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January, 2003
Brian Haig landed on the suspense scene with the novels MORTAL ALLIES and SECRET SANCTION. In this interview Haig discusses his latest novel, THE KINGMAKER, his background as a United States infantry officer, and the authors who inspired his work.
Q: You've had a fascinating background first as a US infantry officer, then as a high level military strategist with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. What inspired you to change careers and become a novelist?
BH: It's a good question. Actually I think the day that I first realized that is was time to leave the military was the time my wife told me she was pregnant with our fourth child. And army paychecks are not going to send four children through college. So we decided it was time for a second career. But secondly, I had a very exciting army career, I was an infantry officer as you mentioned, and spent a lot of time with troops, and at high levels had done things I had never imagined as a cadet at West Point that I'd be able to do. So I felt very fulfilled and left with a big smile on my face.
With regards to becoming a novelist, one of the interesting things is that I did get a chance to do during my career is live overseas a lot and travel a lot and see a lot of places around the world. And by writing novels, of course, you can sort of create good stories around them, but also perhaps cause people to think a bit about things that are happening in obscure corners of the world like Kosovo in SECRET SANCTION and Korea in MORTAL ALLIES, and now, in THE KINGMAKER of course, Russia.
Q: Who are some of your writing influences?
BH: That's a good question, because in my case I started rather late, or you know long in the tooth, to begin a writing career and I had no training in writing. Pretty much what I did was take a year off and read a lot of the bestsellers to see who I liked and what they did, sort of used them to teach me how to write, so to speak. And I know this is going to sound very pedestrian, but John Grisham, Nelson DeMille, John Sanford, Vince Flynn, and particular DeMille and Grisham because they are both very witty, quick fast moving plots, great dialogue, but also the wit. It's harder to write a book and add wit to it than it is write essentially a serious novel. So I would point to maybe those four.
Q: Most parents are naturally a little apprehensive when their son or daughter reveals a desire to pursue novel writing. Your father was former Secretary of State, Alexander Haig. What was his reaction?
BH: Actually, there's a cute story here. I took a year off to do it as I mention, and here I was in my late forties with four children, and his initial response was to remind me that he also wrote two books, and there wasn't quite as much money in it as you'd think there is, and that it's very difficult to get published and etc. etc. With each passing month his calls were a little more frantic. And then one day after about six months, he called me and said, "Look, you know this writing thing might not be so bad." And I said "Really Dad, why is that, what changed your mind?" He said, "Well you know, we just had a new writer who just broke into the industry moved in across the street, and the house cost a great deal of money. Many millions of dollars." And I said, "Really? What's his name?" He said, "I don't know, he sort of a new writer." And this is two years ago, so I went and asked my mother, "Mother, what's the name of the guy across the street?" "James Patterson." So I think that changed his view a bit!
Q: Tell us about the main character of THE KINGMAKER, maverick Army Lawyer, Sean Drummond. How did this character come to you? Is he based on you?
BH: No. I think probably most writers, myself included, you create a character who's a little but like you would want to be, but maybe aren't. In the case of Sean Drummond, what I tried to do is create a character who of course is a manly swaggering kind of guy, but an imperfect character and in so many commercial fiction novels, the genre that I'm writing in, the principle character, the protagonist, the hero, is really almost an obnoxiously perfect guy. They do everything correct, they have motives and morals, and character and backbone, etc. They are a little bit beyond what most of us are, I think. And what I tried to do is create a character that shows some of those imperfections. He's a wise guy, and in America, we tend to like wise guys, I certainly do. And frankly I knew guys in the Army that were somewhat like Sean Drummond, in fact I knew plenty of them. A lot of character, a lot of backbone, funny, wise guys.
Q: Your past two novels, SECRET SANCTION and MORTAL ALLIES, took us to conflict in Bosnia and Korea, now with THE KINGMAKER, we've explored Russia. Where is Sean Drummond headed next?
BH: Sean Drummond will next go to work in a civilian law firm for a year. The Army has a program where they take officers in certain specialties and they put them into civilian companies to learn civilian techniques and they bring it back into the Army. And Drummond will go to a civilian law firm where he'll get involved in the world of big business, graft, murder, but he's going to be allowed to stay in the United States for a little while anyway.
Q: In THE KINGMAKER, you brought up a fascinating scenario for the breakup of the Soviet Union. How accurate is it and do "kingmakers" really exist?
BH: What I tried to do in Kingmaker was to sort of go back thirty years of Russian history, without turning it into a political science text. But to go back to thirty years of Soviet history, the disintegration of the Soviet empire right after modern day and all the conflicts that had been occurring about the periphery of what we call the former Soviet states, and to put them into a different context, to say there's some evil little knome that is making it happen. Actually, ironically, before 1990, or 91, 92, before the fall of the Soviet Union, they did not have Kingmakers per se, they had a communist party that had it's own selection processes. But one of the outcrops of the reforms in the Soviet Union is that there are now six or seven huge, enormously wealthy robber-barons, who own, depending on who you read, some very high percentage of Russia's entire economy. And they are, collectively now Kingmakers. And they of course had a great deal to do with Putin's rise and taking over the office. They had a good deal to do with Yelton's reelection in 1996. Now whether that's all good or all bad, or how long it's going to last are all debatable points. But, Russia now does have Kingmakers.
Q: Regarding the audio versions of your novels, is it painful to have your work abridged?
BH: No. I love it. For a couple of reasons, I love it. One, at risk of sounding like I'm kissing up to my publisher here, but I think the abridgers have done a great job, the editors have done a great job of pairing the novels back really to their boniest essentials. But maintaining the story flow. Second, they are a pleasure to listen to; I have been very fortunate having John Rubenstein as the reader. And what you get when you look at customer satisfaction on the novels in audio, I think the customers look at it in two regards, one how does the novel strike them, and two how does the reader, the actor, actually portray it. And I've been very fortunate, cause John has done, really an incredible job. He makes the novel sound better than they are, and I very much like the notion that people can read a book, when driving in a car or when doing things that would ordinarily distract them from reading. And I think that's a wonderful development.
Q: What's in the future for Brian Haig? Do you ever see yourself returning to the Armed Forces?
BH: Well, I actually retired after 22 years, and it would take a national emergency to be called back. I had my throw of the dice, so to speak. If I were ever asked to do anything, of course I would. All Americas, we have complete devotion and loyalty to the system that gives us so much. So I would of course go back if I were ever asked to but I suspect nobody would ever ask me.
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