Lee Child’s Make Me: Jack Reacher still hears voices—the “small voice” plus “radio chatter” voices “tuning up for a fight” and “working out the implications”

In my last post, on the first Jack Reacher novel, Killing Floor, I discussed the fact that Reacher hears voices; specifically, a “small voice.” Now, in the twentieth Reacher novel, Make Me, I find that he still hears the “small voice”:

“A small voice, full of defeat” (1, p. 384).

“A small voice, full of defeat” (1, p. 385).

These two lines are wedged in on two successive pages without any comment or explanation.

Lee Child doesn’t explain or justify including those two lines, because he evidently still thinks, probably based on his own personal experience, that most people hear voices. But while people with multiple personality do occasionally hear the voices of their alternate personalities, speaking from behind the scenes, most other people don’t hear voices.

In Make Me, Reacher also hears “radio chatter”:

“The back part of my brain knows it was the same guy” [says Reacher].

“How?”

“The radio chatter is off the scale.”

“You hear radio chatter?”

“I listen out for it hard. We were wild animals for seven million years. We learned a lot of lessons. We should be careful not to lose them.”

“What is the radio chatter saying?”

“Part of it is tuning up for a fight. It knows nothing good is coming.”

“What about the other part?”

“It’s having a back-and-forth, working out the implications…” (1, p. 185).

Reacher interprets the “radio chatter” as instinctual perception learned by the evolving brain during millions of years. But his interpretation does not fit his metaphor, “radio chatter,” which implies voices in his head, who happen to be preparing and planning to cope with Reacher’s specific situation, just the way that good alternate personalities would be doing.

1. Lee Child. Make Me. New York, Delacorte Press, 2015.