Another Clue: Literary publisher gets mysterious role on ABC’s “Lost”
Getting “Lost” was a great stroke of luck for the small but prestigious literary publishing house Dalkey Archive, based in Normal, Ill. One of the writers of “Lost,” the hit ABC series about plane-crash survivors on a mysterious island, revealed that, in a future episode, a character would be shown with a copy of one of Dalkey’s premier titles, “The Third Policeman” by the late Irish writer Flann O’Brien.
Fans of the series, searching for clues about the meaning of the show and its plot, had gobbled up other books that were featured, however fleetingly, on the show. That happened with “The Third Policeman” too.
In the two weeks between Tempo’s story about the book’s upcoming role on “Lost” and Oct. 5, when the episode aired, Dalkey sold more than 14,000 copies, or nearly as many as the firm had sold in the previous six years. After the “Lost” episode aired, the show and the book were mentioned on the VH1 show “The Best Week Ever.”
“It was kind of incredible,” says Chad Post, development director for Dalkey and a “Lost” aficionado.
As it happened, the O’Brien book was seen during the “Lost” episode for only the briefest of moments, but that didn’t stop fans from speculating about its significance.
Post, for instance, says he believes that, because the plot of “The Third Policeman” involves boxes within boxes, the activity on the island may involve one scientific experiment within another within another. Or not.