The Truth Behind Brad Meltzer’s ‘The Book of Lies’
By Laura Hudson -- Publishers Weekly, 9/2/2008 2:47:00 PM
When bestselling novelist—and award-winning comic book writer—Brad Meltzer stopped for a 2006 book signing in Sarasota, Florida, he never anticipated that it would change the way he thought about the story of Superman, or inspire a new novel, The Book of Lies, published this week by Grand Central Publishing. The experience even led to the launch of OrdinaryPeopleChangeTheWorld.com, a new nonprofit dedicated to saving the house in Cleveland where Superman was created in the 1930s.
“I was talking about my love of the character Superman, when this older woman stands up and raises her hand, and tells me, ‘I know more about Superman than you’ll ever know,’” Meltzer recalled. “I’m thinking, lady, there’s no way you know more about Superman than I know. And then she said, ‘I do. Superman creator Jerry Siegel is my uncle.’”
For Meltzer, a self-proclaimed comic book geek, the coincidental meeting seemed too much like fate. After an introduction to the rest of the Siegel family, Meltzer spent the next two years delving into their family history, a story that would ultimately become the linchpin of The Book of Lies. Through his research, he learned something that Jerry Siegel had never mentioned in all his years of interviews: his father, Mitchell Siegel, had been shot to death in 1932 during a robbery gone wrong. Meltzer says the thematic implications for Jerry’s most famous creation were impossible to ignore.
“America didn’t get Superman because it was the greatest country on Earth, it got Superman because a little boy lost his father,” Meltzer said. “And if you look at the first stories of Superman, he doesn’t have X-ray vision or heat vision or flight. All he was, was bullet-proof. In the very first appearance of Superman as a hero, do you know what crime he’s stopping? A robbery at gunpoint.”
The murder of Mitchell Siegel plays a central role in The Book of Lies, along with fictional elements from another tale of archetypal murder that has always fascinated Meltzer: the biblical story of Cain and Abel. “There are these two murders; one gives us the greatest villain in Cain and one gives us Superman, the greatest hero. Suddenly I had a theme that was bigger than anything I’d tried to tackle before,” says Meltzer, who kicks off a 20-city book tour this week with book signings and media events in New York and Washington D.C. and a signing in Cleveland, Sept. 10.
The Book of Lives—as well as Siegel's personal story—also inspired Meltzer to launch a Web site called OrdinaryPeopleChangetheWorld.com, dedicated to showing that ordinary people can effect real change, one good deed at a time. And it should be no surprise that OPCTW’s first mission is to save the old Siegel house, now in disrepair, where Jerry Siegel created Superman (along with co-creator Joe Shuster). The site solicits donations for the repair of the house but also acts as a kind of clearinghouse—there’s a blog, a mailing list, videos of Meltzer and more—for all kinds of good deeds by ordinary Joes and Jills.
“Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel are my heroes,” Meltzer says. “Two kids who were so poor that they had to draw on the back of wallpaper, and they gave us a hero who is more recognizable than Abraham Lincoln. As I look back over my novels, I realize that what I'm writing about over and over is my belief that there is greatness in everybody—that ordinary people can change the world."
