What was the scariest point?

When the paperback rights were selling. There was an auction, and it went from $500,000 to $600,000 to $700,000—it ended up at $1.2 million. Of course, I split that with the hardcover publisher. But still, every time the agent would call with “Great news, it went up another $100,000,” I would get more depressed.

It was also the middle of the book tour, and I was really disoriented. I remember thinking, “Is this going to change my life in some way I haven’t figured out yet, but am already beyond the point of being able to control?” The closest I could come to identifying an equivalent threat was death.

What I really love to do is work. I really love journalism. It’s the biggest thrill I know. What I was afraid of was that all this money would take away the incentive. I mean, if I’m making more money on interest that month than I’m getting paid to go to Pakistan, spend a miserable week in a crappy hotel, and come back and write on a deadline, would that strip the journalism of value?

I’d just gotten to the point where I felt I could make a living as a journalist. And when the paperback sale came, I was almost indignant. It was like, as soon as I achieved that, it was taken away from me by the fact that I didn’t need to do it anymore.

But that fear has subsided?

I really clung to the journalism. And I tried to do a bit of tree work too, like for friends who needed a tree taken down. I feel that if I don’t cling to these things I’ll be swept away. And they’ve anchored me—they still do.

That’s why I’m going to Sierra Leone. [Junger went in late April, to report on the country’s civil war.] It’s a place where nothing that appears to be an asset here will help. Belmont, Massachusetts, my education, being a best-selling author. None of it matters in Sierra Leone; you succeed journalistically there by your wits.

I don’t mean to paint a dramatic picture of it, but it is a dangerous place, and it’s certainly a hard place to get a story. And if I do, it won’t be because these guys say, “Oh, you’re the author of The Perfect Storm.”

It’s the same thing with tree work: You’re 80 feet [24 meters] up in the air with a chain saw, ropes all over the place, trying to take the top off a tree. Nothing matters except how well you do that job. That kind of black-and-white reality is, in a weird way, a kind of sanctuary from the static in my life.