Today marks the release of James P. Othmer’s ADLAND, which we’ve mentioned a number of times on this blog (see trailer here). Jimbo is a brilliant and hilarious dude, and we’re excited to see this book do well, along with his novel HOLY WATER, also forthcoming from Doubleday. Since it’s always a pleasure to talk with JPO, I did a little Q & A last week to mark his new release:
JE: It seems to me that the process of creating ads is very much a process of distillation–distillation of concept, of copy, of theme, of intent–utilizing an editorial skill set which might greatly benefit the navel gazers of the literary world. Talk to me about how being an ad-man has informed your writing.
JPO: As offensive as this may seem to literary purists, my tenure in advertising, and the string of jobs in publishing and journalism I had before it, had an enormous impact upon my growth as a writer. I’ve been a sports writer, a metro news writer, an obit writer; I’ve written brochures, press releases, catalog copy and jacket copy for book publishers; and for more than 20 years I made ads. Dipping in and out of these disciplines (all the while writing fiction nights and weekends) broadened my world view and made me a better, more versatile fiction writer. In writing workshops at NYU I was often given exercises or prompts, and in many ways ad assignments are like workshop exercises. For instance, writing for radio is all about writing for the ear, painting word pictures, cutting and revising copy for time, often with a pissed off client and celebrity voice over looking over your shoulder. A good billboard ad should be seven words or less, a sort of commercial haiku. A good print or TV commercial should be concise and provocative and somehow illuminate a truth about the human condition. And now with digital advertising brevity isn’t as important as long form engagement, and everything is about narrative. At the ad festival in Cannes I saw things being done with non-linear, immersive narrative storytelling that would impress any fan of story, and may in fact be the precursor to a new form of digital, non-commercial storytelling. Only rather than revolving around the profound truths of art, the big ideas I saw in Cannes and other idea factories revolved around diapers. Or sneakers.
In advertising I would often be called upon to solve a major corporation’s strategic problem under circumstances that most would consider the enemies of the fiction writer: while a clock is ticking, all the while knowing that others in my building and in buildings around the world were also trying to solve the same problem, with my job, the jobs of others and hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. It was thrilling and somewhat addictive and ultimately, as I’m sure we’ll get into later, soul crushing. I was a quick learner in advertising and a late bloomer as a novelist. However, more than anything, advertising has humbled me as a writer and a person, and given me a deep appreciation of the freedom and purity and possibilities that come from sitting alone in a room telling stories,without a Mad Man or client in sight.
JE: One thing I love about all your writing, is a pervasive sense of global culture, in particular, the nuances and repercussions of a global economy, and it’s effect on the second and third worlds. Your stories always feels very topical and very “now” to me, and I admire that. While you’re breaking down the boundaries of nationalism, I seem to be becoming more and more obsessed with the idea of what it means to be an American. Then it occurs to me, you’re exploring the same theme, but from the outside-in. Does that make sense, or am I too stoned again? I’m probably too stoned again.
JPO: Hmmm. First, yes, I’m assuming you are too stoned again but, not surprisingly, you’re making absolute sense. So congratulations on that! I never consciously sit down and say, Henceforth, I’m going to write about what it means to be an American or, I think that the prevailing theme of my work will be vocation, or What does it mean to lead a fulfilling 21st century life? But these are obviously the questions that have shaped first THE FUTURIST and now ADLAND and even my next novel, HOLY WATER, which is about a third world country not unlike Bhutan about to be ravaged by first world brands. But I’m not asking these questions on a grand universal plane; I’m exploring them on a personal level, through the quotidian actions of individuals. How does a seemingly decent human being get himself embedded in the deeper, darker workings of a globalized, logo-saturated, ubiquitously branded planet that, it just so happens, doesn’t particularly like us? We obsessively steer our kids to make great sacrifices to get the grades and community service points to get into the college that will get them the job that will make them, in theory, successful. But then, so many good, educated and decent people get thrown out into the workforce and end up doing things they don’t particularly like, often with dubious moral strings attached that no one seems to think about until their first mid-life crisis hits. What the fuck have I been doing for the last 5, 10, 20 years?
Regarding trends and having one’s finger on the pulse of the now, I’m hardly William Gibson or Douglas Coupland. They do this much better than I do. In fact, if anything in my work to date, I have fun with the idea that anyone can claim to have his or her finger on the pulse of anything. Sure, someone may be able to predict that the Nehru shirt will make a comeback this Fall (take this to the bank, people!), but the truth is our pundit-worshiping society has failed to predict the most cataclysmic events of our time: 9/11, Hitler, Octomom, even the latest financial crisis. This is what we get for listening to Jim Cramer.
Because I’ve chosen as my protagonists (including, in ADLAND, me), white-collar professionals who work for multinational conglomerates it was inevitable that I’d consider things such as the impact of globalization and the way the world views us. And I have to say that I was incredibly naive about this. I was actually surprised, if only briefly, when I saw people dancing in the street in cities around the world after 9/11. My brother, a New York City fireman at the time, reacted with rage. I reacted – again, naively, but sometimes naïveté coupled with authentic curiosity is a great starting point for a writer – with wonder: Why? My initial reaction as a writer was to propose a series of books called EYES OF THE WORLD, in which everyday people from around the world would write essays telling Americans what they truly thought of us. Sort of an invitation to a dialogue. But my then agent told me it wouldn’t sell because most Americans didn’t care. So I wrote a comic novel, THE FUTURIST (and got a new agent), instead. What’s interesting is how in eight years even this dynamic has changed. Our economic powerhouse status is being threatened, we’re in a recession, the demographics of our population continue to shift, and we have a new president. How we speak and listen to the world and how the world speaks and listens to us in this new paradigm continues to fascinate me and is newly reflected in ADLAND and HOLY WATER. Finally, and sorry to ramble JE but stoned or not, you asked some big questions here, I think that your work, particularly WEST OF HERE, is very much about these same themes and questions. While the 19th century sections deal withAmerican expansion, and manifest destiny and capitalistic hunger, all of which was embraced with jingoistic fervor at the time, the 21st century sections bring to life the ramifications of those times, of that culture: dying industries and ways of life, ecological ruins, and of course its devastating impact on Native Americans.
JE: Now that you’re officially no longer a debut novelist, could you talk a little bit about how the publishing process feels the second time around? More pressure? Less pressure? Different expectations?
JPO: Because I have a strong relationship with Bill Thomas, the Editor in Chief at Doubleday, and my agent David Gernert, who suggested I try to write about advertising and business in a way that’s never been done, and who was also once the editor in chief at Doubleday, the writing and editing went smoothly. Which means I proposed the book I wanted to write then went off and put together something quite different. Not entirely memoir, not entirely journalism, but all me. Periodically we’d get together and I’d share thoughts, ideas and pages and Bill would help shape it. Unfortunately I have the same pendulum expectations for this book that I had for THE FUTURIST, which means I allow myself to dream of trading barbs with Jon Stewart and Genius grants one moment while dropping into a deep, inconsolable funk, convinced that the whole enterprise is doomed, the next.
I never feel pressure while writing, but as soon as the edits are done the how the hell are we going to sell this hat goes on and the pressure kicks in. The pressure to sell books to pay bills in a post ad-guy life, coupled with the pressure of publishing during a recession, in an incredibly busy season, on the same day as some guy named Dan Brown doesn’t help either. But really the only way to deal with it is to work your ass off to ensure that this thing that you poured heart and soul into for years gets into the right hands and finds a strong following. The biggest difference in the process this time around is that I have a different approach to time. With THE FUTURIST, I foolishly, inexplicably assumed that pub date was the day that everything would really kick in and that the roll up, which included some great coverage, was just a tease. And why not, the manuscript sold quickly, foreign rights sold quickly and we had a film option almost one year before pub date? But in fact (and this is probably not news to anyone but Mister Big Shot Ad Guy), 90% of the work on behalf of the book is done months beforehand and within weeks the press moves on and the book migrates from a stand on the front table to spine out on the fourth floor, between Orwell and O’Toole (which is really quite nice now that I think about it). Because it was fiction I’m not really sure if there’s much that we could have done differently. Because ADLAND is non-fiction, and is about a topic that touches our culture in so many ways, and is riding on Don Draper’s smoky coattails, there’s been much more interest from the press and booksellers leading up to pub date. And now that social media has come into its own, I’ve enjoyed a really cool pre-pub dialog with booksellers, journalists and ad people on Facebook and Twitter, blogs, etc. that would not have happened three years ago. What’s also interesting, and I think this is because the industry is in transition and eager to figure out what’s next, is the level of interest that publishing people have had in the relationship between books, authors, and branding. I’ve written that advertising is about a tension between art, commerce and ethics, and in a lot of ways this construct applies to publishing, circa 2009. All of which means much more work this time, including a lot of essays, but it’s all good and necessary and hopefully beneficial, so no gripes here.
JE: You’ve been at the writing game a long time, over twenty years, and I know that, like me, you’ve buried a few books, and agents, and probably even a few relationships over the long haul. Also, at the risk of starving yourself, you’ve walked away from a lucrative creative profession in advertising, as I walked away from talk radio (notice I don’t use the word lucrative), all for the opportunity to write books which most of the world will never read. Please explain yourself.
JPO: My wife Judy, who renovates houses with her brother, has watched me hunched over a pad and paper every weekend, on every vacation for more than 25 years. In the 80′s we’d meet after work at John’s pizza on Bleeker for dinner before I went off to MFA classes with Doctorow at NYU. She’s seen me tote a bushel full of rejection letters and dead manuscripts to an IRS audit. She’s watched me see one agent die, one take me to an expensive lunch to talk “auction strategy” only to stop returning my calls when the auction never materialized, and another leave the business, as previously mentioned here, to go to clown school. The decision to walk away from advertising, at least temporarily (just before the economy and the freelance ad market went kaflooey!) was ours. There’s a distinct difference between believing in someone and figuring out a budget for two kids, a mortgage and an addiction to fun. However if there was one individual moment that convinced me that I was a deeply disturbed person who absolutely had to write no matter what, it was after the novel prior to THE FUTURIST never sold. I was burnt out at work, discouraged by the commercial workings of publishing, and convinced that I’d never be published. But instead of depressing me it made me feel relieved, then exhilarated and then, strangely liberated. This may sound like bullshit but I couldn’t wait to sit down and write without the weight of financial or commercial expectation, agents, editors or audience. Almost immediately I wrote the first line — “The Futurist never saw it coming” — and the rest poured out of me from there. A friend who was an early reader, and who had read my stuff for decades called me to say I’d found my voice. Actually he said “You’ve finally tapped into your inner wise ass.” Who wouldn’t want to do that for the rest of their life?
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