Hit Lit: Cracking the Code of the Twentieth Century's Biggest Bestsellers

by James W. Hall

  The Mafia, Opus Dei, elite nuclear submariners, law partners fronting for the Mob, Broadway superstars, shark fishermen, exorcists, small-town cliques, and the southern aristocracy: Each of our twelve novels has at least one secret society at its nucleus.

  For definition’s sake, let’s call a secret society any group that for one reason or another has isolated itself from the rest of the world by creating a collection of rules, rites, sacraments, or covert behaviors that reinforces its separation from the larger population. The group is exclusive, usually powerful in some domain, with its own initiation rituals and its own sense of justice and duty, sometimes its own language, and even its own criminal code.

  In the innermost circle of any social group, we expect to find an elite few who have been inducted into the private ceremonies, have mastered the conventions, dress, and behavior that mark them as elite members of their particular secret society, or else have paid some exorbitant membership dues that mere mortals could never manage. Gated communities within gated communities, with security guards and grimfaced sentinels at every stage.

  Behind layers of sentries are characters like Don Corleone, or the pope’s henchmen, or a powerful law firm’s senior partners, or perhaps the elite commander of a nuclear submarine, or maybe even a master angler whose knowledge of the sea and the frightful creatures swimming in its depths gives him an unequaled authority, something close to the status of a savior.

  While social class might overlap with these descriptors in certain ways, the kind of exclusivity we find portrayed in bestsellers is rarely a function of class status alone but is rather an earned seniority. Neither wealth, social standing, nor a privileged background is an important ingredient in Don Corleone’s power. Indeed, his rise from poverty to a position of great influence is typical in bestsellers. The poor or the lower middle classes far outnumber their economic betters as the heroes in the megahits under review.

  SECRETS OF THE SEAS

  Although he doesn’t wear a coonskin hat, Quint, the veteran shark hunter in Jaws, is Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler of the seas, complete with arcane techniques, specialized jargon, and inviolable shipboard rules.

  His authority and mastery of his element are unquestionable. Quint’s the man you call when the biggest, baddest great white shark shows up on your shores over the Fourth of July holiday and threatens not only to eat your citizens, but to destroy the well-being of your entire tourist economy.

  Because Quint has lost his first mate recently, a rare chance exists for an outsider to come aboard the Orca and audition for a spot as Quint’s acolyte. That task falls to Sheriff Martin Brody as agent for the community, and it is Brody who over the course of the novel is slowly inducted into the privileged secret society of shark hunters.

  “Lost your mate?” Brody says. “What, overboard?”

  “No, he quit. He got nerves. Happens to most people after a while in this work. They get to thinking too much.”

  So Brody finds himself aboard the Orca, trying very hard not to think. He works shoulder to shoulder with Quint and is forced to learn the ropes quickly or risk expulsion—which in practical terms means being pitched overboard into sharky waters.

  Though the captain is a reluctant mentor, Brody never stops asking questions, determined to learn as much as he can, as fast as he can. At one point when Brody pushes Quint for a more detailed explanation, Quint brushes off his question with the finality of a master to his dunderheaded apprentice:

  “Those are the rules.”

  After the puny blue shark is brought alongside, Quint gives Brody an instructive demonstration, disemboweling the fish, letting its entrails spill into the water, then cutting the shark loose. In a spasm of instinct, the shark swims beside the boat, slurping up its own guts, and is promptly attacked by a school of smaller sharks.

  One lesson after another. One question after another. The first day of the hunt melts into a second, with Quint softening under Brody’s respectful curiosity about the tradecraft of fishing. The two men don’t exactly bond, but Quint’s brusque insults lessen, at least those directed at Brody. However, there is little doubt that Hooper, the wealthy, intellectual marine biologist, is not going to win his membership card in Quint’s secret society anytime soon. He lacks the right stuff, the proper obeisance, and the down-home authenticity. His scholarly, book-acquired knowledge entitles him to absolutely nothing in Quint’s view. Experience is all that matters, and grinding it out day after day on the blood-soaked decks of the Orca is the only schooling that counts.

  When the great white shark first explodes into view and opens its mighty jaws an arm’s length away, Brody is dumbstruck. While Hooper blathers on about its beauty and gigantic proportions, Quint goes quietly about his business, and Brody, the fumbling amateur, remains paralyzed with fear. After the shark disappears into the depths, Quint mocks Brody’s shocked reaction:

  “Gave you a bit of a start.”

  “More’n a bit,” said Brody. He shook his head, as if to reassemble his thoughts and sort out his visions. “I’m still not sure I believe it.”

  The master prods his apprentice, and the novice admits his ignorance. In the secret society of the Orca, this is proper behavior and will be rewarded.

  Some secret societies, like the ones we find in The Da Vinci Code, The Godfather, The Hunt for Red October, or The Exorcist, are so obviously central to their novels’ purpose that they don’t require a lot of elaboration. Opus Dei, the Mafia, nuclear submariners, and Catholic exorcists each indulge in a hefty dose of hocus-pocus and abracadabras to give an aura of mystery to their activities. Exotic chants, rites, and prayers, a specialized lexicon, rules of authority and hierarchy, incense-drenched ancient ceremonies of worship, and formal acts of obedience all play roles.

  Such is the case in the scene at the outset of The Godfather when Don Corleone, following traditional custom, opens his inner sanctum to a string of petitioners on the occasion of his daughter’s wedding. When one is stepping before the Don, there is a right way to ask for a favor and a wrong way. There is ring kissing and bowing and circumlocutions that require the supplicant to master his part of the script before he recites his request to the Godfather. Flunk the test and you’re history.

  On board the Orca it works the same way, although Quint practices the plain vanilla version of induction ceremonies. There’s no mystique to shark fishing, no pomp and circumstance. In fact, he harshly deromanticizes his own profession. Fishing for the largest and most dangerous fish anyone has ever seen is nothing but unpretentious work, on a par with the lowest forms of menial labor.

  When Brody asks if the captain considers the fish his personal enemy, Quint scoffs:

  “No. No more ’n a plumber who’s trying to unstick a drain.”

  This blue-collar ethos repeats with regularity in bestsellers, as we’re seeing. We’re all just plumbers, these authors seem to say, just ordinary folks. Storytelling is nothing more or less worthy than clearing sludge from the pipes.

  On what will be their final day of sharking, before boarding the Orca, Brody asks if Quint has found a replacement for Hooper, who was killed by the shark the day before. Quint’s solemn response has the tone of a sacred confirmation:

  “You know this fish as well as any man, and more hands won’t make no difference now. Besides, it’s nobody else’s business.…”

  Permission to come aboard is granted, and as Brody steps onto the Orca’s deck for the final fateful voyage, the local chapter of world-class shark hunters has increased its membership by one. In fact, Brody learns his lessons so well that it is he, not Quint, who survives the ordeal of the great white.

  Quint makes a fatal error and steps inside a coil of rope lying on the deck, the other end of which is attached to the shark. Overboard he goes. The sheriff, who has dutifully paid his dues, lunges to save his mentor, but Quint is “pulled slowly down into the dark water” like a modern Ahab. Brody, in Ishmael’s role, can only watch in horror, then start his slow journey
back to shore. You can almost hear the echo of Ishmael’s famous last line: “And I only am escaped alone to tell thee.”

  BEDROOM SECRETS

  In The Bridges of Madison County, Kincaid and Francesca form an adulterous secret society that stays hidden until both of them have passed away. The frame story that has Francesca Johnson’s children, Michael and Carolyn, discovering their mother’s notebooks after her death seems a trifle less clumsy when you consider it as the planned dissolution of a secret society—a time capsule meant to give Francesca’s children a glimpse into the private world their mother once experienced.

  The two lovers took a vow of silence that was meant to protect the living, yet Francesca felt the need to pass the knowledge of her romantic swoon to her children, presumably hoping they would be inspired by her dalliance—inspired to recast their memory of Francesca as a noble soul who sacrificed her one true love to return to the duties of motherhood.

  Taking the measure of what lessons the grown-up children absorbed is hard to do, since the novel ends with them just beginning to grasp the revelation. But clearly it’s not infidelity but faithfulness that’s at the heart of Bridges. A secret society of two made a painful pact and for decades devotedly maintained their pledge, an act of mutual self-sacrifice in which both parties abandoned the love of their lives so an ordinary American family could be preserved.

  Sappy, perhaps, but for me and a few million others who consumed this sugary confection, there’s something quaintly poignant and even a little complicated about the secret society Francesca and Robert formed.

  For one thing, it took a huge dose of old-fashioned willpower and self-discipline to make that decision, then to keep their love affair concealed and spend their remaining years in a state of emotional frugality, without ever abandoning their rapturous memories.

  Then there’s Francesca’s decision to let her children in on the secret, an act that seems to be her way of releasing them from the lie that was her life and her marriage. This final act of revealing leaves us with a riddle that gives the novel a smoky aftertaste. Did Francesca and Robert do the right thing by giving up their love? Or did they deny themselves a greater joy, bullied into accepting the mundane and empty obligations of a conventional life? Was their sacrifice an emotional tragedy or a triumph?

  In an age brimming with irony, the earnestness these two characters demonstrate can seem sentimental, but to fully appreciate these bestsellers a reader must accept that subtlety, intricacy, and ambiguity are not often the ingredients of popular novels. For the most part, these novels are thoroughly sincere and heartfelt. There’s no attempt to cast furtive signals to the reader, no evidence the language is trying to say anything more than exactly what it says. It is that simplicity of tone, that artlessness, that wins the hearts of so many readers, and it does so for the very reason that it is not exclusive. There is no attempt in the style or the storytelling method to favor readers in the know over normal folks. Anyone and everyone is freely admitted and on equal footing. No segregation allowed. No secret handshakes permitted.

  PENETRATING THE CLAN

  For so small a town as Maycomb, Alabama (the setting of To Kill a Mockingbird), there are a surprising number of secret societies flourishing in its midst. When Dill and Jem and Scout get mobbed up, creating their own summertime drama club, the rules are clear—anyone lacking an imagination and a taste for danger and a willingness to test authority need not apply. Nor should any adults even consider membership. These kids are picky. They target the stiff and phony neighbors as objects of their derision and reenact lampoons of everyone up and down the street.

  Little by little, with Atticus’s help, the kids learn a modicum of respect for some of the grown-ups who are the objects of their parodies, and each time another lesson is absorbed, the secret society must slightly alter its rules of engagement. The one person who stays within their sights, however, is Boo Radley, the mysterious recluse ostracized by the community and transformed into a bogeyman by the children.

  Although he’s the focus of their heckling, Boo isn’t daunted but works in the shadows to win favor the same way Brody earned his place aboard the Orca, by keeping his distance while he observed the society’s rules and behaviors, adjusting his own actions accordingly. Or the way that Mitch McDeere worked his ass off to qualify for a spot at the holiest of holies conference table.

  “You reckon he’s crazy?” Scout asks the trustworthy Miss Maudie about Boo.

  Miss Maudie shook her head. “If he’s not he should be by now. The things that happen to people we never really know. What happens in houses behind closed doors, what secrets—”

  It is the nature of secrecy, Miss Maudie seems to say, the nature of insulated systems, to stunt those who are imprisoned within them. The Radley household has isolated itself and become some kind of terrible echo chamber, and whatever was wrong with Boo before has probably metastasized into something far worse after all these years of being shut in.

  Boo studies the children’s comings and goings with the same focus Sheriff Brody employs on Quint. He places sly offerings in the hollow of a tree. He repairs Jem’s torn and mislaid trousers and surreptitiously returns them to the youngster. Staying out of sight, he courts the children while observing from a safe distance the workings of their closed circle.

  For Boo knows very well what everyone in Maycomb knows, that mixing one clan with another, one race with another, even one brand of Christianity with another, is forbidden. Secret societies abound in this small town. Everyone is segregated from everyone else, by race, by gender, by religious practice, by family lineage, and by narrow definitions of class. Scout is astonished when Atticus describes the trashiest family in town as having a snobbish aspect. “He said that the Ewells were a member of an exclusive society made up of Ewells.”

  Add to the list those missionary ladies who meet in the Finches’ front parlor. Those good ladies are as exclusive and rigid in their costumes and ceremonial customs as the Mrunas, the African tribes these silly old women fantasize about saving. But it’s not just the good Christian white ladies who are exclusionary. Many in the black congregation of the First Purchase African M.E. Church murmur uneasily when Scout sits in their midst. “I wants to know why you bringin’ white chillun to nigger church,” one of them wants to know. Their society has its regulations as well.

  Groups like Opus Dei or its elite squads of killers, or the New York Mob, all employ a highly organized structure. Like the partners of Bendini, Lambert & Locke, they are a caricature of a tight-knit family, a family that operates under strict guidelines. For one thing, in Don Corleone’s secret society, as in Bendini, Lambert’s, you do not resign your membership without risking death. Those who have tried to bail have not been heard from since.

  The secret societies operating within To Kill a Mockingbird are as treacherous as those in The Godfather and The Firm. Though it would seem on first look that the ground rules for the play group that Scout, Jem, and Dill are members of are relaxed and easygoing. After all, Dill is readily admitted into their club when he proves himself to be at least as imaginative and devoted to playacting and daredevil stunts as they are. These are kids just being kids, right?

  Not really. For their merciless targeting and demonizing of Boo Radley uncomfortably echoes the lynch mob that puts Tom Robinson in its lethal sights. Sure, they’re kids, but this threesome is also a closed system that feeds on suspicion, prejudice, and fearmongering. They have copied—innocently, of course—the group dynamics of the KKK.

  As the story concludes, Boo is close by when Scout and Jem are attacked on their way home from a school play. In a protective fury, Boo Radley murders their attacker, and this act of violence turns out to be the price of admission into the Finches’ world.

  Once Boo is on equal footing with the Finch children, their clique disbands. Just as Bendini, Lambert & Locke cannot absorb one truly honest man like Mitch McDeere and just as Robert Langdon single-handedly penetrates and dissolves the centu
ries-old, murderous wing of Opus Dei, Boo Radley brings an end to the Finch kids’ gang of three.

  In an event that would have seemed unthinkable a few chapters earlier, Boo is welcomed into the inner sanctum of the Finches’ home. At the end of that traumatic evening, with Jem laid out from his injuries, Boo is escorted home by Scout. Carefully protected perimeters are broken, secrets are revealed, and there is even a physical touch between Boo and Scout.

  Standing on Boo Radley’s front porch and seeing the world from his vantage point, Scout grasps how their summer threesome was organized around an exclusionary principle. They’ve persecuted this guy, ganged up on him in a childish reenactment of the lynch mob coming to string up Tom Robinson. It is the moral of the story. A simplistic one, that’s true, but a message with profound resonance. Walk in another man’s shoes, Atticus says. Empathize. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.”

  Whether it’s the KKK, the Ewell clan or the Cunninghams, the First Purchase Church, the missionary ladies, or Jem, Scout, and Dill acting out childish games, secret societies, no matter how harmless they may appear, can be training camps for intolerance and bigotry and thus inimical to a fair and open society.

  The novel stands forcefully against the destructive nature of secret groups, while demonstrating how they can be altered by the least among us, by children whose sense of equality is our hope for social progress. Among other things, it is this dreamy, hazy, hopeful stew of idealism and wishful thinking, leavened with just enough hard-edged skepticism, that helped make To Kill a Mockingbird a much-loved and perennial bestseller.

  CONSPIRACY OF SECRETS

  What The Hunt for Red October is to submarines, The Da Vinci Code is to secret societies. The Priory of Sion, Opus Dei, Freemasons, Knights of Templar … oh, the list is long. The novel is bubbling over with highly secretive brotherhoods that have been around for centuries, working behind the scenes to rig world affairs. Turns out they are even engaged in an ongoing battle with other secret societies and occasional lone crusaders like Robert Langdon whose goal is to rip aside the veil that conceals their nefarious deeds.