Earlier this month, Sheldon McArthur, manager of the Mysterious Bookstore in Los Angeles, was offered a signed first edition of an 18-year-old book. The asking price was just under $1,000, a huge sum even in the context of the ever-escalating price of modern first editions, especially since the book was so recent. (By comparison, a signed first edition of Stephen King's Carrie, published in 1974, carries a price tag of about $700.)
But this was no ordinary signature and no ordinary book. McArthur was being offered a signed copy of Red Dragon, the second novel by the reclusive, secretive, media-phobic Thomas Harris, and the first of his books to feature the serial killer, Hannibal Lecter.
"Nobody, as of yet, has ever seen Harris do a public signing," says McArthur, "so a signed Thomas Harris is going to be pretty valuable, assuming you can find one that can be authenticated."
In this case, the signature had been authenticated only by comparing it with Harris's signature on the film contract for his third novel, The Silence of the Lambs. There was simply nothing else available against which to judge it, for Harris is part of the grand quartet of famous American literary recluses - only J. D. Salinger, Thomas Pynchon and Cormac McCarthy can compare to him in elusivity. Even his official website is as close as a computer screen can get to being empty while there's still something on it.
But Harris, despite his reluctance to court publicity in person, is once again in the news. On March 23rd, a 600-page manuscript landed on the desk of his agent, Morton Janklow, and his editor at Delacorte Press. The book was Hannibal, the sequel to The Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon, and its arrival made the headlines on every news show in the US. Hannibal had been 10 years in preparation. While there had been no contact from Harris to indicate that the novel was at last finished, there had been hints in the American publishing world that the author was, at last, nearing completion of only the fourth book in his 25-year literary career.
A proposed working title, Morbidity of the Soul, had been in circulation for at least 12 months, to the extent that preparations for filming the new novel were begun under that name. In 1994, Harris had attended the trial of the suspected serial killer, Pietro Pacciani, in Florence. Pacciani was alleged to have killed courting couples, but was freed on a technicality. Harris's presence at the trial suggested that the new Lecter novel would be set, in part, in Italy.
That was all that was known about Hanni- bal until the manuscript was delivered two months ago. Harris does not discuss progress with his agent or his publishers and he does not permit editing on the final product. In fact, the only person Harris appears to discuss his works-in-progress with is his mother, Polly. Not surprisingly, there will be no author publicity in support of Hannibal.
"He's a wonderful client and a really nice guy but he's really not interested in appearing in the media," says one individual who has dealt with Harris. "He leads a normal life and he's friends with all of his publishers. He's very amicable, but he really doesn't like the media."
That's probably an understatement. Harris has not given an interview in 20 years, not since a journalist suggested that perhaps there had to be a little of Hannibal in him to create such a character, offending the author so grievously that he has remained silent ever since. Harris had already given a clear indication of his views on journalists in Red Dragon, in which the tabloid reporter, Freddy Lounds, is tied to a wheelchair, has his lips bitten off and is then burned alive - "He placed his hands on Lounds's heart and, leaning intimately as though to kiss him, he bit Lounds's lips off and spit them on the floor."
As far as the press is concerned, that pretty much says it all about Harris and the possibility of any further interviews.
Yet Harris is far from being a total recluse. He is reported to have addressed a meeting of police officers in Florida last year on the subject of fictional serial killers versus real serial killers and has also been known to occasionally pop in to his local bookshop, where he will sometimes sign individual copies as a favour.
Against that should be set the fact that his British editor has never met him or spoken to him, although he did once receive a note. A strict embargo has been placed on Han- nibal, with all parties sworn to silence, but, according to those who have read the book in manuscript form, it's set seven years after the events of Silence, in which Lecter finally eluded his captors. Clarice Starling, the FBI agent played by Jodie Foster in the 1991 film, has been discredited by the FBI because of her obsession with Lecter. But Lecter himself is being hunted by one of his own earlier victims, a wealthy man left grotesquely damaged by his encounter with Lecter and who plans to use Starling as the bait in his trap.
His efforts force Starling into a strange alliance with Lecter involving what is described as one of the most bizarre scenes in Harris's limited but extraordinary canon.
I HAVE to confess that I'm a very minor player in the drama of Hanni- bal's publication. My first novel, Every Dead Thing, has just been published in the US and is one of the thrillers competing with Hannibal for shelf-space and the attention of readers. Hannibal's hurried publication has forced other publishing houses to revise their release schedules, leaving a small band of writers to face the onslaught.
"Hannibal's publishers are attempting to imitate Harris's hero by eating the opposition alive," says Michael Gallagher, owner of Murder Ink, Ireland's largest mystery bookstore which has just opened in its expanded premises at 15 Dawson Street, Dublin. "It will be big and there's no way it won't go to number one here, but I do think that rival publishers are over-reacting. Patricia Cornwell is not in opposition to Thomas Harris and, as far as mystery readers are concerned, it's a case of the more the merrier."
Still, Kathy Reich's sequel to Deja Dead - the unfortunately-named Death Du Jour - has been postponed from May until July in the US, while Patricia Cornwell's Black Notice will not appear until a month to six weeks after Hannibal. In my darker moments, I see myself standing alone, holding some fava beans and a nice Chianti and inviting Lecter to eat my liver.
Harris is now 59 and divorced (he has a long-time girlfriend named Pace Barnes). A native of Mississippi, he splits his time between Florida and New England. After studying English at Baylor University, Texas, he eventually got a job with the Associated Press in New York but he quit as soon as his first novel, the terrorist thriller, Black Sunday (1975), became a success.
"Black Sunday did nothing until the film came," says Sheldon McArthur. "Red Dragon did better, and it was really the beginning of the serial killer procedural novel. He invented it. With Silence, the publishers made such a huge push, even before the film, that it was probably the first book that dark and brutal to become a national bestseller."
To research Red Dragon, Harris visited the FBI's Behavioural Science Unit at Quantico, Virginia, and consulted with its director, John Douglas. In 1989, he published The Silence of the Lambs and his career went stratospheric, particularly after the 1991 film swept all of the major Oscars.
Now, a decade later, comes Hannibal, following a gargantuan effort to move it from manuscript to publication in two months. In the US, about one million copies of Hanni- bal will hit bookstores on the worldwide June 8th publication date: every US store will have its copies delivered in one three-hour period. In addition, a further 700,000 paperback copies of Silence and 600,000 paperbacks of Red Dragon will also be distributed.
"We heard it was coming about six weeks before we received it," says Ravi Mirchandani, Harris's editor at Random House, his British publisher. "All of the preparations will all have been done in two months, instead of the more usual nine months. I think the book is fantastic. He writes in a way very few people can write at this level. It's entertainment, but fuelled by a complex and rich intelligence."
In Britain and Ireland, Random House will print 170,000 copies for the first print run (most hardbacks have a first run of 2,000-3,000), with a further 80,000 for Australia and New Zealand. In the meantime, both Red Dragon and Silence have already been repackaged and reprinted by Random House in preparation for the anticipated knock-on sales.
Hannibal is reckoned to be that publishing rarity: a book that is virtually impervious to criticism. It is the literary equivalent of the new Star Wars movie, "a book that can't possibly fail," as Mirchandani puts it.
In fact, the next step in the Hannibal saga involves the movie. Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, director Jonathan Demme and screenwriter Ted Tally were among the first to get copies of the manuscript. All appear interested in reprising their roles, although Hopkins has indicated in the past that he feels uncomfortable with the cult status of the violent, psychotic Hannibal Lecter.
But times have changed since The Silence of the Lambs was made. At least three studios believed that they had rights to Hannibal, and cut-throat bidding forced the price of the film rights to $9 million, breaking the $8 million record previously held jointly by Michael Crichton's Airframe and John Grisham's The Runaway Jury.
In addition, Silence cost just over $20 million to make and earned over $120 million at the American box-office. Taking into account the increased fees likely to be demanded by all involved in the new production and the constantly escalating costs of Hollywood movies, there are few in the industry who believe that Hannibal can be brought in for under $100 million. This is likely to lead to an alliance almost as curious as that between Lecter and Starling, involving independent producer Dino de Laurentis (who bought the rights), Universal Studios and MGM.
It's also likely to be the last time Hannibal Lecter appears on celluloid, or in print. Harris has indicated that Hannibal will be the last Lecter novel. Unfortunately, we will probably have to wait another decade to find out if that is truly the case.