Brad Meltzer gets to write about Batman and Superman and visit with ex-presidents to research his novels. Is it luck or Fate? By Zac Crain
Brad Meltzer hasn’t been an unknown in literary circles since his first novel, The Tenth Justice, was published in 1997; his books have more than six million copies in print. But that’s the position the author found himself in when he was signed to take over the reins of DC Comics’ Green Arrow in 2002. Of course, his anonymity didn’t last long: After a well-regarded run on Green Arrow and the commercial and critical success of his seven-issue murder-mystery miniseries, Identity Crisis, Meltzer became a star on the comics circuit as well.
Both of those worlds are colliding this month. Meltzer releases his sixth thriller, The Book of Fate, which follows Wes Holloway, who is trying to glue together the shards of his broken life and unravel the mystery that caused it to break in the first place, all while in the employ of former president Leland “the Lion” Manning. (He’s a fictional president but feels real, thanks to Meltzer’s visits to the offices of former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.) Meltzer also happens to be two issues deep into a 13-issue run on one of DC’s prize books, Justice League of America. Though the mediums are seemingly dissimilar, Meltzer’s unique gift for detail is present throughout both. In other words: If you are a fan of Meltzer’s novels, you should check out his comics, and vice versa. And if you haven’t checked out either, well, you’re missing out.
Given his résumé, it should come as no surprise that Meltzer is a busy, busy man. I caught up with him over a crackling cell-phone connection between appointments. But he’s happy to be busy, especially with his comics work: “I’ve been wanting to write the Justice League — and Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman — since I was seven years old.”
In Identity Crisis, you kind of shined the spotlight back on Ralph Dibny, better known, I guess, as Elongated Man. Even hard-core fans probably weren’t too familiar with him. Is the plan to include more characters like that in your Justice League run? I love to play with unknown characters. That’s what I do as a novelist. I have to take a character, and I have to make you love that character, even though you’ve just met him. That’s what I have to do as a novelist. You don’t know my characters in The Book of Fate. You don’t know who Wes Holloway is. But I have to make you love him by page one. That, for me, is what I love about the comic books, taking those characters that no one loves and seeing if I can do the exact same thing. It’s almost easier with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, because the backstory is there. But to really stretch your muscles, the most stretching can take place in the character who’s undeveloped. I really believe there’s no such thing as a bad character. There’s just bad writing. I really do believe you can make just about anything interesting.
Do you think the medium has been sort of reenergized by writers, like you, who don’t just write comics? Writers who approach it from the mind-set of a screenwriter or a novelist? The interesting thing, for me, is I don’t think it’s so much coming from a different discipline. I think it’s actually coming from a different life experience. I think comic books, for a while, could have easily been written by and for people who simply love comic books. That’s not a bad thing; I’m absolutely a fan, first and foremost. But I’m going to bring a lawyer’s and a thriller writer’s eyes to it. I always say the best thing I did for myself as a writer was to go to law school, even though I really had no intention of practicing law. Listen, that was a very expensive way to spend three years. I was $60,000 in debt when I came out of it. But I now had a world to write about, a world that would have been informed just by my high school experience. In fact, to tell you more about myself, my first novel wasn’t The Tenth Justice; there was a novel before that, and that novel was solely about my college experience. That’s what I knew; that’s what I experienced; that’s what I wrote about. The book got 24 rejection letters. There were only 20 publishers at the time, which means some people were writing me twice to make sure I got the point. It really was law school that gave me a setting, a place, an importance that I just did not have before, because I didn’t have the life experience.
How does it feel to go from that point — 20 publishers, 24 rejection letters — to 10 years later with The Book of Fate and you can call on presidents to help with your research? The way The Book of Fate started was, one of them called on me. If ever there were fate in the world.… I was looking for a new book idea. I had some ideas — I knew the plot, and I knew the Mason stuff, and I knew some of the other things. We have a PO box through our website; people send books, and I sign them, and we send them out. My wife is opening the books, and I’m signing them across the table. She opens up one of the letters, and she says, “Oh my gosh, this is so funny. A secretary in former president Bush’s office is trying to get a free signature by using Bush’s stationery.” I grab the letter out of her hands, and I read the letter. I read the letter, and it says, “Dear Brad … we like your book … would you please send us this signed thing?” I look down, and it also says, “Barbara and I have a great library.” And I stopped: “‘Barbara and I?’” I realized this was no secretary. Listen, I don’t care what your politics are: If you’re a former president, you get a free book.
So, I sent him a free book and also a request that said, “Can I come see what your life is like?” I couldn’t help but be fascinated by the fact that he was the most powerful man in the world, and suddenly, he was just another guy who had to stop for red lights again. To my surprise, he said sure, come down for the week. I spent nearly a week in Houston with him and Barbara, and it was one of the most surreal experiences in my life. Right after that, I sent a note to Clinton’s office, and they had me come up to Clinton’s office in Harlem. It just was absolutely fascinating. The Book of Fate really got started with that twist of fate. To answer your original question, it is something I feel so lucky to have experienced. But I can’t for one second possibly take it that seriously, that “oh, it’s because of me.”
Come on, it’s at least a little bit because of you. One thing I appreciate about your writing is that it all at least seems possible, whether you’re dealing with ex-presidents or superheroes. When I was in Bush’s office, they told me that when they leave the White House and they’re no longer president, one of the first things they have to do is plan their own funeral. And I just thought, “I’ve got to put that in the book.” When I was in Clinton’s office, and I saw that picture taken from the Oval Office of Clinton’s desk, I put that right in the book. All the details you see about the office, all the details you see about the ridiculous things that are sent to them, all the details about the actual office mechanics, about the secure faxes, about the security, about all those things that go on when you leave the White House and just go back to being a normal person again — those were all shaped, and basically lifted, from what I saw in Bush’s and Clinton’s offices.
I can make up anything I want; it’s fiction. But if I tell you that former presidents actually have a secret brownstone that is across the street from the White House and only the former presidents can stay there, or that they have to plan their funeral right when they leave the White House, because presidential funerals are truly national events that have to be put together in two days with nearly no notice, you start saying, “You know what? That sounds really, truly real to me.” That’s when fiction comes alive. Fiction and thrillers, to me, are giant lies trying to masquerade as the truth. My job as the writer is to arm myself with enough details to convince you that it really happened.