november / december 2006:

In search of American heroes
Brad Meltzer’s co-created a TV series, taken DC comics to the dark side, and been recruited by the CIA. That's not even counting his six hit novels. We take the cross-platform, genre-crushing storyteller to lunch to discuss his latest work, The Book of Fate.

By Bradford R. Pilcher



Brad Meltzer has gotten fan mail from George H. W. Bush and been recognized by Bill Clinton. Those two events eventually led to his sixth novel, The Book of Fate, the story of a presidential assassination and government conspiracy that wrecks the life of a presidential aide and may (or may not) involve the Freemasons. It’s the ostensible reason we’re meeting for lunch down the street from CNN Center in Atlanta, and as cool as that may be, it isn’t the reason I’m so intimidated to meet the rather mild-mannered Floridian.

Brad Meltzer, you see, has written Superman — Wonder Woman and Batman too. As the writer of DC Comics’ Justice League and the award winning Identity Crisis graphic novel, Meltzer helped take DC’s stable of all-American heroes on a post-9/11 tour of the dark end of the street.

Undeniably, it is the mark of a true geek to want to guide a superhero’s fate rather than pal around with ex-presidents, but a geek I am. As I wait near the front of Ted’s Montana Grill, which has just opened for the day minutes before, all I can do is hope I don’t drool like a fanboy.

It may seem like a bit of a diversion for the novelist and TV-show co-creator (he partnered with former West Wing producer Thomas Schlamme on the series Jack & Bobby) to dive into the world of spandex tights and superpowers. When real-life former presidents are fans of your work, who needs Superman?

Right after we sit down, before the waiter has even broken into his spiel, it’s a question I put directly to Meltzer. He’s just flown in from Dallas that morning, having taken an early flight so he could make an interview with CNN, and he’s still covered in makeup from his televised interview. Some people might need a moment, but to his credit, Meltzer doesn’t even blink before diving right into the answer.

“I feel like they’re the same stories,” he says before listing off the qualities he thinks of in both his novels and his comic book work: character driven stories that try to examine in new ways subjects we normally only see in a certain light. “I’m definitely obsessed with American heroes. I try to figure out how that works, and how to humanize that.”

I start to think back over his previous work, two novels that revolve around the presidency, another on Capitol Hill, and still another set against the Supreme Court. Then there’s the TV show which depicted two brothers, one of whom was destined to become president. Of course, one can’t forget the superheroes whose relatives were getting offed in Identity Crisis.

I’m about to ask a question, but the waiter won’t be denied his spiel. The mid-thirty-something author and father listens calmly and politely. Once we have been informed of the new special for the day, hanger steak, given a mini-lecture on the virtues of bison meat over regular beef, and asked if we’d like any appetizers to start, I turn back to Meltzer... and can’t remember the question I was about to ask.

Recalling that Meltzer was hired by the CIA, along with a slew of other creative types, I ask him how that came about. “I assume it was because of my book The Millionaires,” he responds. “They raided the home of this money launderer, and he had it on his desk. So they asked me to come in and help them brainstorm ways terrorists might try and attack. It was really kind of frightening.”

Reminded of how 9/11 keeps cropping up in his interviews, I flip through my notes and finally slip out a scrap of paper with a quote on it that reads, “…a reflection of our current world, a world where we all search for heroes — and especially after 9/11, where we realize that the super-perfect, idealized hero doesn’t really exist anymore.” It’s Meltzer describing his latest novel to an interviewer from BookReporter.com. I push the scrap across the table and ask him to talk about it.

“What I said right after that,” Meltzer responds, “was about how during World War II we were a country of Supermen, but now we’re a country of Spider-men.” He pauses for a bit, collecting his thoughts. Then he leans forward, pushing aside the myriad glasses of water and sundry table ornaments. He describes in fragments what motivates him to constantly shatter the myth of infallible heroes. I don’t ask another question for fifteen minutes.

“I’ve always looked at history as not being perfect,” the former history major begins. “We write it to be clean, look back on it with a more controlled narrative, but it’s always a big mess. The Norman Rockwell painting; it’s an American myth. Now this country is founded on myths and stories, and I love those stories, but it’s not always the true story.”

He’s interrupted as our waiter delivers a bison burger, but he uses the opportunity to switch gears, explaining how he depicts the heroes that frequently pop up in his stories. “When I write about presidents, it’s the same with Superman. I find that I am sort of in awe of them, and I can’t really bring myself to write on their level. What I do is to write from everyone else looking up at that lowercase ‘g’ god.”

While he hunts amidst the dozen or so condiment bottles wedged against the wall for some ketchup, I ask him how he balances his deconstruction of American myth with the kind of awe for American heroes that fuels such myths. In The Book of Fate, the protagonist, Wes Holloway, is atypical for a thriller leading man, a meek figure with shrapnel scars on his face who comes to question the former president he has served for almost a decade.

In the beginning of the novel, Wes is a cocky young aide to the sitting president, only to be cut down by the bullet of a would-be assassin and reduced to a frail handmaiden to a washed up, retired politician. I wonder aloud if that dramatic opening isn’t representative of Meltzer’s creative fixation, of power lost and American myths destroyed.

“Wes is completely powerful in chapter one,” he answers. “At least he believes he is. The book is less about the loss of power. It’s about failing to live up to expectations. One is internal (Wes) and one is external (the president). That’s the whole book.” Meltzer rotates between wiping his fingers clean with a napkin and listing off the various characters in the book with them. “Every character is struggling with that. We all know what it is like to be eighteen and think the world is ours. Universally, we all struggle with that.”

While Meltzer finishes his burger, and I begin mine, we spend the next few minutes talking comics like the fanboys that we are. After a few minutes, I’m thrusting my own fingers into a napkin and trying to get a hold of my pen while Meltzer connects his comic book experience to a pivotal, and poignant, scene near the end of The Book of Fate. In it, the president and Wes are speaking privately, for the first time in more than eight years with all the secrets exposed. It’s a passage rife with subtext, conveyed more in the awkward gestures of the two men and the words they can’t bring themselves to say aloud. As literature goes, it may be the hardest thing for a writer to pull off.

“I don’t think I could’ve written that scene,” Meltzer tells me after a swig of his drink, “until I wrote for comics. It’s because the comics teach you to shut up and not say everything. You have to trust the illustrator and what’s being shown on the panel, and you can’t just spell everything out in dialogue.”

A few days later, Meltzer is given the news that The Book of Fate will be debuting at number one on the The New York Times bestseller list. He called his Jewish mother, who was bargain hunting at Marshall’s. She cried, and he cried, but then he went on his website and posted a thank you to, among others, comic book readers who crossed over to his novel writing. Meltzer called it a movement, “a change from the snobbery that ranks thriller, mystery, and comic readers at the bottom of the literary pyramid.”

Maybe he got more from comic books than just an appreciation for subtext.


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