Blachman, Jeremy 1979- (Jeremy David Blachman)

views updated

Blachman, Jeremy 1979- (Jeremy David Blachman)

PERSONAL:

Born 1979. Education: Princeton University, A.B., 2000; Harvard Law School, J.D., 2005.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Brooklyn, NY. Agent—Suzanne Gluck, William Morris Agency, 1325 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer. Worked in marketing for a software company in Austin, TX, and at a New York law firm as a summer associate.

WRITINGS:

Anonymous Lawyer: A Novel, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2006.

Author of the blogs Anonymous Laywer and Jeremy Blachman's Web Log.

ADAPTATIONS:

Anonymous Lawyer was optioned for television by Sony.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jeremy Blachman's first book, Anonymous Lawyer: A Novel, grew out of Blachman's creation of a Web log with the same title. Blachman first created a blog to talk about his experiences as a law student at Harvard. However, during the interview process at several law firms for a summer internship, the author decided to create another blog to parody the people who interviewed him. As a result, he created the Anonymous Lawyer blog site, which quickly grew in popularity, particularly among lawyers, who often wrote to him that his parody—which many thought reflected real events—mirrored their own firms and colleagues. "I never expected to continue it for more than a few days, having never worked at a firm. But people found it pretty quickly and seemed to enjoy it," Blachman told Correy E. Stephenson in an article for the Minnesota Lawyer. Commenting on the blog in a New York Times article, Sara Rimer noted: "Hilarious, poignant, maddening (even the readers chide one another for their high-priced whining), the blog, which began appearing in March, has become an anonymous, online 24-hour confessional for disaffected associates at large, elite law firms around the country."

After revealing his real identity to Rimer in her New York Times article, Blachman received numerous offers to write a book based on his blog. The result is a story that features The Anonymous Lawyer battling with a rival, who the Anonymous Lawyer aptly calls The Jerk, to become the next chairman of the law firm. The battle takes place over eight weeks as the Anonymous Lawyer fulfills his need to blog and write about his colleagues, such as The Old Guy, The One Who Loves His Kids, The Bombshell, and The Girl Who Dresses Like a Slut. The Anonymous Lawyer also writes about his joy in berating and belittling the summer interns who come to work for the firm. The cast of characters includes the Anonymous Wife and the Anonymous Children, whom the Anonymous Lawyer largely ignores. The stories are all told in the form of the Anonymous Lawyer's blog and various e-mails.

Greg Mitchell, writing in the Recorder, noted: "Once you swallow the premise—that a driven partner at a top law firm would spend hours on a blog that's sure to doom his career—blogger Jeremy Blachman's debut novel will likely have you hooked." Referring to the book as a "side-achingly funny debut," a Publishers Weekly contributor noted that the book lacked subtlety but added that "the dead-on exaggerations … are nonetheless more than enough to propel this debut." In a review in Booklist, Keir Graff wrote that the novel "is hilariously malevolent … affording readers the thrill of vicariously acting out their darkest impulses."