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"Landmark Status," iUniverse (2007), ISBN 9780595681426.
Alan H. Rolnick grew up in Newburgh, New York, a sleepy river city on the west bank of the Hudson, where he played baseball, read science fiction, learned every Beatles song and dreamed of living where the action is. After graduating from Johns Hopkins in 1972, he moved to New York to become a rock star, supporting himself as a journalist, which eventually led to work at the New York Times.
Alan shifted gears in 1984 and went to law school at the University of Miami. While there, he served as Managing Editor of the Law Review. In the years since, he has practiced class action and commercial litigation at top Miami law firms, and has appeared in numerous high-profile cases. Alan lives in Miami and Los Angeles with his wife Sharon Lane, a film producer/ talent manager, and their son Max.
Juanita: Thanks for talking with Reader Views today, Alan. Your new book "Landmark Status" is getting great reviews, and for a first novel, that is very impressive. Have you always had the dream of publishing a book?
Alan: Thank you for the good words and the opportunity to chat, Juanita. The short answer is yes, I've always wanted to do this. I grew up admiring writers that made me laugh and think critically at the same time, like Mark Twain, Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut. Since I was young, I've dreamed of tackling storytelling with a little social commentary, trying to keep it fun and make it work without too much sermonizing. It's a real thrill to read reviews suggesting "Landmark Status" might have in some small way succeeded in doing that.
Juanita: So what took you so long?
Alan: Good question! I've pretty much always been writing something, whether for love or a living, since I made my debut as a curmudgeon-in-training with a column in my high school paper. But we did the rock at the time, so I mostly wrote songs. I also couldn't type worth a damn, which made it hard to write things with lots of pages. Many years later, as a Miami lawyer, I started reading Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen when I was on the road, and got the urge to tell my own subtropical tale. There was a sleek, athletic quality to their writing that made me realize you don't have to be able to write paragraphs that pirouette off the page, spin into a triple lutz and stick the landing. You just have to be able to move the characters through the story. And my typing's a lot better now, which really helped. My high school history teacher wrote in my yearbook that he was waiting to read my first novel. I'm glad to finally deliver it, even if it's a few decades late.
Juanita: I understand that you have quite an adventurous/humorous view on life. Would you tell us a little about your approach to life and how this comes through in your entertaining and witty writing style?
Alan: I've always been a wise guy, looking for the humor in the transient concerns that get us jacked up and jerked around. My parents always scolded me for my sarcasm, but I really couldn't help myself. I started devouring parody and satire at an early age, from Mort Sahl and TW3 to Richard Pryor and Firesign Theater. By now, I've got zillions of random pop-culture references rattling around in my head, and "Landmark Status" is full of cues and clues, none more obvious than Benjy Bluestone asserting that he's a collector of ironies (see the aforementioned Mr. Vonnegut's "Jailbird"), while chatting up the enchanting Delia Torres after almost running her over with a seriously damaged, vintage Mustang.
Juanita: What happens in "Landmark Status"?
Alan: Lots of collisions between cars, connivers and cultures in a chaotic scramble to gain control of the Century Club, a once-legendary watering hole, newly awakened from decades of slumbering decay by a local building boom. When the usual suspects try to scuttle owner Walter Marsh's plan to sell the club to an outsider, he turns for help to Benjy, his divorce lawyer, and tries to persuade him to take on the one type of case he's always avoided, a land use dispute. Benjy's the son of legendary Miami zoning lawyer and dealmaker, Bernard Bluestone, and he's at once nostalgic for the way Miami used to be and allergic to the real estate business that made his father a household name while paving over the place.
Juanita: Alan, how long have you lived in Miami? What is emphatically Miami about this story?
Alan: I got the sand in my shoes and moved to Miami twenty-four years ago. It's a place so blindingly bright and shiny it takes on a hyper-reality when you're in the middle of it. Colors are more vivid and contrasts are deeper, with heat that makes you feel like your clothes are melting if you're not walking on the shady side of the street. And that's where you'll find the visionary hustlers and con artists who built Miami and started its principal business, the sale and resale of the same dirt to the next wave of newcomers.
Juanita: What do you enjoy most about this city?
Alan: The noisy chaos of people from all over the world, thrown together to work out their differences while they try to figure out where they are and what to make of this place.
Juanita: What sparked the idea of writing this novel around real estate, land development and politics?
Alan: Miami's not quite lawless, but it is the Wild East, and it's long been a refuge for scoundrels who reinvent themselves upon arrival, gain entry to the halls of power, get streets named after them and then get indicted or flee. As a lawyer, I found myself in the middle of this action from time to time, and got a feel for its tempo and rhythm. When it came time to write, I set out to write what I knew, and soon realized I couldn't tell Benjy's story without telling some of Miami's story, too.
Juanita: Was there a real life Century Club?
Alan: Note from my lawyer: the Century Club never existed. No, really. That said, I wish we could be chatting over a drink in the club's Everglades Room, with a winter breeze rustling the curtains and a sunset glow to the faded pictures of Miami's heroes and villains on every wall. But we'll have to build it first. Sadly, all such places are going or gone. Only two weeks ago, the Americana hotel in Bal Harbor was blown up to make way for some spiffy new condo/hotel/resort/spa wonder palace.
Juanita: Of course, I have to ask about your lead character Steven Benjamin Bluestone. Would you tell us about Benjy and how this character evolved?
Alan: Benjy's an affable sort who usually manages to stay above the fray. He's bemused by the antics of those around him, soaking up the sun and sea air as he surfs through a life that's usually comfortable, except when he's walking in his father's long shadow, which gives him the heebie-jeebies. People are always saying, "Your name's Bluestone, isn't it?" when Benjy explains that he just doesn't do land use law, but this time he knows he's stuck. His client's facing an emergency injunction hearing in a few hours, and his life's about to change in ways he never imagined, forcing him to find steel in his spine he never knew was there.
Juanita: Who are the other major players in this book?
Alan: Besides Benjy and Walter, there's broker Delia Torres, as smart as she is beautiful; her uncle Oscar, mayor of Bayview, a mini-city he runs like a fiefdom; Rico Figueroa, his not so suave bodyguard; rising civic leader Chuck Steinberg and his stunning partner in crime, Evelyn; Don Bakshian, Miami's top land use lawyer after Benjy's father's retirement; and Raj Mundakhar, former investment banker and importer of exotic collectibles, Asian aphrodisiacs and Cuban cigars.
Juanita: What is happening these days in Southern Florida in regard to real estate and land development?
Alan: The skyline's still littered with cranes, some drooping over unfinished high-rises that were started too late, or see-through condos where nobody lives yet. When the tech market tanked, a flood of deposit money flowed south, where it was sucked up to bankroll a game of musical chairs. Folks saw housing prices skyrocket and expected to flip their pre-construction condo units without ever having to close. But the music has stopped, leaving lots of flippers but few flippees.
Juanita: A significant aspect of this novel deals with ponzi schemes. Would you explain, what is a ponzi scheme?
Alan: Charles Ponzi was a legendary promoter and crook who became infamous in the nineteen twenties for a scheme that paid high returns to early investors using the money invested by later investors. Such a scheme usually involves a business that does little or no business at all, and resembles the game of musical chairs discussed above. Early investors who get out early usually make money, but the later investors get crushed when the music stops. The trick for the promoter is to never run out of new investors, something neither Ponzi nor his successors ever figured out. Such schemes are very common in South Florida, a haven for flight capital where people bring their money for safekeeping (see "collector of ironies," above), only to find hustlers on every corner trying to part them from it.
Juanita: I understand that you bring into this book glimpses of the historical origins of Miami and the ethnic influence in the politics of this city. Would you elaborate, and did this take any additional research?
Alan: In a way, the ethnic aspect was the easy part, because living in Miami is like taking a lab course in community. Tribal politics is still ascendant here, and the clash of cultures is everywhere, splattered across the local newspapers and television screens. I kept finding the characters going to places that demanded I tell their stories, too. So I did. The internet made it possible to research almost anything on the fly, from the history of the not so escape-proof prison atop the Dade County Courthouse (which offers cold comfort to a claustrophobic reporter trying to get down the stairs when the elevator won't come), to the smallest details, like what brand of cigarettes Frank Sinatra was bumming for the ride back from the Deauville after card sharps Moe and Izzy Fine cleaned him out one night fifty years ago.
Juanita: Alan, you have layered this book with numerous characters and plot twists, and somehow managed to keep a high level of humor and satire running throughout the novel. I've heard about the spirits, spells, cemeteries, skateboards, kung fu, car wrecks, football, phobias, fetishes, wooden flutes, pet rabbits, vintage aircraft and a violent confrontation at Opa-locka Airport. What did your writing process look like, and did you find it a challenge maintaining the entertainment factor?
Alan: The whole damn thing is challenging! I did a fairly detailed outline before I started the book, but many things changed once I got going. I always set the next day's agenda the night before, and often found the funny stuff (with a tip of the hat to Bobby Bittman) happening almost by itself when I wound up the characters and let them go. John Updike, a god among writers (see "paragraphs that pirouette off the page," above), once talked about checking in with his characters to see what they were up to in the earliest grey-dawn moments of the morning. I now understand what he meant. Some days the characters did things I didn't expect, and the mystery and magic of that process was a reminder to replace fear with faith and press on, as my spirit-guide, Michael Levin (author of "Soft Target"), would say. The trick for me is to keep pushing and not look back any more than necessary.
Juanita: Alan, because this novel is considered satire, would you tell us about the deeper messages you were hoping to convey through this story?
Alan: There's a persistent subtext about dislocation and trying to fit in, trying to find your place in a new or changing place, particularly for Delia as a Cuban-American who grew up in New Jersey and can't seem to get both feet down in Miami, even though she's in the bosom of her family. It's not easy for Walter, either, as Miami morphs around him into something he barely recognizes. They all have immigrant stories in this new city where even the Native Americans are from somewhere else, but only Delia, and to a lesser extent, Benjy and Raj, are thinking about what it all means. I'd suggest it means that wherever we're from, we're here now, and we might better figure out how to become one people out of many, before the American Creed is reduced to a lifeless slogan on a worthless dollar bill.
Juanita: Of course, knowing your wife has ties in the "movie world," what are the chances of seeing "Landmark Status" on the big screen someday? Many fans are saying it would make a great movie, and I wonder if this was a consideration from the beginning.
Alan: It's exciting to hear people say they can visualize a film. I always have, from the day I imagined the original scene (Benjy and Delia meeting in the breakdown lane). We've got intriguing characters, witty badinage, breathtaking locations and plenty of action (seven car crashes, I think). But unlike Sharon's recent film, "Canvas" (www.canvasthefilm.com), this one will need a special effects budget. Sharon tried to persuade me to write a screenplay instead of a novel, but I wanted something that would be complete when it was done, so we didn't have to run yet another gauntlet before anyone else could experience it. Now, we can do the screenplay.
Juanita: Obviously you have a great passion for writing, as well as witty, visual storytelling. Do you have as much enthusiasm for the "business" side of being an author - from dealing with publishers/publicists, to marketing and promotions?
Alan: To borrow a line from a hamburger ad, I'm lovin' it.
Juanita: Alan, how can readers find out more about "Landmark Status"?
Alan: My newly-active website (www.alanrolnick.com) has more info, with more to come soon.
Juanita: Will we see more novels from you in the future?
Alan: You bet! I'm knee-deep in the new book, which involves some of the same folks. I'm expanding their horizons, too, moving all the way up the coast to Fort Lauderdale.
Juanita: Sounds great Alan. I know readers will be happy to hear you are continuing the thread started in "Landmark Status." Thank so much for talking with us today, we certainly wish you well with your first novel. I'll let you have the last word to your readers today.
Alan: Thanks to you and Reader Views, Juanita. It's been a lot of fun.
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