Today I am going to discuss the character Pendergast; if we speak of him, we might in some way imagine Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot with their eccentricities. The first time a book by the authors Preston & Child fell into my hands was by pure chance, or perhaps because fate willed it so. I asked my usual bookseller for a thriller, a crime novel, but with suspense at the same time, and maybe a spark of fantasy. His recommendation was “The Cabinet of Curiosities,” it was the third book in the Pendergast saga. I liked it so much that without hesitation I bought the previous two books. And so, little by little, I acquired the complete collection.
Aloysius X. L. Pendergast is a fictional character who appears in the novels of Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child.
In the novels, Pendergast is a Special Agent of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He works in the New Orleans, Louisiana branch of the FBI, but frequently travels out of state to investigate cases that pique his interest, especially those that appear to be the work of serial killers.
Full Name: A. X. L. Pendergast (Aloysius Xavier Lilius Pendergast). Occupation: Special Agent of the FBI. It seems, according to himself, that an FBI contact filters the most “interesting” cases for him. Date of Birth: Around 1960, although it might have been between 5 and 10 years earlier, given the information collected by Vincent D’Agosta in Relic, according to which, Pendergast fought in Vietnam (war ended in 1975) and Cambodia (which ended in 1980). D’Agosta doubts the truth of the information and admits they are merely rumors, but in any case, it is certain that he belonged to the Special Forces.
Place of Birth: New Orleans, Louisiana.
Nationality: American.
Origin: He is the elder son and last heir of a wealthy family from the Southern United States. The Pendergast family has French and Creole origins. Officially, the Pendergast wealth comes from the manufacture and sale of pharmaceutical products; however, there are indications that the fortune stems from the sale of a popular medicine called “Hezekiah’s Glandular Linctus and Reinforcer,” which caused long-term permanent injury and even death to some of its patients. Over time, by the end of the 19th century, they began to behave like wealthy aristocrats.
Background and Characteristics:
He studied Anthropology at Harvard University, graduating Summa Cum Laude; Double Doctorate in Classical Philosophy and Contemporary Philosophy at Oxford, England; We know he served in the U.S. Special Forces and that he fought, although we do not know where (unreliable rumors place him in Vietnam, where he was captured and escaped through the jungle, and in Cambodia, where he was the last survivor of an extermination camp); He spent a year in Tibet, studying the art of deep meditation Chongg Ran, taught by the monks of the Gsalrig Chongg monastery (Pendergast created his own method by merging it with “The Memory Palace”); Martial arts expert, probably masters Kempo and is a true master of Shotokan Karate; He is a consummate master of disguise, infiltration, and escapism, we assume due to his family training as a magician-illusionist; Pendergast speaks perfect English, French, Italian, Creole dialect, Latin, Greek, and Cantonese, but also has limited knowledge of Spanish, German, and Mandarin.
He enjoys fine dining and exquisite wines. He detests opera. He always dresses in black except when in disguise. He has extraordinarily sensitive hearing, very pale skin, and hair so blonde it appears albino. He despises bureaucrats. He is intensely private and can often be cold and blunt, but he is also deeply loyal, though it is very difficult for him to externalize his feelings. He is extraordinarily uncomfortable with the physical contact of others.
Possessions:
He has a 1959 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith; his suits, very expensive, are bespoke and ordered from Italy, and his shoes are also handmade in London, at John Lobb’s shop. Besides his 1821 family mansion in New Orleans, he has a plantation called “Penumbra” located in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana. He also has a luxurious apartment in the Dakota Building, located at 1 West 72nd Street at Central Park West in New York, and a renovated Beaux-Arts mansion near Harlem, at 891 Riverside Drive, which contains, additionally, the finest cabinet of curiosities in the world. His weapon of choice is a .45 caliber “Les Baer Government” model M1911 pistol, modified to his liking with tritium night sights and a laser pointer, although he also uses a Colt .45. Finally, and without being superstitious, Pendergast wears a sort of amulet on a gold chain, consisting of his own modified version of the Pendergast family crest: an lidless eye plus two moons, a new and a full moon, with a phoenix (the original family version has a lion).
Authors.
Douglas Preston was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1956, and grew up in the boring suburb of Wellesley. After a distinguished enrollment in a private nursery school, where he was expelled almost immediately, he attended public schools and the Cambridge School of Weston. Notable events in his early life included losing the tip of a finger at age three to a bicycle; the loss of his two front teeth to his brother Richard’s fist; and several broken bones, also incurred in dust-ups with Richard. (Richard went on to write The Hot Zone and The Cobra Event, which tells you everything you need to know about what it was like growing up with him as a brother).
As they grew up, Doug, Richard, and their younger brother David roamed the quiet streets of Wellesley, terrorizing the natives with homemade rockets and incendiary devices ordered by mail from the back of comic books or invented from chemistry sets.
Writing Career
After being inexplicably rejected by Stanford University (a pox on them), Preston attended Pomona College in Claremont, California, where he studied mathematics, biology, physics, anthropology, and geology, before settling on English literature. After graduating, Preston began his career at the American Museum of Natural History in New York as an editor, writer, and publications manager. Preston also taught non-fiction writing at Princeton University. His eight-year stint at the Museum resulted in the non-fiction book, Dinosaurs in the Attic, edited by a young rising star at St. Martin’s Press, Lincoln Child. During this period, Preston gave Child a midnight tour of the museum, and in the dark Hall of Late Dinosaurs, under an looming T. Rex, Child turned to Preston and said: “This would be the perfect setting for a thriller!” That thriller would be, of course, Relic.
In 1986, Preston piled everything he owned into the back of a Subaru and moved from New York City to Santa Fe to write full-time, following S. J. Perelman’s advice that “the dubious privilege of a freelance writer is that he’s been given the freedom to starve anywhere.” After the required period of penury, Preston achieved a small success with the publication of Cities of Gold, a non-fiction book about Coronado’s search for the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola. To research the book, Preston and photographer Walter W. Nelson traveled 1,000 miles of Coronado’s route on horseback through Arizona and New Mexico, packing their supplies and sleeping under the stars, almost killing themselves in the process. Since then he has published other non-fiction books on the history of the American Southwest.
In the early 1990s, Preston and Child teamed up to write suspense novels; Relic was the first, made into a film by Paramount Pictures. In Relic they introduced one of the most celebrated fictional detectives of modern times, Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast. Relic has been followed by more than a dozen other books in the Pendergast series, including The Cabinet of Curiosities, Still Life with Crows, and Crooked River. Their last twenty consecutive novels have been New York Times best-sellers, including several reaching the #1 position. Relic and The Cabinet of Curiosities were selected in a National Public Radio poll as one of the 100 best thrillers ever written.
Preston has also continued a career in journalism. He writes about archaeology, history, and paleontology for The New Yorker magazine, as well as for Smithsonian, National Geographic, Harper’s, and The Atlantic. In the course of his journalistic profession, Preston has explored lost temples in the jungles of Cambodia, been the first to enter a tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, and ridden horses through thousands of miles of the American Southwest, which earned him membership in the elite “Long Riders Guild”.
The Monster of Florence and the Amanda Knox Case
In 2000, Preston moved with his family to Florence, Italy, to write a murder mystery set in Tuscany. Instead of writing the novel, he became fascinated by the story of a serial killer named il Mostro di Firenze, the Monster of Florence. He teamed up with an Italian journalist, Mario Spezi, who was an expert on the case. In 2008 they published a non-fiction book, The Monster of Florence, which was a major bestseller, spending four months on the New York Times list. The book won journalism awards in both Italy and the United States. It is currently in development as a film.
The same Italian prosecutor who accused Preston of crimes in the Monster case, Giuliano Mignini, was the prosecutor who accused Amanda Knox of murder in 2007 in Perugia. Preston became one of Knox’s defenders. In 2009, Preston argued on “48 Hours” on CBS that the case against Knox was “based on lies, superstitions, and crazy conspiracy theories.” Preston appeared on numerous television programs defending Knox and explaining the Italian legal system, including the Today Show, Anderson Cooper 360°, and on Megyn Kelly’s “The Kelly File” on Fox. Preston wrote about the case in a Kindle single, Trial by Fury: Internet Savagery and the Amanda Knox Case.
The Lost City of the Monkey God
Preston’s most recent non-fiction book, The Lost City of the Monkey God, published in January 2017, tells the true story of the discovery of an ancient pre-Columbian city in an unexplored valley deep in the Mosquitia mountains of Honduras. It was a #1 New York Times bestseller and named by the Times as a notable book of the year.
First USO Author Tour in a War Zone
In 2010, Preston participated in the first USO tour sponsored by the International Thriller Writers organization, along with authors David Morrell, Steve Berry, Andy Harp, and James Rollins. After visiting military personnel and wounded soldiers at National Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the group spent a week in Iraq, meeting with soldiers and signing books, marking the first time in the USO’s 69-year history that authors had visited a combat zone.
Authors United
In 2014, Preston founded the organization Authors United. During a contract dispute between Amazon and publisher Hachette, Amazon attempted to pressure Hachette and other publishers by delaying shipping, blocking availability, and removing discounts on 8,000 books, causing severe financial damage to 3,000 authors. Preston enlisted the support of like-minded authors, including many Nobel laureates and Pulitzer Prize winners, as well as hundreds of young mid-list, debut, and struggling authors, who signed an open letter protesting Amazon’s unfair negotiating tactics.
Preston currently serves as President of the Authors Guild, the largest and oldest association of authors and journalists in the country.
Other Activities
In addition to Authors United, Preston was an early founder of International Thriller Writers and served as its co-president. He was named a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and was elected to the Long Riders Guild, an international association of equestrian travelers. In 2011, Pomona College conferred on Preston the degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa. He is a member of the advisory board of the School for Advanced Research.
He has received several awards for his work, including an Edgar (shared); the 2016 Association of Authors’ Representatives Appreciation Award; the 2005 PCA National Award for His Distinguished Contribution to American Literature and Popular Culture; the 2005 Audi Fiction Award; the NPR Reader Award for Best Thriller (twice); the 2012 Milan International Book Fair Lifetime Achievement Award (Italy); the 2006 Speciale per la Libertà di Stampa Award (Italy); and the 2006 Orme Gialle Award (Italy). He is an avid skier, mountain climber, and hiker.
He numbers among his ancestors the poet Emily Dickinson and the obstetrician and early sexologist Robert Latou Dickinson. Preston’s eighth great-grandfather in a direct line was Samuel Wardwell, who was hanged as a warlock in Salem in 1692 and is featured in the Salem Witch Trials Memorial.
Lincoln Child was born in Westport, Connecticut, which he still calls his hometown (despite the fact that he left the place before his first birthday and now only returns on weekends).
Lincoln seemed to have acquired an interest in writing as early as second grade, when he wrote a short story titled Bumble the Elephant (now believed by scholars to be lost). Along with two dozen short stories composed during his youth, he wrote a science-fiction novel in tenth grade called Second Son of Daedalus and a blatantly Tolkien-esque fantasy in twelfth grade titled The Darkness to the North (left unfinished at 400 handwritten pages). Both are exquisitely embarrassing to read today and are kept under lock and key by the author.
After a childhood that is of interest only to himself, Lincoln graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, majoring in English. Discovering a fascination for words, and their habit of appearing in so many books, he headed to New York in the summer of 1979, with the intention of finding a job in publishing. He was fortunate to secure a position as an editorial assistant at St. Martin’s Press.
Over the next few years, he worked his way up the editorial hierarchy, moving from assistant editor to associate editor before becoming a full editor in 1984. While at St. Martin’s, he was associated with the work of many authors, including James Herriot and M.M. Kaye. He edited more than a hundred books, with titles as diverse as The Notation of Western Music and Hitler’s Rocket Sites, but focused primarily on popular American and English fiction.
While at St. Martin’s, Lincoln assembled several collections of ghost and horror stories, beginning with the hardcover collections Dark Company (1984) and Dark Banquet (1985). Later, when he founded the company’s mass-market horror division, he edited three more collections of ghost stories, Tales of the Dark 1-3.
In 1987, Lincoln left trade publishing to work at MetLife. In a rather sudden transition, he went from editing manuscripts, speaking at sales conferences, and winning/dining agents to doing highly technical programming and systems analysis. Although the switch may seem strange, Lincoln was a propeller-head from a very early age, and his extensive programming experience dates back to high school, when he worked with DEC minis and the now-prehistoric IBM 1620, so old it actually had an electric typewriter mounted on its front panel. Away from the world of publishing, Lincoln’s own nascent interests in writing returned. While at MetLife, Relic was published, and within a few years Lincoln had left the company to write full-time. He now lives in New Jersey (under protest, just kidding) with his wife and daughter.
A dilettante by natural inclination, Lincoln’s interests include: literature and poetry prior to the 1950s; popular fiction after the 1950s; playing the piano, various MIDI instruments, and the 5-string banjo; English and American history; motorcycles; architecture; classical music, early jazz, blues, and R&B; exotic parrots; esoteric programming languages; mountain hiking; bow ties; Italian suits; fedoras; archaeology; and computer MMORPGs.
Some Highlights from the Life of Lincoln Child to Date:
1957 – Born in Westport, Connecticut.
1963 – Moved to Aberystwyth, Wales (try saying that quickly three times) for a stint in the UK.
1970 – Voted most likely to be beaten up in shop class.
1971 – Discovers H. P. Lovecraft.
1971 – Sent a Led Zeppelin album as a Christmas gift by a well-meaning grandmother, who had clearly never listened closely to the lyrics of “Whole Lotta Love” or “The Lemon Song.” (The gradual decline into sensuality and decadence dates from this period).
1972 – Attempted to read War and Peace. Gave up after 400 pages.
1973 – Attempted to read Gravity’s Rainbow. Gave up after 300 pages.
1974 – Saw The Exorcist and was traumatized for approximately seven months.
1976 – Decides to become a medical journalist. Began taking pre-med courses.
1977 – Dissected a cat. Gave up on the idea of being a medical journalist.
1977 – Began writing very romantic and very bad poetry. Was persuaded to stop after about a year.
1978 – Was glimpsed in London, a copy of Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads under his arm, asking directions to Westminster Bridge.
1979 – Graduated with Distinction in English Literature from Carleton College. Started working for a living.
1982 – Attempted to read To the Lighthouse. (You can fill in the rest).
1984 – Discovered Jack Daniel’s.
1988 – First sowed the seeds of Relic with Douglas Preston.
1995 – Relic published by Tor Books.
1996 – The film version of Relic entered production. Stopped working for a living.
1999 – Started Bleak House for the third time. (And finished it this round. Maybe there’s hope).
2003 – Published his first solo novel, Utopia.
2011 – Became a #1 New York Times bestseller with the Pendergast novel, Cold Vengeance (at last!).
Favorites List:
Favorite composer: Beethoven. No, make that Brahms. No, Schubert. No…
Favorite wine: No doubt there. Château d’Yquem.
Favorite motorcycle: BMW R1200C.
Favorite poet: John Keats. (Take a minute to read Ode to Psyche. It will do you good).
Favorite movie: Hard choice. Either It Happened One Night, The Philadelphia Story, or Casablanca.
Complete Pendergast Saga in Chronological Order
- Relic
- Reliquary
- The Cabinet of Curiosities
- Still Life with Crows
- Brimstone
- Dance of Death
- The Book of the Dead
- The Wheel of Darkness
- Cemetery Dance
- Fever Dream
- Cold Vengeance
- Two Graves
- White Fire
- Blue Labyrinth
- Crimson Shore
- The Obsidian Chamber
- City of Endless Night
- Verses for the Dead
- Crooked River