“Behind every great fortune there is a hidden crime,” wrote Mario Puzo, quoting Balzac, in the prologue of The Godfather, his classic from 1969. Joël Dicker (Geneva, 38 years old) suggests a variation: the construction of a happy family is founded on dark secrets. That’s what this author of half a dozen thinks. thrillers, translated into 32 languages, which has created a community of millions of readers. His new novel, A wild animal (Alfaguara) was the best-selling fiction book in the last edition of Saint Jordi, according to data from the Book Chamber of Catalonia. In addition, it has topped the rankings of best-selling works of several national cultural supplements since it was published in April. The love affair with Spain is not new: Dicker always remembers that this was one of the first countries to translate her first hit, The truth about the Harry Quebert casewhich in 2013 was chosen best book of the year by the readers of EL PAÍS.
Their stories unmask the luxurious life of aristocrats, politicians, executives or the apparent tranquility of idyllic towns. Theirs are morally ambiguous characters who live in a bubble that bursts when a crime shakes them directly or indirectly. In his new novel, after a robbery at a jewelry store in Geneva in which a middle-class couple and an upper-class couple are involved, one of the characters explains his motivations: “It’s those robberies that make me be as I am. The person you like so much, the one who attracts all eyes, exists because I have committed robberies. Robbery is part of me. A secret part, which is hidden as deep as possible and which I cannot talk to anyone about.”
“A large part of the crimes are committed by psychopaths, but it could be anyone,” Dicker elaborates. “What stops us beyond our moral convictions? “If someone kills a person to steal their watch, but realizes that the victim had stolen it from someone, the crime takes on another dimension.” Since it was published A wild animal at the end of February in French, the author has been immersed in a frenetic international tour: France, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy and now Spain. “I am very aware of the extent to which success is something valuable and I respect and take care of it, precisely by promoting and traveling to see journalists. I know that all of this offers me the freedom to be able to write,” says the author.
It is paradoxical that this kind, tall and smiling person is a chronicler of the most instinctive and animal condition of the human being. Those dark secrets that come to light like insects when lifting a stone are the basis of his narrative. “Our secrets often start small. Many times they haunt us with things that we don’t say, that we keep to ourselves, that you feel should come out but don’t. That is twisting us inside and becomes a secret. We act in front of our friends, at work we say everything is fine, but in our lives everything is chaotic.”
Dicker is surgical when it comes to deciphering the dark side of human nature, but elusive when asked about his private life and how it is projected in his stories. “There is not one specific part of me in the book, but many that are scattered throughout the story. There is something in every character in the sense that I am their creator,” he replies tersely. When the success of The truth about the Harry Quebert case, readers and journalists insisted on comparing the author with his protagonist, Marcus Goldman, both young writers who were going through a creative crisis that did not allow them to publish. He didn’t like the comparison: “It’s not correct. Goldman lived in New York and I lived in Geneva.”
He exacted a kind of revenge with his fifth book, The enigma of room 622 (2020), the first whose story takes place in Switzerland, calling the protagonist Joël Dicker. “I did it to see how the fans would react, and they never questioned it. “I think they are still more concerned about whether or not I am Marcus Goldman.” Directly or indirectly, he has established a relationship with Goldman, who has accompanied him in his rise and is the star of the trilogy that is completed with The Baltimore Book (2015) and The Alaska Sanders case (2022). “It was sad to leave it because the first time I wrote it I was 25 and the last time I was 35. I don’t know if I’ll write another book about it,” she says.
Wild animal is a fable about false appearances in which Dicker introduces an unprecedented figure in his narrative: the femme fatalein the style of the classics not to go cinematographic. A manipulator who takes advantage of the impact she has on men to achieve her goals and is reminiscent of Rita Hayworth in The lady from Shanghai (1947) or Ava Gardner in Outlaws (1946). A character with a multifaceted character that unsettles those who approach her, a successful 40-year-old professional in the prime of her life. “It was very important for Sophie to be strong. The book begins and ends with her. I worked for a long time to make her the epicenter of the story and the relationships between the other characters. They think she is better at everything she does,” she explains.
This type of character links him even more closely to the literary scene of the Nordic police detective – especially Stieg Larsson – from which Dicker flees and to which he claims not to belong, no matter how much people insist on associating him with it. “I deny it so as not to disappoint his fans and so they know what they will not find in my books. In those stories there is a divorced police officer, a tough guy with a complex investigation, and in my novels that barely appears.” The boundaries between a crime novel and mere fiction have never been clear. thriller, and some specialists prefer to relate it to an atmosphere rather than a way of narrating. “Crime in my books is a pretext to tell life stories and stories about the characters. You can remove the murder in Harry Quebert and all the stories remain. In A wild animal, without the robbery all the stories hold up. There would be less suspense, yes, but the real story is about the characters.”
After setting his novels in different cities in the United States, in A wild animal The writer delves into his native Geneva. “I like to write about places I know. It’s important to convey a believable atmosphere, and you wouldn’t achieve that by looking at locations on Google Maps. “I wrote stories in the United States because it is a country that I always visit and know well.” Knowing well is a relative concept and Dicker does not reject the possibility of setting a story in Madrid, the capital where he has been about five times. “I think I have managed to capture the city, and the people of Madrid. “I can’t tell you about the places you absolutely have to visit, but I can talk about the atmosphere.”
Dicker writes as he goes, starting a text without knowing where it will go or how it will end. He believes that this uncertainty, not knowing what will happen next, is the reason why readers become hooked on his works. “It helps me a lot to work without a plan, I have no idea what I am going to write. “I’m pulling the thread of what I’m going to tell, but I don’t have an outline of everything that will happen in the book.” Writing without planning is what explains the recurring time jumps and flashbacksa constant in his narrative from which he does not escape A wild animal. “In life, we explain our present from the past. In my books it works exactly the same way.” He compares his writing to running. “At first, you start slowly, after 10 minutes you think about stopping, but when your body is already warm, after 45 minutes of running, you feel the adrenaline. In that last third you only feel pleasure and you can’t stop.”
He writes every day, even when he is on promotional tour or on vacation. It can be 15 minutes or 10 hours a day. He can’t imagine his life without doing it, although until a little over ten years ago publishers rejected one manuscript after another. His story is worthy of any motivational speaker: overnight, he went from being ignored to becoming a phenomenon. But he never faltered. “They never gave me an explanation as to why my manuscripts were rejected, they simply answered me briefly saying that they would not be able to publish my books. It made me sad, of course, but I never thought about leaving it. Every time he was rejected he thought about trying again.”
What came next was The truth about the Harry Quebert case, six million copies sold and four major literature awards, including the Grand Prize for Novels from the French Academy. As with almost any successful author, his literature has been called empty by critics, and compared to that of another best-seller: Dan Brown. In 2013, the top positions in the world charts were fought for Hellfrom the American, and The truth about the Harry Quebert case. “That similarity was disclosed by publishers and bookstores when they said they had not seen another sales phenomenon since Dan Brown, but I don’t know to what extent the comparison is valid. “We don’t work in the same genre.” He is more interested in the readers he creates around his work. “I’m not here to demonstrate my ability or change gender. They are always comparing us with others and what interests me is the comparison with myself.”
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