Douglas Preston - Aloysius X. L. Pendergast: A Mysterious Profile

Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Aloysius X. L. Pendergast

Douglas Preston

My first job out of college was as an editor at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. It was over a quarter mile from the front door of the Museum to my office, way in the back, and it took seven and a half minutes to make that walk (I timed it). I had to pass through the great African Hall with the elephants, a series of smaller halls, the Egyptian Alcove, the Hall of Man in Africa, the Hall of Birds of the World, the Precolumbian Gold Hall, and the Hall of Mexico and Central America. It is one of the largest museums in the world, and I found it an amazing place to work.

Part of my job was to write a column about the Museum in Natural History magazine. I wrote about the Copper Man, I wrote about the Ahnighito Meteorite, about Meshie the chimpanzee, about the Dinosaur Mummy and the Star of India.

One day, I got a call from an editor at St. Martins press. He had been reading my columns in the magazine and wondered if I would do him the kindness of joining him for lunch at the Russian Tea Room to talk about a possible book.

I said I would certainly do him that kindness, and I rushed down to the Salvation Army to buy a jacket so I could get into the Russian Tea Room. When the appointed day came, I showed up expecting to meet an eminence grise from St. Martins Press. Instead, waiting for me at a table in the back was a kid even younger than I was: Lincoln Child.

Lincoln Child

I had been a fan of the museum ever since coming to New York as a dewy-eyed college graduate. I loved nothing better than taking the behind-the-scenes tours and seeing the cubbyholes where real-life Indiana Joneses hung their pith helmets. After each such tour I would leave the museum, thinking, What an amazing old pile! When I retire Ill have to write its history. Then one day I realized: You dolt! Why go to all that work when you can pay some other poor scrivener to do it? After all, as a book editor, it was my job to find new projects for my house to publish. I found Dougs articles in the museums magazine, and I called him up to invite him to lunch. He was exactly the kind of person I was looking for: young and hungry-looking (note to Preston-Child readers: imagine Bill Smithback). I pitched the idea of an informal history and armchair tour of the museum, to be written by him. He immediately jumped for it: he was more than ready to graduate from articles to full-length books. And that was the birth of what was to become Dougs non-fiction title, Dinosaurs in the Attic .

During the writing of the book I was always pestering Doug for a real behind-the-scenes tour, not the two-bit one that the usual tourists get. But he was afraid to do it, because I didnt have the appropriate security clearance and he wasnt able to get it for me. But finally he hit on a plan: it would be a midnight tour, when presumably nobody would be around to check our credentials. Doug had a special key that would get us into many odd places and storage rooms full of strange things. So it was that, one midnight, Doug snuck me in for a personal guided tour. And what a tour! I saw flesh-eating beetles, whale eyeballs in alcohol, rooms full of dinosaur bones as big as VW Beetles. We ended up on the fourth floor, in the (then-named) Hall of Late Dinosaurs (no pun intended.) There was a terrific storm outside, and flickers of lightning from the ceiling skylight illuminated the huge ancient T-Rex towering over us. I dont know what possessed me, but I turned to Doug and said: This is the scariest building in the world. Doug, we have to write a thriller set in this museum.

He turned to me, eyes shining with emotionor maybe it was just that last wee nip of Macallan making an unwelcome reappearance.

And then a guard making his rounds surprised us. I dont know who was more scared: us, the guard, or the T-Rex. But thats a story for another time.

Doug

No, lets tell that story now. When that guard surprised us, I thought, now Im in deep shit. But Lincs brilliant wit saved usthe first of many such rescues. As the guard inched into the dark hall, shining his light around, anxious voice booming out: Whos there? Linc came up with the perfect reply. He cried out, Thank God, youve finally found us! Weve been wandering around for hours looking for the exit! How in the world do you get out of this place?

The guard escorted us out the security exit, never knowing I was a rogue museum employee conducting an undercover tour.

Linc and I began discussing our novel, set in the Museum, which we had decided to call Relic. One evening, Linc and I were sitting on his porch in Westchester County, sharing a bottle of fine single malt. Between tipples of malt and discussions of what fine fellows we were, what rare geniuses, and how we would take the literary world by storm, we managed to hash out the plot to Relic. I agreed to take a crack at the first few chapters.

In the meantime, I had moved from New York City to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the calls began coming. How were the chapters going? Fine, just fine! I would reply. After a year of this, Lincs patience began to wear thin. He is not normally the kind of person who employs words of vulgar language, but I do recall him telling me one time: Doug, just write the fucking chapters already.

So I finally did. To my great surprise, I enjoyed the experience. I had always thought of myself as a serious writer, in line for a Nobel Prize, but I found I enjoyed writing a novel about a brain-eating monster loose in a museum a lot more than I expected.

I sent the first few chapters to Linc. He called me up and said he liked them very much, except for one thing. I had two New York City cops, partners, who were the investigating officers. Doug, theyre both the same character, Linc said.

What do you mean? I was immediately furious at this slight to my literary talent.

You got this one guy, Vincent DAgosta, ethnic New York City cop, rough on the outside with a heart of gold. And then youve got his partnerexactly the same, except hes Irish.

After roundly damning Lincs contemptible literary taste, I finally came round to seeing his point.

What we need, Linc said, is a detective no ones ever seen before. A real fish out of water. Someone who will act as a foil to DAgosta and to New York City itself.

Oh God, I said, not another unique detective, please! What, you mean like an albino from New Orleans?

There was a long silence and then I heard Linc say, An albino from New Orleans Intriguing Very intriguing

Linc

The thing one has to keep in mind is that we wrote Relic as a lark. Dont get me wrong: we had high opinions of our writing skills and our ability to craft an interesting story. Id edited dozens, hundreds, of novels, and Doug has always had a far deeper knowledge of literature than most English professors could boast (and he himself has taught writing at Princeton). What I mean is that we wrote the story to amuse ourselves rather than others. A lot of first-time novelists try to write what they think other people want to read, or cynically attempt to write a novel that will have the broadest appeal. Not us. We wrotefor want of a better wordirresponsibly. We created eccentric characters and put them in extravagant situations. Having two of us in on the job improvedor exacerbatedthe situation. Id read something Doug wrote, would be hugely amused, and would then expand on it. If he wrote a scene of a terrified mob stampeding past an upended table of free hors doeuvres, Id add a gratuitous bit about a huge bolus of pt being ground into mud beneath the running feet. And then Doug would have some character knocked to the ground, landing face first in the pt, and so on, each one trying to top the other.