Angels & Demons is dedicated to Blythe, and Brown writes in his dedication for The Da Vinci Code ‘For Blythe… again. More than ever.’ Indeed, Brown says she is more than an inspiration, she is ‘the intellectual catalyst, sounding board and initial judge.’[37]

  Little is known about Blythe. He has described her in various interviews as an art historian, or as a history buff and a Da Vinci fanatic. Painting is her hobby, yet there is no indication that she ever graduated in art history.[38]

  Blythe hails from Palmdale in California. As we have seen, she and Brown met in 1991 when she was Director of Artistic Development at the National Academy for Songwriters in L.A. By the time she headed east with Brown on the promise of a publishing deal for 187 Men To Avoid they were lovers, and she must have been very committed to the relationship to leave her home and her job to pull up sticks and move to the other side of the country with him.

  But without a doubt she is crucial to Brown’s success. On the second CD, Angels & Demons, Brown thanked her for ‘being my tireless co-writer, co-producer, second engineer, significant other and therapist’. Once in quiet Exeter, Blythe provided essential research material while Brown concentrated on his writing. In 1997 the couple tied the knot and for several years lived in an old mill, until they hit the big time with The Da Vinci Code and moved to a discreet house tucked up a private drive near Rye on the New Hampshire coast.

  According to Rogak, Blythe’s input into Brown’s first novel Digital
Fortress was largely in an editing capacity. ‘With the help of Blythe’s keen editing eye, the material that made it to the final draft was only the tip of the iceberg. But what went unsaid made the characters deeper and the story line richer in the end.’[39]

  While Blythe didn’t get involved in the research on Digital Fortress, she did on the subsequent novels apart from Deception Point, when she swapped her research role for her editor’s hat. ‘Unfortunately for Blythe, the technological subject matter of Deception Point did not interest her much,’ Brown said. ‘She helped research some of the geology and glaciology, the architecture of the White House, Air Force One, etc., but she served more as a first class editor and sounding board.’[40]

  With Brown’s fascination for symbols, codes, Renaissance art and Blythe’s love of all things Da Vinci, Brown had a winning combination. In Rogak’s opinion: ‘With her vibrant imagination and burgeoning knowledge in that direction, he hit the literary jackpot.’[41]

  While Brown was researching Angels & Demons, Blythe became the author of another humour publication called The Bald Book which, Lisa Rogak said, ‘could rightfully be considered to be a love letter to bald men everywhere.’ Blythe approached Wieser and Wieser again and the agency sold it to Pinnacle Books. The book came out on 1 June 1998, four months after Digital Fortress. The author biography said, ‘Artist Blythe Brown lives in New England and spends her days painting while her husband happily goes bald.’ But although the book is attributed to Blythe, the copyright is held by Dan Brown.

  In February 1998 when Digital Fortress was released, Blythe took on publicising the novel in addition to the work the publishers did, which wasn’t much. She sent out press releases she’d written, she got on the phone to talk-show producers to book Brown and she contacted newspapers to set up interviews with her husband.

  According to Rogak it is much harder to promote a book of fiction than it is a book of non-fiction where ‘a publicist can market the title as a solution to a problem.’ So, as an angle, Blythe set up a website that featured Brown as a source ‘to advise readers and viewers on how to protect themselves online’. The material she developed to promote the book focused on the more paranoid aspects of who was reading people’s email and who was watching people online. These two aspects made Brown a popular interview subject. Sometimes she had him doing up to four radio interviews a day. She also arranged for him to sign copies of his book in as many bookstores in New Hampshire as she could. Blythe also contacted the Union Leader, New Hampshire’s largest daily newspaper, and got a reporter to attend a talk Brown was giving to the New Hampshire chapter of the American Society for Industrial Security. Despite all their efforts, the sales for Digital Fortress were poor, yet ‘he basked in the attention the media had been giving him for Digital Fortress.’[42]

  Later in 1998 Brown began work on his second novel, Angels & Demons. ‘Of course, at this point I was an unknown, unpublished author,’ he said. ‘Money was tight, but we had enough to travel, something Blythe and I both love, and we decided to visit Rome.’

  Unlike the first novel, Blythe would play a major part in this new project. ‘Although I had researched Digital Fortress entirely on my own, for this new book Blythe became my research assistant,’ said Brown. ‘This was wonderful. We were able to work together as husband and wife; I now had a sounding board and a travel partner on research trips. Although Blythe’s main interest and expertise was art, I did ask her for help researching specifics on scientific topics like Galileo, the Big Bang, particle accelerators, etc. She also served as a first-class set of eyes for new sections I was writing.’[43]

  The couple walked for miles around Rome, taking hundreds of photographs ‘exploring the city using all kinds of guidebooks, maps and tours.’

  Angels & Demons came out under Simon & Schuster’s Pocket Books imprint in April 2000. As with St Martin’s Press the publicity for this book was poor and Blythe found herself winding up the publicity machine again. ‘Unfortunately, when the book came out, my print run was slashed down to 12,000 copies with virtually no publicity at all,’ said Brown. He was on his own. ‘Blythe and I were heartbroken as we had put so much work into this book. The few readers who read Angels & Demons had gone wild for it, and Blythe and I really believed we had something – if we could only get it to a critical mass of readers.’ [44]

  In August 2001 Deception Point was published, the second half of the two-book deal he had with Simon & Schuster. But as with the two that went before it, the publicity for it was less than adequate and again Blythe began greasing the wheels of publicity. With Angels & Demons people had been emailing Brown; readers had bought the novel and gone over to Europe using it as a guidebook. All the places and names Brown had put into the book were real and people were saying how much they were enjoying the fact that he had described them as they were. For Blythe that was the angle to hang the promotion on, but with Deception Point there was nothing.

  Blythe’s involvement with The Da Vinci Code was far greater than anything previously. In her biography on Brown, Lisa Rogak states that for this fourth novel Brown and Blythe ‘began to work more closely together’ because Blythe’s expertise lay ‘in the primary subject of the book – the art of Leonardo da Vinci.’ The subject matter of this book was much more complex than anything Brown had tackled before and more often than not he got bogged down in the intricate story line. Blythe’s influence and passion for Da Vinci meant she could help Brown unblock his imagination. ‘There are days when it helps to have somebody around who understands art and Da Vinci and is passionate about it,’ he said.[45]

  The day after submitting Deception Point to the publisher, Brown and Blythe had decided to head for Mexico on vacation. There they explored the Yucatan peninsula, and the ancient Mayan pyramids and archaeological ruins of Chichen-Itza and Tulum that got Brown’s creative juices flowing again and he began to think about another book. ‘In the case of The Da Vinci Code, Blythe and I spent a year or so travelling and conducting research,’ Brown said. ‘We met with historians and other academics and extended our travels from the Vatican and France to England and Scotland in order to investigate the historical underpinnings of the novel.’

  The Da Vinci Code was Brown’s most heavily researched work yet, and Blythe played a major part in this. Indeed, he tells us that a lot of his research books for the novel are marked ‘with margin notes, sticky notes, underlining, highlighting, inserted pieces of paper, etc. A good portion of these notes (as with Angels & Demons) are in my wife’s handwriting.’

  While researching for The Da Vinci Code Blythe was passionate about learning as much as she could. ‘In Angels & Demons, she may have found me the exact specifications of Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers,’ said Brown. ‘With The Da Vinci Code, however, she was reading entire books, highlighting exciting ideas, and urging me to read the material myself and find ways to work the ideas in to the plot.’ Particularly inspiring for Blythe was the suppression of women by the Catholic Church. Brown tells us that ‘she lobbied hard for me to make it a primary theme of the novel. Blythe also tends to save far more memorabilia than I do; many of the research notes were now hers, and more of them found their way into safe-keeping.’[46]

  Blythe and Dan bought several books from which they would take the facts that Brown needed to tell his story. One of these books, The Hiram Key, Blythe marked quite heavily. ‘In my childhood, I was taught never to write in books,’ Brown said. ‘To this day, I still have a strong aversion to it. For this reason, my margin notes often are very light or taken down on a separate piece of paper. Blythe does not share my idiosyncrasy, and she often marks books very heavily. She also often produced research documents for me as a result of her studies of the books. An example from The Hiram Key is “Hiram’s Key Notes”. It can be seen from that document that she included a number of page references which she thought I should consult.’

  Not all the documents that Blythe prepared for her husband were what he wanted, however. He read every
thing she gave him with care but sometimes ‘she prepared notes that were either too lengthy which I skimmed, ignored or seemed off-topic,’ or the notes were more interesting to her than they were to Brown.

  The couple worked very well together as a team, with Blythe providing research that Brown could not possibly have had the time to do if he had been working on his own. The Da Vinci Code is a highly complex novel and without Blythe it would have been much harder for him to write. ‘She was becoming more and more intrigued by the information we were learning, and she wanted me to incorporate all of it which I could not possibly do,’ Brown explained in his witness statement for the High Court. ‘She often playfully chided me about my resolve to keep the novel fast-paced, always at the expense of her research. In return, I jokingly reminded her that I was trying to write a thriller, not a history book. In the end, we found a comfortable balance of pace and history, and we had a wonderful time throwing ideas back and forth. Blythe’s female perspective was particularly helpful with this book, which deals so heavily with concepts like the Sacred Feminine, goddess worship and the feminine aspect of spirituality.’

  Blythe played a hugely important role in researching the Sacred Feminine, which was one of the central themes of the book. Margaret Starbird had written about Mary Magdalene and this captured Blythe’s imagination. ‘Blythe reacted to Starbird’s books with enormous passion and enthusiasm,’ Brown said. ‘In fact, I’m not sure I had ever seen Blythe as passionate about anything as she became for the historical figure of Mary Magdalene (particularly the idea that the church had unfairly maligned her).’[47] So enthralled was Blythe by Starbird’s portrayal that she purchased a painting of Magdalene which she hung on the wall over her desk.