There’s nothing funny about being locked in a room full of documents for six weeks, trying to find a single e-mail…especially not when it’s your future. But the dark shadow of the future proves no match for Jeremy Blachman, whose twisted peek into the futures of all of us law school-aspiring undergrads never loses the bitingly humorous edge that drives it.
Anonymous Lawyer, Blachman’s first novel, follows two months in both the inner and outer lives of a hiring partner at a major Los Angeles law firm through his brand-new blog. Based on the fictional blog originally created by Blachman as a law student in 2004 (anonymouslawyer.blogspot.com), the potentially disastrous medium-bending format suits his purpose perfectly, allowing the caustic but absorbing personality of Anonymous to become the book’s driving force. What it doesn’t do is answer the question of what this new genre is called—”blog” is already a hybrid word, so would this be a “blovel?” Or just a “nog?”
Despite walking the dangerous line confronting all blogs—becoming the whiny repository of a thirteen-year-old girl’s angst—the novel has just enough plot, and is consistently witty enough, to keep it fresh almost to the very end. While random tangents covering topics from fatness (unacceptable) to employee suicide (acceptable in moderation) give the book much of its flavor, two major plotlines emerge in the experience of the summer associates (second year law students hired to work for the summer) and Anonymous Lawyer’s own ambition to become chairman of the firm.
The real pleasure of the book is seeing the outside world from inside AL’s head. Other people’s identities are reduced to their defining trait (The Bombshell, The Suck-Up, The One Who Missed Her Kid’s Funeral), while the alternate universe of the law firm, where associates are peasants and office square-footage means everything, is laid bare with absurd seriousness. The vast majority of characters—even Anonymous Wife—remain purely one-dimensional, but as a function of AL’s character rather than any deficiency of the author’s. E-mail exchanges with Anonymous Niece, a Yale Law-bound Stanford senior and AL’s one true confidant, even provide a view of the title character that differs slightly from his blogging personality, raising the real issue of how digital personas differ from their real-life sources.
While not Swiftian in brilliance, the satire goes beyond a sweeping critique of law-firm life to make headway into America’s new internet-driven society. The over-the-top situations naturally make the reader question why anyone would choose this life, and AL’s slightly melodramatic questioning of his life purpose hammers this point home, even if it only comes when he doesn’t get his way. But AL also struggles with the implications of keeping an “anonymous” blog and the repercussions of potential discovery, as well as the lashings to be taken from anonymous respondents.
Ultimately, Anonymous Lawyer provides a thoughtful laugh, even if it has a slight tendency to cross into the goofy. It is unlikely, however, to dissuade the real candidates for corporate law firm life among us, who will end up salivating over the $160,000 first-year salary figure despite the lifestyle costs, just like the nameless associates in book.
