Some unsolicited advice for Dan Brown

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Dear Dan Brown,

I read the piece in Friday’s Wall Street Journal about the building anticipation in the publishing world for your follow-up to ‘The Da Vinci Code.’ Basically, they want to know: Are you done yet?

From the sounds of Jeffrey Trachtenberg’s report, readers are just going to have to wait. Is that true? He writes that you’re turning your attention away from the Knights Templar to look at the mysteries of Freemasonry, the secrets of the Founding Fathers and American national mythology.

Question: Did you see Nick Cage in those ‘National Treasure’ movies?

The secretive, fraternal order of the Masons will replace Opus Dei, the Knights and the Illuminati, right? And Washington, D.C., will figure as the new book’s city of mystery, a worthy successor to Paris, home of Mary Magdalene’s tomb, non? But the one person capable of solving the secrets planted by the Masonic order in D.C.’s famous facades will still be Robert Langdon, right?

My advice: Go on a long holiday. Ignore the pressures to deliver a manuscript. Publishers may need you; but you certainly don’t need them, not with a reported $250 million in the bank.

‘The Da Vinci Code’ was such an enormous success because it took the world by surprise with an unbelievable theory. Now that your narrative strategy is out in the open, you have primed readers to expect a bombshell. I’m not surprised that the new book is taking longer than everyone expected. I’m sure it’s difficult coming up with another ‘Code’-sized twist.

So why force it? If you’re worried about your fans, don’t be--there are plenty of other worthy new books to satisfy the hunger you’ve whetted: Kate Mosse’s ‘Sepulchre,’ for example, or Pascal Mercier’s ‘Night Train to Lisbon’ or ‘Codex 632’ by José Rodrigues dos Santos.

Tell your publisher that you need more time to work out all of the gimmicks. If you’re given any guff, just tell them: ‘Writing sexy about George Washington takes time.’

Nick Owchar