Title: Why Spy? The appeal of spies in fiction
by Jordan McCollum
Maybe it’s just a guilty pleasure. Maybe it’s an obsession. Maybe it’s simple wish-fulfillment fantasy. But with the popularity of everything from James Bond to Burn Notice, it’s tough to deny the appeal of spies in fiction.
The glamour and the gadgets (and the girls!) are only the beginning of the coolness, however. Sure, spies get the coolest tools on television, but unsurprisingly the reality is a lot less glamorous and entertaining.
But it’s not just the veneer of fiction that keeps us reading and watching spy stories, and I highly doubt much of the audience is interested in the politics and intrigue of made-up people. (We’re scarcely interested in real politics & intrigue these days!)
So why is spy fiction so perennially popular? I think it traces back to the simple facts of the job itself. In real life, most spies don’t directly save lives, catch bad guys, and engage in gunplay. Their real lives are much more quiet and covert, and largely involve trying to get other people who already have access to share or steal secrets.
Secrets. Even in real life, spies trade in secrets every day. And that’s a big part, I think, of the subconscious appeal of the spy. Most people have a negative connotation with keeping secrets. We might keep confidences, but keeping secrets, it seems, is when other people don’t tell us something we almost have a right to know, something important.
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| Me having fun, freshman year of college |
When it comes to spies, though, keeping secrets is the honorable thing. They pledge their lives to keeping secrets—and with these secrets, lives can hang in the balance.
Sometimes spies must even keep secrets from those they love—even big secrets. Like many aspects of the spy life, this is a lot more popular in fiction than in reality. It does, however, happen. From what I hear, the official rule in the CIA’s Clandestine Service is you can tell your significant other about your job once you’re engaged. A story at a CIA training facility goes like this:
After months of training in DC, and several months of more in-depth instruction far away from family and friends, CIA trainees are allowed to bring their closest family members for a family weekend. As part of the weekend, family members are loaded onto a bus for a tour of the Farm facility.One year, the instructor-turned-tour guide clapped his hands and welcomed the family members to the CIA.
One woman leapt to her feet. (In some stories, she’s even holding a young child.) “The CIA?” she exclaimed. “My husband works for the CIA?!”
While that story is probably fictitious, it carries at least an ounce of truth: Spies are expected to keep secrets, even from the people closest to them—and that’s a good thing! For me, that’s one of the most interesting aspects of the job, even more than the fictional glamour and mystique, and even more than the lives they save: it’s the personal costs that can run so high.
What do you think? Do you read or watch spy fiction? Why?
About the Author
An award-winning author, Jordan McCollum can’t resist a story where good defeats evil and true love conquers all. In her day job, she coerces people to do things they don’t want to, elicits information and generally manipulates the people she loves most—she’s a mom. Jordan holds a degree in American Studies and Linguistics from Brigham Young University. When she catches a spare minute, her hobbies include reading, knitting and music. She lives with her husband and four children in Utah.
Visit Jordan: BLOG & WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | GOODREADS
Jordan’s first novel, I, Spy, is out now: Canada’s the last place you’d expect an American spy. But even idyllic Ottawa has deadly secrets—and so does CIA operative Talia Reynolds. There’s only one thing she can’t do: tell her boyfriend Danny about her Top Secret occupation. When her latest target turns around and targets Danny, her schedule isn’t the only thing suffering. To save her secrets and her country, Talia must sacrifice the man she loves. More about I, Spy | Amazon Kobo | direct from JordanMcCollum.com.
Thanks Elizabeth for running this post. Jordan, I love spy fiction, and will admit that I have never considered why I do. There’s clearly more than the entertainment factor, and perhaps it could be related to the fact that spies are just so good at outsmarting others (in fiction at least), and I find that fascinating.
What you write about how quiet and covert spy work really is echoes what what another spy/spy writer wrote recently. Bernard Besson is a former high-level intelligence officer in France, an expert in economic intelligence, and a prize-winning thriller writer. He says, “Ninety-five percent of an intelligence officer’s assignments consist of gathering information and verifying it. Computers and software, along with general knowledge and conversational skills are more useful in this area than guns.” (see the interview here: http://www.lefrenchbook.com/2013/01/17/espionage-fact-and-fiction-in-spy-novels/)
He wrote The Greenland Breach, which will be available in English in fall.
The life of a spy is certainly intriguing – especially those fictional worlds! I couldn’t cope with it myself in the real world (I’m a terrible liar) but I love the stories :)
Elizabeth – Thanks for hosting Jordan.
Jordan – I think more than a lot of other sub-genres, spy fiction takes us out of our everyday lives. Even in spy novels where the characters are portrayed as real humans who have ordinary concerns, there’s still that element of unreality for most of us. And for people who like that sense of escape, a good spy novel is a great choice. I wish you much success.
Yes it’s over-glamorized in books and movies, but it’s still intriguing. Everyone wanted to be Jame Bond when they were young. The cost on one’s personal life is too great for me though.
I’ve always enjoyed spy novels, such as the books of Frederick Forsyth and Gorkij Park. The Cold War was a great time for spy fiction authors when the Russians were the bad guys. Recently, it’s become kind of opposite, with the Americans and NSA as the bad guys, at least as seen from Europe after the Snowden case. It will be interesting to see if this initiates a new subgenre >:)
Cold As Heaven
I’m not remotely interested in too much reality in my fiction. I LOVE a good spy yarn; I’ll watch the Bourne movies repeatedly, even without Matt Damon.
What appeals to me is honor. When the protagonist is facing Goliath because it’s the right thing to do, when he makes sacrifices and performs superhuman feats because honor requires it, when he’s successful not because he’s smart or strong (though it’s okay if he is) but because he’s true to his own moral code, that’s what appeals to me.
Thanks for having me, Elizabeth! (Sorry it’s taken so long to come say thanks!)
Great thoughts, everyone!
Anne—Great quote! I believe it was Robert Baer who pointed out in one of his memoirs that if you have to resort to using a gun as a spy in the real world, you’re in even bigger trouble. (Or as Talia says in the sequel-in-progress, Bang-bang-shoot-em-up? Not so covert.) So far, only villains have used guns in the series.
Alex—Yeah, that childhood desire seems universal! My 4-year-old has pretended to be a spy for over a year. Considering I don’t talk to my kids about my books a whole lot, I don’t think I had much influence!
Jemi—LOL. Yeah, I guess lying is sort of a prerequisite for at least some of the job.
CA—Oh yeah, Cold War spy fiction is classic. Contemporary spy fiction took a while to recover after the Soviet Union fell, but that IS a really interesting idea for a subgenre!
Margot—I’m sure escapism always plays a role in the popularity of spy fiction!
Joel—Great point! That’s a great term for what I mean when I say that it’s actually a good thing for spies to keep secrets: honor.
Thanks again, everyone!