A cyberattack that propels the plot of a thriller penned by former President Bill Clinton and international bestseller James Patterson is not beyond the realm of possibility, the authors told a Little Rock crowd Saturday evening.
If a reader wants to know what it's like to be president, reading The President Is Missing is an "excellent way to do it," Patterson told about 3,000 people assembled in the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's Jack Stephens Center.
He and Clinton discussed their writing process. Academy Award-winning actress and Arkansas native Mary Steenburgen moderated the talk.
Before the discussion got rolling, Steenburgen referred to a recent backlash Clinton faced after he was asked by a reporter whether he had rethought his role in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, in light of the #MeToo movement. In the interview, for which he received widespread criticism, Clinton said he had publicly but not privately apologized to Lewinsky and that the resulting legal costs had him $16 million in debt when he left the White House.
Clinton later walked back his comments in an interview with The Late Show host Stephen Colbert.
Steenburgen said she and Clinton had a "frank talk" before Saturday's event. It meant a lot to her that he conducted himself "in a way that's trying to get things right," she said.
"Thanks for saying that an old dog can learn a new trick," the former president said.
The book follows a former Southern governor who was tortured as a prisoner of war before ascending to the presidency. During the novel, cyberterrorism threatens the nation, and the president, a suspect, disappears.
"If you do a book about cybersecurity, if you understand it, it's much more scary than most military encounters," Clinton said.
The main character, whose history at times imitates that of U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is "heroic and flawed and sometimes sounds a little bit like you," Steenburgen told Clinton, earning a laugh from the audience.
The former president and Patterson, who is a "master of making people's pulse race," according to Steenburgen, gave insight into their writing process. They went back and forth over passages, with Clinton providing details about what it's actually like to preside in the White House.
Patterson said Clinton kept pushing him to "make these characters flesh and blood."
"First of all, I think it makes this more interesting," Clinton said. "And second, I think it makes the country more secure [when] people see their adversaries as people."
Clinton also said it was vital for the book to be "factually accurate" and divulge what could happen, should an attack like this take place. When approaching the writing, Clinton said Patterson would know how to "make this interesting," whereas he would "just bore people with my policy-wonkism."
Realism is what separates this thriller from others, Patterson insisted.
"Trust me, I've thrown a lot of malarkey around," he said.
However, Patterson added, it's not a book with a political agenda.
"I'm not a Democrat, and we got along very well all the way through it," he said.
What the book does is reveal what it's like to be the president, which Clinton said is a "tough job" and "painfully lonely" at times. But it's also "the most wonderful responsibility in the world."
Clinton-lovers, Patterson devotees and bookworms, in general, were all drawn to the Stephens Center for the event.
David Adams, a history professor at Harding University, bought event tickets for his stepdad, who loves Patterson's murder mysteries.
The stepdad, Mitchell Anderson, said he's only 10 pages into The President Is Missing, but "so far so good."
Adams' wife, Angela, wanted to attend because she had heard Clinton at the 60th anniversary commemoration of the Little Rock Central High School desegregation.
"You see how you go from Hope to the presidency when you hear him speak."
Another notable book lover found his way into the front row: Ted Danson. The actor, famous for roles in shows including Cheers and now NBC's The Good Place, is Steenburgen's husband. He said he, like his wife, devoured The President Is Missing.
That was a relief, Danson said, because he's friends with the authors, and he remembered thinking, "Oh, dear Lord. I hope this is good."
Metro on 06/10/2018