Two NH residents recommend picking up the phone if James Patterson calls

Apr. 19—Not all unexpected calls are spam scams.

"To see 'James Patterson' come up on the caller ID was pretty cool," says Exeter writer Brendan DuBois of the first time one of the biggest-selling authors in the world reached out to him.

"It was like the hand of destiny came down and tapped me on the shoulder and said, 'It's your turn.'"

Since then DuBois has collaborated with Patterson on books including "Cross Down," "Count," "Blowback" and "The Summer House," and there's another one in the works.

"Around our household, we call him 'Big Jim,'" DuBois says, laughing.

Patterson's page-turning thrillers get a lot of attention and some big box-office treatment, such as "Kiss the Girls" and "Along Came a Spider."

But it's not all about suspense. Patterson's genres cover a wide territory, from children's books to mysteries, as well as nonfiction works about military, police and emergency workers, Muhammad Ali, the Kennedys, John Lennon, Aaron Hernandez, Jeffrey Epstein and even King Tut.

His latest, "Tiger, Tiger" — about golfer Tiger Woods and co-written by Peter de Jong — hits shelves in mid-July.

Patterson has several books in the works at any given moment.

"When I worked in advertising — and I've been clean for over 25 years now, so don't hold that against me — there was plenty of stress to my job," Patterson jokes. "These days, I don't even think about writing as work. It's a habit."

Of the handful of books set to hit the market this spring and summer, Patterson says he's most looking forward to the June 3 release of "Eruption." It's an unusual collaboration between Patterson and the late author, screenwriter and filmmaker Michael Crichton, the blockbuster storyteller behind "Jurassic Park," "Westworld," "Twister" and "ER." When Crichton died in 2008, he left behind an unfinished manuscript about Hawaii's Mauna Loa eruption. Patterson completed the story.

Inside story

For bookstore owner Casey Gerken, it's one thing to stock Patterson's books. It's another to be asked to be in one.

Patterson and Matt Eversmann were working on what would become "The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading" when Gerken, who owns two Lakes Region bookstores, got a request for an interview.

"At first, when I got the email, I sent it to my rep and said, 'What is this about?' I wanted to make sure this was for real," Gerken says.

The writers wanted an inside look at what it takes to build these community gathering spaces.

"Reading may be a solitary act, but engaging with books and with readers is anything but," Patterson says. "'Book joy' is the feeling felt by so many booksellers and librarians who told us that their favorite part of their jobs was putting the right book into the right hands at the right time."

Gerken worked as an architect on and off, but childhood memories, a summer job and a well-placed question redirected her.

"It was my grandmothers' assurance that we'd always have a book in our hands at least twice a year. Every Christmas there was a book, every birthday there was a book or a subscription to a magazine," says Gerken, who soon became a regular at summer reading programs at local libraries.

Flash forward to when she was married and had a small child. She dropped into the Innisfree Bookstore in Meredith asking about a summer job.

That turned into a three-year stint. She became assistant manager, doing book buying before dipping back into the architecture field.

A well-timed query changed her path again. She asked Jim Meryman and Laura Mammarelli — then owners of Innisfree, whether they had formed an "exit plan" for possible retirement.

Less than a year later, Gerken owned the bookstore.

"Casey started out working part time at Innisfree and came back to the bookshop after a period away because of her love for reading and drive to create space for book lovers in the area," Patterson said.

"She's even opened a location in Laconia, which hadn't had its own bookshop in more than a decade. It's a fantastic story."

Unsung literary heroes

Patterson remembers going with his siblings to the library where their mother worked:

"The knowledge these folks have is amazing. And they're doing so much more than the public is aware of — buying, receiving, shelving, cleaning, story time, social media. Libraries and bookstores are major parts of their neighborhoods, running community programs and gatherings that bring people together."

He and Eversman have been to hundreds of libraries and bookstores over the years.

"Keeping these places going takes an unbelievable amount of effort," Patterson says. "A Florida librarian in the book tells the story of returning to her library after Hurricane Ian left parts of the building destroyed and flooded. These librarians and booksellers get to work and say, 'We're going to figure this out and serve people the best that we can.'"

Gerken has seen her own community respond in kind. She temporarily had to close her Laconia store when it was flooded and specialists were running high-powered fans and cleaning up the mess.

When the doors reopened, some residents came in asking if they could buy the badly damaged books — rather than new ones — in hopes of helping the store recoup losses.

"Let's not do that," she said, adding she had insurance. "How can you even ... that customers would be like that — to buy what was trashed to help you out."

Don't hesitate

When DuBois first heard from a member of Patterson's camp, it wasn't a long conversation.

"(The representative) said, 'I'll give you a week or two to think about it,' and I'm like, 'Nope, we're good. I'll do it,'" he recalls.

But a follow-up call panicked him a bit.

"I heard, 'Jim wants to talk to you,' and of course being an Irish Catholic, my first response was, 'What's wrong?'"

Patterson wanted to expand the project from a "BookShot" (a novella) into a full-sized novel.

That was the start of a back-and-forth creative process in which DuBois sends over 10,000 words at a time and Patterson gives feedback on things that need tightening or a new direction.

"I learned a lot very, very quickly. There's a reason he's such a popular author. He knows how to tell a story."

So does DuBois, a graduate of the University of New Hampshire who shares his home with his wife, Mona, a sweet English springer spaniel named Cooper and a long-tailed cat called Oliver.

Beyond his Patterson collaborations, DuBois's literary accomplishments include his Seacoast-based Lewis Cole detective series (the 12th of which, "Terminal Surf," hits the shelves in June), and a lengthy list of books and short stories in the science fiction and alternate history genres, most notably 1998's "Resurrection Day," in which the Cuban missile crisis escalates into a full-scale war.

Oh, and he's also a former "Jeopardy!" champion.

"I write every day, including weekends and holidays. I'm a great believer that no matter how talented you are, or what skill set you might have, nothing is better than getting your butt in the chair every day and working."

jweekes@unionleader.com