Anonymous Lawyer: A Novel [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Jeremy Blachman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 25, 2006

He's a hiring partner at one of the world's largest law firms. Brilliant yet ruthless, he has little patience for associates who leave the office before midnight or steal candy from the bowl on his secretary's desk. He hates holidays and paralegals. And he's just started a web-blog to tell the world about what life is really like at the top of his profession. Meet Anonymous Lawyer - corner office, granite desk, and a billable rate of $675 an hour. The summer is about to start, and he's got a new crop of law school interns who will soon sign away their lives for a six-figure salary at the firm. But he's also got a few problems that require his attention. There's The Jerk, his bitter rival at the firm, who is determined to do whatever it takes to beat him out for the chairman's job. There's Anonymous Wife, who is spending his money as fast as he can make it. And there's that secret blog he's writing, which is a perverse bit of fun until he gets an e-mail from someone inside the firm who knows he's its author. Written in the form of a blog, "Anonymous Lawyer" is a spectacularly entertaining debut that rips away the bland facade of corporate law and offers a telling glimpse inside a frightening world. Hilarious and fiendishly clever, Jeremy Blachman's tale of a lawyer who lives a lie and posts the truth is sure to be one of the year's most talked-about novels.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Blachman's side-achingly funny debut, derived from his popular blog of the title, is written in the candid, sanctimonious voice of Anonymous Lawyer, an ill-humored, ill-tempered hiring partner at a prestigious New York firm. Anonymous Lawyer is an 18-year man whose compulsion to blog is almost as strong as his desire for the firm's chairmanship. When he's not facing off with his nemesis, The Jerk, in the race for the chair, he takes solace in degrading his summer interns and hapless associates for his quickly developing cult of readers (who e-mail with guesses at his identity). The dirt Anonymous Lawyer dishes is crude, and grounded in his own snobbery and narcissism: his female victims include The One Who's Never Getting Married, The One Who Missed Her Kid's Funeral and The Bombshell (at the annual office charity auction, a date with her went to Lives With His Mom for $6,000). Predictably, potential unmasking makes things sticky for the potential chairman, in what is pretty much the book's single plot point. Written in the rapidly dating blog-form and about as subtle as a punch to the kidneys, the dead-on exaggerations of Blachman, a recent Harvard Law grad, are nonetheless more than enough to propel this debut. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Though the epistolary novel occupies a small but lofty literary niche, the e-mail novel never gained a foothold, and readers are likely to greet "blog novels" with suspicion. Blachman writes a popular satirical blog called Anonymous Lawyer [http://www.anonymouslawyer.blogspot.com], in which his fictitious alter ego, an arrogant hiring partner at a major law firm, explains the cutthroat culture of the legal profession. This is pretty much the same thing: Anonymous is obsessed with becoming chairman, maintaining the firm's rigid hierarchy, and maximizing the billable hours of his overworked associates. He starts a blog on a lark, savages his colleagues, gets discovered, and finds his aspirations endangered. The paper-thin plot would make the book seem like a cheap attempt to cash in on the blog's popularity if it weren't so damn funny. Anonymous is hilariously malevolent (he refers to "winning" friendly conversations), affording readers the thrill of vicariously acting out their darkest impulses while confirming their belief that only lawyers would act so badly. Readers won't remember the story, but they'll quote the best lines. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (July 25, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805079815
• ASIN: B0012QFKJC
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #595,312 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The author bio tells you I'm not a hiring partner at a law firm, but I am the author of the Anonymous Lawyer blog (http://anonymouslawyer.blogspot.com), a recent (2005) graduate of Harvard Law School, and I live in Brooklyn.

How I ended up writing this book: I graduated from Princeton in 2000, after writing sketches and songs for the Princeton Triangle Club but not really sure how to translate that into a job. I went to work in marketing at a software company, which was the best job I could have had at a software company, but not really what I wanted to be doing. Went to law school, thinking I'd buy myself three years to figure out how to be a writer. Started the Anonymous Lawyer blog during my second year of law school, the New York Times wrote a piece about it in December of 2004, and I ended up with a book deal. So here's the book. I think it's funny. I hope you do too.

I answer all of my e-mail, so feel free to write.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So funny & so true! Must read for law students & anyone else looking for good summer reading., July 25, 2006

By 

2L (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anonymous Lawyer: A Novel (Hardcover)

This book is really funny & so true!! Blachman captures all of the ridiculous aspects of firm life that my lawyer friends always complain about. As a law student myself, I hope it's not *exactly* like that to work at a firm, but from everything I've heard, Blachman's parody is right on. I can see why he chose to be a writer instead of an attorney! Definitely good summer reading.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything I Expected & More, July 25, 2006

By 

J. Maurice - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Anonymous Lawyer: A Novel (Hardcover)

I've been a fan of the anonymous lawyer blog for quite some time now. I picked up this book this morning on my way to work (yes, I've been anticipating the release). I've skimmed through the book and read the first quarter of it so far, and I'm happy to say that Jeremy Blachman appears to have superbly evolved his writing without losing the humorous, engaging technique that has made the Anonymous Lawyer blog such a hit. The satire that seeps through everything in Anonymous Lawyer makes this book a delightful read. The blog format of the book, while it is unconventional, also works well here. Even non-lawyers/law students will enjoy this book!

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Serious fun, July 26, 2006

By 

Avid Reader (DC) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Anonymous Lawyer: A Novel (Hardcover)

I'm not a lawyer, but I know more than a few, and this is the most hilarious take on law firm life I've ever encountered. I haven't laughed this hard since I read Confederacy of Dunces -- which was the last time everyone on the Metro turned to stare at the loud, uncontrollable giggling.