25 Years Ago, ‘Hannibal’ Marked the Rise of a New Kind of Blockbuster

In the spring of 1999, a veteran New York book editor got a surprise call from one of the world’s most elusive literary superstars: Thomas Harris.

“Are you busy?” he asked.

Carole Baron, the editor, had plenty of time for Harris. As president and publisher of Dell, she’d spent more than a decade waiting for a new book from the author of such dark thrillers as “Red Dragon” (1981) and “The Silence of the Lambs” (1988), which introduced millions of readers to the murderous psychiatrist and gourmand Hannibal Lecter. After “Silence” landed on the best-seller list, Baron signed Harris to a $5.2 million contract for his next two books.

It was a headline-making deal. But it paid off a few years later when the 1991 film adaptation of “Silence of the Lambs” became a worldwide smash. Suddenly, Lecter was more than just a catty baddie. He was now a pop-culture antihero — the most celebrated (and satirized) villain since Darth Vader. And his fans were eager for a sequel.

“Everyone wanted to know when we would have the new Thomas Harris book,” Baron said in a recent video interview, “and I assured them that it was coming.”

But Harris, like Lecter, is a patient, precise thinker, one who operates largely out of view. And throughout the 1990s, there was little hint as to when either man would re-emerge.

During that time, Baron and Harris would sometimes meet during the summer at the American Hotel in Sag Harbor, N.Y., where they’d share meals, debate the latest movies and discuss Lecter’s whereabouts. “Tom might talk about the book, or he would hand me pages,” Baron said. “I would stick ’em in my bag, and eagerly go home and read them and respond.”