‘Bill and I got pretty friendly’: James Patterson on writing with Clinton and clashing with Trump

Having a direct line to at least two former US presidents would seem almost a requirement for achieving the status of world’s bestselling author. But it’s not the “former guy” who lives two decent golf swings along Palm Beach’s swanky Ocean Boulevard that James Patterson has a lot of time for these days. It’s Donald Trump’s predecessor, Bill Clinton, who has become a trusted friend, confidant and business partner.

To take a quick step back, Patterson, whose gritty thrillers, tales for children and teenagers and expanding array of real-life stories have sold more than 300m copies worldwide, used to be friendly with his near neighbour Trump, at least before the most turbulent presidency of modern times.

Indeed, Patterson tells of an encounter a dozen years ago in which Trump, ebullient at a newspaper article he’d just read, said to him: “Did you see the polls?”

“He was ranked first among who people would like to see as a Republican

candidate,” Patterson says. “And he wasn’t running then, nobody knew anything that he stood for, zero. And he looks at me and he goes, ‘Crazy world, huh?’”

Patterson, who claims to be a leftleaning political independent, was no fan of the Trump administration, and admits the pair haven’t spoken since. “There’s a lot of bad stuff that went on there. I don’t get it,” he says. “I’ll leave it at that.”

It’s clearly not a topic Patterson likes to dwell on. But our discussion about Clinton, with whom he co-wrote (at least to some degree) the 2018 bestseller The President is Missing, puts him on a more comfortable footing. Since their first collaboration, which Patterson called “a highlight of my career”, Clinton calls at least a couple of times a month, he says. In June, they will release their second jointly written thriller, The President’s Daughter, one of many co-authored projects Patterson has become known for.

I meet Patterson at his home, a Mediterranean-style villa in Palm Beach. He greets me dressed in an open-necked shirt and jeans, and guides me through the property to a modest patio set out back. There is no

Lamborghini or Ferrari in the driveway – the kind that seems to continually cruise Ocean Boulevard outside – just a simple Tesla in the garage that Patterson says he’s happy to be able to drive again freely now that Trump is no longer president and there aren’t Secret Service agents closing the road every other weekend.

“Bill and I got pretty friendly, and it’s nice,” Patterson, 74, says, as we chat on the back porch surrounded by lush coconut palms and mango trees. “He gave me Monopoly for socialists for Christ