“Get a Problem, Solve a Problem”: Vulnerability, Precarity and Vigilantism in Lee Child’s Jack Reacher Novels

Abstract: This paper analyzes how vulnerability is represented in the Jack Reacher series, by drawing onwork by Bryan Turner and Judith Butler. The purpose of the research is to investigate the reasonReacher’s acts of vigilantism are needed. I look at examples of vulnerability and precarity foundin the books Killing Floor and Die Trying, and argue that state neglect is the cause of economicand social vulnerability in the towns Margrave and Yorke, leading to precarity expressed ascriminal money and community subjugation controlling the towns. I conclude that the solutionpresented, through vigilantism, is reassuring but insufficient, but that the series, in representing acomplex display of vulnerability and acknowledging the insufficiency of the solution, stressesthe difficulty of presenting a simple solution to the multifaceted nature of the issue ofvulnerability.