Anonymous Lawyer

In the mail: Anonymous Lawyer by Jeremy Blachman.

I had received an e-mail from Jeremy a few weeks ago regarding his new first novel and he was asking if Iwould read it and do a review. Of course, since he was so polite and an attorney I said yes; didn't want my fanny sued for being obstreperous, after all, you know all about lawyers don't you? The book finally arrived after being tossed about in the US Mail for a week or so and I took it with me today to read while at the Doctors office. My doc is going on a short trip so he rescheduled his appointments for tomorrow and Friday to today and the result was one long wait.

The protagonist of the book is the Hiring Partner of a large, wealthy, busy law firm. He is the epitome of the self centered, snobbish, narcissistic, ego-maniac lawyer (Hmm, sounds like maybe a prototypical robber baron perhaps). His antics in the firm so far hilarious to say the least. A small sample? I don't think Jeremy will mind (Note, in the firm, there is a brand new chairman of the firm. Anonymous Lawyer who is just starting to blog is really wanting to be the ONE when this chairman is forced out/retires. His only competition is a lawyer who started the same time as Anonymous Lawyer and who AL calls "The Jerk"):

I passed The New Chairman in the hall on the way back from the bathroom. The stress of three days on the job looked like it was getting to him. He seemed fatter than usual. "You didn't stay too long at my picnic on Saturday," I said to him. "I was hoping you'd get a chance to see the house."

"[The Jerk} wanted to get me up to speed on what's going on in litigation. Before I even knew what was happening, we were at The Palm talking about new avenues of business for the firm to start exploring in the Asian market. I'll see the house some other time. I heard the event went well."

"It did. I'd love to engage in theAsian discussions as well, if you think my input would be useful."

"I didn't know you knew anything about the Asian market," he said.

"Sure I do. My neighbor's Asian. Chinese, I think."

But, I digress. As it turned out, I didn't mind the wait one little bit. It gave me a chance to start treading. And what a read it is. I've only read the first 75 pages of a 272 page book, but I haven't chuckled/smiled/laughed this much reading a book for a long, long time. In fact, a couple of times, I got a couple of very strange looks in the waiting room of the Oncologist's office. "How dare someone laugh when most of us have cancer" the looks seemed to say. But you know what folks, this book is such a delight, I'm taking it with me for my next chemo treatment on Friday. I don't think I'll mind the treatment one bit. Thanks Jeremy, and I'm adding your blog to my list on the right. It's that good folks, even if Jeremy IS a lawyer.