Dan Brown was born on June 22, 1964 in
Exeter, New Hampshire. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Amherst
College. After college, he returned to Phillips Exeter to teach
English.
Although a writer of commercial fiction, Brown’s interest
in the genre arose fairly late in his life. He read his first thriller,
Sidney Sheldon’s Doomsday Conspiracy, after he
had graduated from college. This thriller, which Brown stumbled
upon by accident, inspired him to work in the same genre. Aside
from Sheldon, Brown has said he admires Robert Ludlum, for his ability
to plot large-scale, international thrillers; John Steinbeck, for
his descriptive skills; and Shakespeare, for his wordplay.
Brown grew up in a household in which religious and academic topics
were discussed openly—his mother was a professional sacred musician
and his father was a math professor. This background provided Brown
with the confidence to explore some of the complicated conflicts
that arise between religion and science. One of his early novels,
for example, Angels and Demons (2000),
examines the conflict between science and religion.
Another theme frequently addressed in Brown’s work is
the secret society. Brown has said that secret societies hold a
special fascination for him, having grown up in New England, where
Ivy League universities, Masonic lodges, and seats of governmental power
all have their secret rituals and mysterious elements. Two of Brown’s
novels, Digital Fortress (1996)
and Deception Point (2001),
deal with secret governmental organizations.
Yet it was Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code (2003),
a book that combines all three of these themes, that catapulted
Brown to celebrity. So staggering was its success that it inspired
readers to return to Brown’s earlier novels, belatedly putting them
on the New York Times bestseller list.
The idea for The Da Vinci Code, a thriller
that hinges on a trail of clues hidden in the works of Leonardo
Da Vinci, first came to Brown while he was studying art history
in Spain and learned about hidden symbols in Da Vinci’s paintings.
While he was researching Angels and Demons, his
first book, which also has Robert Langdon as the main character
and which deals with another secret society, the Illuminati, Brown
was confronted with Da Vinci once again. He arranged to go to the
Louvre, where he saw many of Da Vinci’s paintings and interviewed
an art historian. Before writing The Da Vinci Code,
Brown spent a year researching Da Vinci and reading widely about
cryptography and symbology. He also studied up on, and interviewed
members of, Opus Dei, a controversial organization within the Catholic
Church.
Brown considers himself a Christian and has said that
the issues that preoccupy the characters in The Da Vinci
Code matter to him on a personal level. He has repeatedly
insisted that The Da Vinci Code was meant to spark
further discussion about the mission and place of the Church, not
to inspire denunciation of the Church. Furthermore, Brown does not
claim that everything the characters discuss is the absolute true.
Nonetheless, his novel has been met with a spate of books written
by outraged Christians and Catholics, taking Brown to task for his
conception of everything from the Holy Grail to Mary Magdalene’s
relationship to Jesus to the validity of the noncanonical Gospels.
Brown has welcomed these debates, insisting that apathy is the enemy
of true faith and discussion is the lifeblood of any religion. Brown
has also received many letters of support from people inside the
Church who appreciate his work. He says that these supporters include
nuns who have thanked him for pointing out how ironic and painful
it is that even women who give up their lives to serve the Church
are not considered fit to serve behind the altar.
After the enormous success of his novels, Brown gave up
teaching and now focuses on his writing full time. His next novels
will feature Robert Langdon, the protagonist of Angels and
Demons and The Da Vinci Code.
