Reese Witherspoon is adding novelist to her repertoire. She and Harlan Coben are the authors of "Gone Before Goodbye," out Oct. 14.
"Gone Before Goodbye" is a suspense novel filled with billionaires, private surgery, AI chatbots and deadly conspiracies.

Reese Witherspoon had a dynamite new character idea.

Her name was Maggie McCabe, a grieving former combat surgeon who had her license revoked after a tragedy. Then she gets the offer of a lifetime to become an elite plastic surgeon with anonymous clientele willing to pay any price for discretion.

But this time, it wasn’t a movie or TV show Witherspoon wanted to make. The Oscar-winning actor wanted to build Maggie’s world in a bigger way, she tells USA TODAY.

Why not try her hand at writing a book of her own?

Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben write 'Gone Before Goodbye' book

Witherspoon has long been a literary champion, bolstering new releases through “Reese’s Book Club” and producing screen adaptations of bestselling books including “Daisy Jones & the Six,” “Big Little Lies” and “Where the Crawdads Sing.”

Enter Harlan Coben, bestselling author of 35 suspense novels. The pair first met almost a decade ago at a conference, when Coben came up to Witherspoon and said he loved her work with books. Witherspoon was starstruck.

Nine years later, Witherspoon called him on the phone to ask to collaborate, giving Coben the “braggiest story in the world,” he tells USA TODAY. But he was still hesitant to take on the project.

“I'm not that guy. I collaborate on TV shows and things like that, but I've never collaborated on a novel," Coben says. "I've always thought a novel is a very individual thing.”

Then Witherspoon told him about Maggie, and he thought, “Oh damn, that’s good.”

They spent the next three hours fleshing out the story over the phone, Coben firing back questions and taking notes on a yellow legal pad as Witherspoon revealed her vision.

“We both knew at the end, there's no way we're not going to do this. This is just too much fun,” Coben says.

The resulting thriller novel, "Gone Before Goodbye" (out Oct. 14 from Grand Central Publishing), is a glitzy, global romp through private surgery rooms and high-security mansions. As Maggie tries to regain her purpose and fulfill her end of the bargain she reluctantly agreed to, she finds herself enmeshed in a thorny conspiracy.

The actor and the writer: How Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben wrote a book together

She’s a “nerdy research girl.” He’s a self-proclaimed “lazy researcher.” Witherspoon and Coben were a match made in literary heaven for “Gone Before Goodbye.”

While Witherspoon dug into the world of trauma surgery, Coben plotted the novel’s key moments. Together, they consulted real cardiac surgeons and got the details of the cutting-edge technology just right – they wanted it to feel “at the edge of what’s possible” today.

There was no Google Docs sharing; they tried that for about 24 hours and gave up. “We’re not tech savvy, despite what the book might look like,” Witherspoon says. But writing the thriller did involve many phone calls. Witherspoon would often send voice memos in the middle of the night, with Coben not knowing whether she was traveling to Europe or laying awake working through a sticky plot moment. The magic of that collaboration, Coben says, lies in leaving your ego at the door.

“We did not want any of this to appear to be gimmicky,” Coben says. “Neither one of us needed a new resume thing. Neither one of us need to just say we had our names on a book. We both agreed this had to be great, our best work. No one else was ever in the room with this. There was no third person. There was no note taker. It's just Reese and me working together.”

One character they’re particularly proud of is Maggie’s loveable father-in-law Porkchop, a hardened motorcyclist who will do anything to protect the people he loves. He’s a scene-stealing character akin, Coben says, to Jennifer Coolidge in Witherspoon’s “Legally Blonde.”

Artificial intelligence a focus of ‘Gone Before Goodbye’

The novel also sees Witherspoon doubling down on her previous comments to Glamour Magazine encouraging women to get involved in artificial intelligence in Hollywood as it becomes more common.

In “Gone Before Goodbye,” Maggie has a deep connection with a "griefbot," an AI chatbot designed to mimic a lost loved one. How much to rely on that bot – and when to let go – is a moral quandary for the surgeon.

“It’s all completely feasible,” Witherspoon says. “I think this is part of the reason I talk about wanting everyone to get more involved in these technologies, but understanding that they're a tool and … you have to layer human consciousness on top of it, whether that's humor or empathy or guiding values and principles. You need to understand it's here. It's here to stay.”

Coben says he hopes readers chew on the AI themes after they finish the book. Would you want a griefbot of your own if a loved one died? Are they a positive or negative addition to society? The authors were clear they didn’t want to answer the question for readers.

Will ‘Gone Before Goodbye’ be a movie? Will Reese Witherspoon star in it?

The best compliment Witherspoon received from friends who have read “Gone Before Goodbye” is that it reads like a movie. So is it destined for the big screen?

Coben is hopeful, going as far to say he pictures Witherspoon playing Maggie.

“This happens with a couple of the great actors that I work with, really the best ones do this, and they don't even realize they're doing it – but when they're starting to talk about the character, they become the character. Your voice changes just a little bit. Their mannerisms change a little bit. And there would be times I'd be sitting with Reese going, ooh, she's Maggie, right now. I've got to get some information out of her,” Coben says.

Witherspoon plays it a bit more coy.

“One of the amazing things about creating a character like this is I can imagine so many women playing her,” she says. “I should be so lucky.”

What she does want is for the character and the story to feel relatable, billionaires and high-speed chases be damned. She wants any reader to envision themselves as Maggie. Of course, she’s excited for fans to step into this medical thriller world.

“I'm hoping she does for the medical profession what Elle Woods did for the law profession,” Witherspoon says, laughing.

Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY’s Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you’re reading at cmulroy@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Reese Witherspoon wants her new character to be Elle Woods 'for the medical profession'

Reporting by Clare Mulroy, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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