Dan Brown on being burned by his critics
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Criticism has become de rigueur for the beleaguered Brown, which might explain why the American author rarely gives interviews
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Sitting outside the shopping mall, the table in front of him stacked with copies of his novel Digital Fortress, author Dan Brown was excitedly preparing for his first book signing. ‘I had my coat and tie on,’ he says, ‘and five pens at the ready, just to be sure.’ Three hours later, he had yet to sign a single book. ‘Finally a man walked towards me, looking me right in the eye, so I took the cap off my pen and was quivering with excitement. Then he said: “Can you tell me where this restaurant is?”’ Brown laughs. ‘That was the only question I got all day.’

Fast forward some 20 years and how things have changed. Now one of the world’s best-known authors, Brown’s 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code was an instant smash, spending 144 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and shifting a staggering 82 million copies worldwide. His novels, featuring an unlikely hero, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, have subsequently been turned into movies starring Tom Hanks and together with his books have grossed over £2 billion. Brown himself is said to be worth around $170 million, having sold 200 million of his books worldwide, meaning that he could now probably afford to buy the aforementioned mall if he so desired. ‘I’ll never forget those early days when nobody cared about what I wrote,’ he says, ‘whatever criticism I get now.’

Criticism has become de rigueur for the beleaguered Brown, which might explain why the American author rarely gives interviews. After sparkling early reviews of The Da Vinci Code, ‘all of a sudden it just turned,’ he admits. Critics were queuing up to insult his prose (one described it as ‘almost ingeniously bad’) and controversy dogged him at every turn. The Da Vinci Code, a thriller that speculates that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had a child together, so riled the Vatican that they appointed an archbishop to specifically rebut the novel’s ideas. ‘Cardinal Bertone has made quite a career of saying I was the devil,’ says Brown.

The novel even became the subject of a highly publicised court case in Britain when, in 2006, authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh accused him of plagiarising their 1982 non-fiction book, The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail. ‘My attorney called and said, “We’ve just heard from Baigent and Leigh – they’ve sent you something.” I said, “Is it chocolates or flowers?” and he said, “It’s a lawsuit.” I didn’t understand – I mentioned their book [in The Da Vinci Code], I credited them and I named a character after them. They were shaking the tree, wanting to see if any money fell out.’ Though Brown won the case, ‘it took two years of my life and it was not pleasant.’ Afterwards it was suggested that the entire trial was a collaborative attempt to maximise publicity for the books (sales of both books soared during the trial; both were published by Random House), but Brown shakes his head. ‘I know how hard my publisher tried to quickly settle this case, but I would not settle and to my publisher’s great credit, they said they understood. It would have taken a relatively small amount [of money] and would have been easier for everybody if we’d just made it go away. But I said no, we can’t do that. We’ve had a whole lot of these sorts of claims that have all turned out to be absolutely false and I have never settled, because if you do then they all line up. You can say you hate my book, but don’t say I’m a liar or a cheater.’

Sitting in his home in a remote area of New Hampshire, it’s hard to believe that the affable and earnest chap in front of me has managed to provoke so much ire. Tall, slim and neatly attired in a grey jumper and dark jeans, the 53-year-old resembles an enthusiastic English teacher (his former profession) more than a scourge of the Catholic Church. He lives here with his wife of 20 years, Blythe Newlon, a glamorous blonde 12 years his senior. The couple don’t have children, ‘and that’s by design,’ says Brown. ‘We looked at each other and decided that we wanted to be creative – that’s really where our joy comes from. Blythe loves painting and sculpting and I like writing and playing the piano. We also have a very active social life and a lot of friends and we’re both independent people who are comfortable being apart or together. We’ve also got seven books – those are the kids.’

Brown’s last ‘kid’, Inferno, examined the world’s impending overpopulation, and he has some intriguing beliefs. ‘I do believe that’s a huge problem. Someone said to me: if you could do anything to stem population, what would you do? I said I would basically have the human race born sterile and when you want a baby, you take a pill. So the baby is a choice.’ Does he really believe that? ‘I believe that some day that’s the way it will be, because we’re going to start living so long that we cannot afford to have ten children, especially in undeveloped countries. It’s a very effective way to make sure every child in this world is wanted.’

His latest book, Origin, looks set to spark more debate. It sees the return of Robert Langdon, who finds himself at the Guggenheim Museum in Spain awaiting a talk to be given by his friend and former student, billionaire futurist Edmond Kirsch. Kirsch promises to answer two of mankind’s most fundamental questions: Where do we come from? Where are we going? But in doing so he also aims to prove the one thing that all religions have in common: that they are all wrong. When the talk ends in tragedy, it’s up to Langdon and the museum’s glamorous director, Ambra Vidal, to solve the mystery.

It’s a trademark Brown page-turner, ‘and the spark for the novel was a piece of music – Missa Charles Darwin – which is church music combined with scientific lyrics,’ explains Brown. ‘It was actually composed by my brother Gregory and it got me thinking about Darwin, evolution and creationism. I’m always looking for big ideas that knock against each other.’

Does Brown worry about upsetting yet more religious leaders, particularly given the current threat of religious terrorism? ‘I’m not worried, no, but then maybe I’m being naive,’ he says. ‘When The Da Vinci Code came out, I was surprised there was so much controversy as both my parents were teachers and I was brought up to believe that asking questions was the foundation of everything – I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to do that! I’m respectful of the enormous amount of good religion does in the world, but I just feel that the banner of religion should not be waved as immunity from having to endure rational scrutiny. I don’t think religion is doing itself any favours by proclaiming: this is a religious idea, therefore you can’t question it.’ As for extremism, ‘it’s a part of every religion, every philosophy on Earth. Right now in history, extremism feels like a Muslim problem but it’s a universal problem of all philosophies, going back to the Salem witch trials or the Christian crusades.’

As well as having to outfox shadowy villains, Langdon also has to deal with the baffling concerns of modern art and, more interestingly, artificial intelligence. ‘My personal fear of AI,’ says Brown, ‘is that when I look at history, it seems pretty obvious that we have never created a technology that we haven’t weaponised. Fire could heat your cave, but you could also run to the neighbouring village, burn down everyone’s house and take them over. So I think it would be naive to think that AI would not be used to kill people. I was fascinated by the subject.’

But while the novel deals with the big themes that infuse all of Brown’s work, it also poignantly hints at circumstances in his own life. One of the characters is terminally ill and it transpires that his own mother Constance died two months ago, aged 79. ‘She had leukaemia for a long time and we knew that there was limited time with her,’ he says. ‘Unfortunately, she never got to read the new book, which kind of breaks my heart, so I dedicated it to her. She was an enormous influence in my life, a very strong woman and a religious woman who a few years before The Da Vinci Code came out, moved away from the Church and found her own spirituality. Some of her friends would say: “You need to stop your son from saying all this stuff” and she’d just laugh and say: “If my son’s thriller can shake your faith, you may want to have a look at that.”

His father Richard, now 81, had a big hand in his son’s future career. Every Christmas he would place envelopes containing clues under the tree rather than presents. The young Dan, his brother Gregory and sister Valerie then had to solve mystery in order to find their gifts. ‘The clues would take us to the refrigerator and then to the wood pile behind the house and so on,’ says Brown. ‘Finally, we’d solve the clues and be back at the tree where there’d be all these presents. My dad still does these treasure hunts for my two nephews in our house because it has secret passages everywhere. Come and have a look!’ he says, jumping up. We’re sitting in what he calls his ‘fortress of gratitude’ – a library containing all of his books in over 50 languages. He pushes against one of the bookcases and it opens, leading to a secret garden outside. It also reveals a compartment filled with Dan Brown memorabilia, including the watch worn by Tom Hanks in The Da Vinci Code and Brown’s first ever novel, The Giraffe, The Pig And The Pants On Fire, written when he was five.

Growing up in Exeter, New Hampshire, the Brown children had no TV in the house, he says. ‘I spent a lot of time alone, wrote stories, played music and in the summer we lived up in the White Mountains. There were no kids there, so I played with my dog and had imaginary friends.’

As a young boy he admits to a burgeoning curiosity about secret societies. ‘There was a Masonic temple downtown which always fascinated me. Also, I had a good friend who was inducted into Skull and Bones [Yale University’s secret society]. The fact that he refused to speak to me about what happened inside really intrigued me.’

After graduating from Amherst College, Massachusetts, Brown was torn between pursuing a career in music or writing. Initially, he plumped for music, ‘as it seemed a lot more fun’, and pitched up in LA, working as a teacher to pay the rent. He joined the National Academy of Songwriters to get a foot in the door, although even then, he seemed somewhat out of place, showing up for a meeting with the academy’s director of music, Blythe Newlon, ‘in proper prep school attire – blazer, loafers, tie and khakis. In LA! She took one look at me and said: “Are you the artist’s attorney?” and I said: “No, I’m the guy!” She probably thought I was an idiot. The meeting lasted five minutes.’

Nonetheless, Blythe called the following morning, offering to represent him and Brown ended up cutting a record. ‘One of the songs, 976 Love, was about phone sex and looking at the clean-cut Brown now, one can almost hear his toes curl as he explains: ‘There was a lot of sexual content in songs around then – I was just trying to get published. Really, I wanted to write songs about princes and queens and reading ancient manuscripts, but no one was interested. The album sold about nine copies. I’m pretty sure my mum bought all of them.’

If Brown’s music career was stalling, his romantic life was looking up. He and Blythe started dating and they married four years later, in 1997. It was while on holiday with Blythe that Brown had his eureka moment – reading Sidney Sheldon’s thriller The Doomsday Conspiracy, he decided he could do better and he wrote his first novel, Digital Fortress, in 1998. It sold poorly, as did his next two, ‘and then I wrote The Da Vinci Code. I thought: if this doesn’t work, then I’m going to have to do something else with my life because clearly I don’t share anyone else’s taste in books.’

Brown admits that his wife’s input was crucial. ‘I was writing about the Louvre and the Grail, but it was Blythe who said I should write about Mary Magdalene too. I probably wouldn’t have written the book without her. She’s a great researcher.’

Given that he’s reportedly earned $20 million this year alone, his extravagances are fairly simple. ‘It didn’t occur to me to buy a Maserati or a yacht. In fact I was still driving my old Volvo three years after Da Vinci Code came out.’ He and Blythe wrote a short humorous title, The Bald Book, in 1998 – did he ever want to buy a new head of hair? ‘I’m pretty bald,’ he laughs, ‘but I draw the line at cutting into my own head to have more hair.’

Brown is funny, sociable and thoroughly engaging company. He has his quirks, rising at 4am to write and occasionally strapping himself onto an inversion table to get the creative juices flowing. He also wears a disguise of baseball cap and sunglasses while researching his novels, but was recognised while visiting the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona to research Origin, ‘because I feel it’s disrespectful to wear a hat in a church, so I took it off’.

He admits that Robert Langdon ‘is a much better version of me. He’s much more daring and interesting and he’s smarter too.’

Like the myths Langdon explores however, there are some that Brown would like to dispel. ‘People think I’m a conspiracy theorist, but I’m not – I’m just trying to raise intellectual curiosity. I believe 9/11 happened exactly the way it was reported, that Apollo 11 landed on the Moon and that Roswell, New Mexico, doesn’t have aliens.’ Nor is he an atheist.

‘I started as a devout Christian and I think I’m in my agnostic period; I readily admit that I’m confused. But when I lie underneath a star-filled sky, I just have the sense there’s something there that’s bigger than I am.’

After his The Da Vinci Code experience, Brown is braced for more criticism with Origin. ‘We all have a bias against anything that becomes popular, so I understand the criticism. But I can’t lie – it hurt. I know I’m supposed to say I didn’t feel anything, but it’s not true. I would have liked to have written a book everyone loved, but that’s not the way the world works.’ He smiles. ‘I took it personally for a short time, but it’s fine,’ he shrugs. ‘I’m used to getting beat up.’

‘Origin’ by Dan Brown is published by Bantam Press on Tuesday, priced £20. Offer price £16 (20% discount including free p&p) until Oct 15. Order at mailshop.co.uk/books or call 0844 5710640. Brown will launch the book at his only UK appearance on Oct 9 at the Harrogate International Festival, harrogateinternationalfestivals.com

An exclusive look at the Prologue to Dan Brown's forthcoming novel, Origin

As the ancient cogwheel train clawed its way up the dizzying incline, Edmond Kirsch surveyed the jagged mountaintop above him. In the distance, built into the face of a sheer cliff, the mas­sive stone monastery seemed to hang in space, as if magically fused to the vertical precipice.

This timeless sanctuary in Catalonia, Spain, had endured the relent­less pull of gravity for more than four centuries, never slipping from its original purpose: to insulate its occupants from the modern world.

Ironically, they will now be the first to learn the truth, Kirsch thought, wondering how they would react. Historically, the most dangerous men on earth were men of God . . . especially when their gods became threat­ened. And I am about to hurl a flaming spear into a hornets’ nest.

When the train reached the mountaintop, Kirsch saw a solitary figure waiting for him on the platform. The wizened skeleton of a man was draped in the traditional Catholic purple cassock and white rochet, with a zucchetto on his head. Kirsch recognized his host’s rawboned features from photos and felt an unexpected surge of adrenaline.

Valdespino is greeting me personally.

Bishop Antonio Valdespino was a formidable figure in Spain—not only a trusted friend and counselor to the king himself, but one of the country’s most vocal and influential advocates for the preservation of conservative Catholic values and traditional political standards.

“Edmond Kirsch, I assume?” the bishop intoned as Kirsch exited the train.

“Guilty as charged,” Kirsch said, smiling as he reached out to shake his host’s bony hand. “Bishop Valdespino, I want to thank you for arranging this meeting.”

“I appreciate your requesting it.” The bishop’s voice was stronger than Kirsch expected—clear and penetrating, like a bell. “It is not often we are consulted by men of science, especially one of your prominence. This way, please.”

As Valdespino guided Kirsch across the platform, the cold mountain air whipped at the bishop’s cassock.

“I must confess,” Valdespino said, “you look different than I imagined. I was expecting a scientist, but you’re quite . . .” He eyed his guest’s sleek Kiton K50 suit and Barker ostrich shoes with a hint of disdain. “ ‘Hip,’ I believe, is the word?”

Kirsch smiled politely. The word “hip” went out of style decades ago.

“In reading your list of accomplishments,” the bishop said, “I am still not entirely sure what it is you do.”

“I specialize in game theory and computer modeling.”

“So you make the computer games that the children play?”

Kirsch sensed the bishop was feigning ignorance in an attempt to be quaint. More accurately, Kirsch knew, Valdespino was a frighteningly well-informed student of technology and often warned others of its dan­gers. “No, sir, actually game theory is a field of mathematics that studies patterns in order to make predictions about the future.”

“Ah yes. I believe I read that you predicted a European monetary crisis some years ago? When nobody listened, you saved the day by invent­ing a computer program that pulled the EU back from the dead. What was your famous quote? ‘At thirty-three years old, I am the same age as Christ when He performed His resurrection.’ ”

Kirsch cringed. “A poor analogy, Your Grace. I was young.”

“Young?” The bishop chuckled. “And how old are you now . . . per­haps forty?”

“Just.”

The old man smiled as the strong wind continued to billow his robe. “Well, the meek were supposed to inherit the earth, but instead it has gone to the young—the technically inclined, those who stare into video screens rather than into their own souls. I must admit, I never imagined I would have reason to meet the young man leading the charge. They call you a prophet, you know.”

“Not a very good one in your case, Your Grace,” Kirsch replied. “When I asked if I might meet you and your colleagues privately, I calculated only a twenty percent chance you would accept.”

“And as I told my colleagues, the devout can always benefit from lis­tening to nonbelievers. It is in hearing the voice of the devil that we can better appreciate the voice of God.” The old man smiled. “I am joking, of course. Please forgive my aging sense of humor. My filters fail me from time to time.”

With that, Bishop Valdespino motioned ahead. “The others are wait­ing. This way, please.”

Kirsch eyed their destination, a colossal citadel of gray stone perched on the edge of a sheer cliff that plunged thousands of feet down into a lush tapestry of wooded foothills. Unnerved by the height, Kirsch averted his eyes from the chasm and followed the bishop along the uneven cliffside path, turning his thoughts to the meeting ahead.

Kirsch had requested an audience with three prominent religious leaders who had just finished attending a conference here.

The Parliament of the World’s Religions.

Since 1893, hundreds of spiritual leaders from nearly thirty world religions had gathered in a different location every few years to spend a week engaged in interfaith dialogue. Participants included a wide array of influential Christian priests, Jewish rabbis, and Islamic mullahs from around the world, along with Hindu pujaris, Buddhist bhikkhus, Jains, Sikhs, and others.

The parliament’s self-proclaimed objective was “to cultivate harmony among the world’s religions, build bridges between diverse spiritualities, and celebrate the intersections of all faith.”

A noble quest, Kirsch thought, despite seeing it as an empty exercise— a meaningless search for random points of correspondence among a hodgepodge of ancient fictions, fables, and myths.

As Bishop Valdespino guided him along the pathway, Kirsch peered down the mountainside with a sardonic thought. Moses climbed a moun­tain to accept the Word of God . . . and I have climbed a mountain to do quite the opposite.

Kirsch’s motivation for climbing this mountain, he had told him­self, was one of ethical obligation, but he knew there was a good dose of hubris fueling this visit— he was eager to feel the gratification of sitting face-to-face with these clerics and foretelling their imminent demise.

You’ve had your run at defining our truth.

“I looked at your curriculum vitae,” the bishop said abruptly, glancing at Kirsch. “I see you’re a product of Harvard University”

“Undergraduate. Yes.”

“I see. Recently, I read that for the first time in Harvard’s history, the incoming student body consists of more atheists and agnostics than those who identify as followers of any religion. That is quite a telling statistic, Mr. Kirsch.”

What can I tell you, Kirsch wanted to reply, our students keep getting smarter.

The wind whipped harder as they arrived at the ancient stone edi­fice. Inside the dim light of the building’s entryway, the air was heavy with the thick fragrance of burning frankincense. The two men snaked through a maze of dark corridors, and Kirsch’s eyes fought to adjust as he followed his cloaked host. Finally, they arrived at an unusually small wooden door. The bishop knocked, ducked down, and entered, motion­ing for his guest to follow.

Uncertain, Kirsch stepped over the threshold.

He found himself in a rectangular chamber whose high walls bur­geoned with ancient leather-bound tomes. Additional freestanding bookshelves jutted out of the walls like ribs, interspersed with cast-iron radiators that clanged and hissed, giving the room the eerie sense that it was alive. Kirsch raised his eyes to the ornately balustraded walkway that encircled the second story and knew without a doubt where he was.

The famed library of Montserrat, he realized, startled to have been admitted. This sacred room was rumored to contain uniquely rare texts accessible only to those monks who had devoted their lives to God and who were sequestered here on this mountain.

“You asked for discretion,” the bishop said. “This is our most private space. Few outsiders have ever entered.”

“A generous privilege. Thank you.”

Kirsch followed the bishop to a large wooden table where two elderly men sat waiting. The man on the left looked timeworn, with tired eyes and a matted white beard. He wore a crumpled black suit, white shirt, and fedora.

“This is Rabbi Yehuda Köves,” the bishop said. “He is a prominent Jewish philosopher who has written extensively on Kabbalistic cosmol­ogy.”

Kirsch reached across the table and politely shook hands with Rabbi Köves. “A pleasure to meet you, sir,” Kirsch said. “I’ve read your books on Kabbala. I can’t say I understood them, but I’ve read them.”

Köves gave an amiable nod, dabbing at his watery eyes with his hand­kerchief.

“And here,” the bishop continued, motioning to the other man, “you have the respected allamah, Syed al-Fadl.”

The revered Islamic scholar stood up and smiled broadly. He was short and squat with a jovial face that seemed a mismatch with his dark penetrating eyes. He was dressed in an unassuming white thawb. “And, Mr. Kirsch, I have read your predictions on the future of mankind. I can’t say I agree with them, but I have read them.”

Kirsch gave a gracious smile and shook the man’s hand.

“And our guest, Edmond Kirsch,” the bishop concluded, addressing his two colleagues, “as you know, is a highly regarded computer scientist, game theorist, inventor, and something of a prophet in the technologi­cal world. Considering his background, I was puzzled by his request to address the three of us. Therefore, I shall now leave it to Mr. Kirsch to explain why he has come.”

With that, Bishop Valdespino took a seat between his two colleagues, folded his hands, and gazed up expectantly at Kirsch. All three men faced him like a tribunal, creating an ambience more like that of an inquisition than a friendly meeting of scholars. The bishop, Kirsch now realized, had not even set out a chair for him.

Kirsch felt more bemused than intimidated as he studied the three aging men before him. So this is the Holy Trinity I requested. The Three Wise Men.

Pausing a moment to assert his power, Kirsch walked over to the win­dow and gazed out at the breathtaking panorama below. A sunlit patch­work of ancient pastoral lands stretched across a deep valley, giving way to the rugged peaks of the Collserola mountain range. Miles beyond, somewhere out over the Balearic Sea, a menacing bank of storm clouds was now gathering on the horizon.

Fitting, Kirsch thought, sensing the turbulence he would soon cause in this room, and in the world beyond.

“Gentlemen,” he commenced, turning abruptly back toward them. “I believe Bishop Valdespino has already conveyed to you my request for secrecy. Before we continue, I just want to clarify that what I am about to share with you must be kept in the strictest confidence. Simply stated, I am asking for a vow of silence from all of you. Are we in agreement?”

All three men gave nods of tacit acquiescence, which Kirsch knew were probably redundant anyway. They will want to bury this information—not broadcast it.

“I am here today,” Kirsch began, “because I have made a scientific dis­covery I believe you will find startling. It is something I have pursued for many years, hoping to provide answers to two of the most fundamental questions of our human experience. Now that I have succeeded, I have come to you specifically because I believe this information will affect the world’s faithful in a profound way, quite possibly causing a shift that can only be described as, shall we say—disruptive. At the moment, I am the only person on earth who has the information I am about to reveal to you.”

Kirsch reached into his suit coat and pulled out an oversized smartphone—one that he had designed and built to serve his own unique needs. The phone had a vibrantly colored mosaic case, and he propped it up before the three men like a television. In a moment, he would use the device to dial into an ultrasecure server, enter his forty-seven-character password, and live-stream a presentation for them.

“What you are about to see,” Kirsch said, “is a rough cut of an announcement I hope to share with the world—perhaps in a month or so. But before I do, I wanted to consult with a few of the world’s most influential religious thinkers, to gain insight into how this news will be received by those it affects most.”

The bishop sighed loudly, sounding more bored than concerned. “An intriguing preamble, Mr. Kirsch. You speak as if whatever you are about to show us will shake the foundations of the world’s religions.”

Kirsch glanced around the ancient repository of sacred texts. It will not shake your foundations. It will shatter them.

Kirsch appraised the men before him. What they did not know was that in only three days’ time, Kirsch planned to go public with this pre­sentation in a stunning, meticulously choreographed event. When he did, people across the world would realize that the teachings of all reli­gions did indeed have one thing in common.

They were all dead wrong.