The Lawgiver by Herman Wouk (English) Paperback Book

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"A lighthearted and delightful tour de force" (The Washington Times). A romantic and suspenseful epistolary novel about a group of people trying to make a movie about Moses in the present day, The Lawgiver is a story that emerges from letters, memos, e-mails, journals, news articles, Skype transcripts, and text messages. At the center of The Lawgiver is Margo Solovei, a brilliant young writer-director who has rejected her rabbinical father's strict Jewish upbringing to pursue a career in the arts. When an Australian multibillionaire promises to finance a movie about Moses, Margo does everything she can to land the job, including reunite with her estranged first love, an influential lawyer with whom she still has unfinished business. Two other key characters in the novel are Herman Wouk himself and his wife of more than sixty years, Betty Sarah, who, almost against their will, find themselves entangled in the movie. As Wouk and his characters contend with Moses and marriage, the force of tradition, rebellion and reunion, The Lawgiver reflects the wisdom of a lifetime. Inspired by the great nineteenth-century novelists, one of America's most beloved twentieth-century authors has now written a remarkable twenty-first-century work of fiction.

FORMATPaperback LANGUAGEEnglish CONDITIONBrand New Author Biography

Herman Wouk was the author of such classics as The Caine Mutiny (1951), Marjorie Morningstar (1955), Youngblood Hawke (1961), Don't Stop the Carnival (1965), The Winds of War (1971), War and Remembrance (1978), and Inside, Outside (1985). His later works include The Hope (1993), The Glory (1994), A Hole in Texas (2004) and The Lawgiver (2012). Among Mr. Wouk's laurels are the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Caine Mutiny; the cover of Time magazine for Marjorie Morningstar, the bestselling novel of that year; and the cultural phenomenon of The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, which he wrote over a fourteen-year period and which went on to become two of the most popular novels and TV miniseries events of the 1970s and 1980s. In 1998, he received the Guardian of Zion Award for support of Israel. In 2008, Mr. Wouk was honored with the first Library of Congress Lifetime Achievement for the Writing of Fiction. He died in 2019 at the age of 103.

Review

"The Lawgiver is an unadulterated delight, a compelling, old-fashioned story in sleek new-fashioned clothes. How fortunate it is for readers that Mr. Wouk, who published The Caine Mutiny when I was but four years old, has not lost an iota of his storytelling genius. The Lawgiver is fast, funny, romantic, and moving."--Stephen King"...The Lawgiver is a combination of sweet romantic comedy and sly Hollywood satire, and it is as much fun to read as it seems to have been to write....Wouk excels in channeling distinctive voices."--The Columbus Dispatch (OH)

Review Quote

"Wouk makes commanding use of the epistolary form, and what emerges is an entertaining addition to his literary canon. It's clever without being too cutesy, revealing a writer who - at 96 - shows little sign of slowing down."

Excerpt from Book

The Lawgiver CHAPTER ONE MR. GLUCK (INTEROFFICE MEMO, 11:20 A.M.) BSW LITERARY AGENCY HW: Sorry to trouble you. That Andrea with the British accent just rang yet again. She already rang at 9 this morning on the dot. She said Mr. Warshaw would make it worth my while if I would put him through to Mr. Wouk on the phone even for a minute or two, "by mistake." (A gross offer of a bribe?) She still won''t say what it''s about. I ignored 3 calls from her yesterday and 2 on Friday. This will just go on and on. (HW OFFICE PHONE RINGS, RINGS, RINGS.) (Secretary on speakerphone) Look, HW, Tim Warshaw got through to me, told me what he wants to say to you, and asks for a couple of minutes, no more. I can''t take the responsibility to pass this up. I told him I''d have to stay on the line and take notes. He laughed and said, "Why not?" Here he is. WARSHAW: (slow, deep voice) Mr. Wouk? HW: Yes. WARSHAW: Sir, would one million dollars for a half-hour conference interest you? (Insert by HW: A jolt. These Hollywood hoodlums! He has the money, he''s riding high, Best Picture Oscar for his art-house breakout from the big disaster films. A million! . . . Family foundation, charities . . . son''s divorce . . .) HW: Mr. Warshaw, I''m ninety-six years old, trying to get one more book done while I last. Thank you, but-- WARSHAW: Sir, dare I ask what the new book is about? HW: No. WARSHAW: May I tell you what I''m calling about, and I swear that''ll be that? I''ll thank you and hang up-- HW: Go ahead. WARSHAW: (pause--slow, deep) Moses . . . HW: Moses? WARSHAW: Moses, sir. Pharaoh, Burning Bush, splitting the sea-- HW: Oh, yes, that Moses. The one Cecil B. DeMille did twice-- WARSHAW: Sir, this would be all different. Think twenty-first century, think special effects--think maybe three-D-- HW: Mr. Warshaw, I''ve appreciated your approach. Most of all, your offer to thank me and hang up. WARSHAW: Thank you, sir. I''m hanging up. (He hangs up.) (HW NEW NOVEL WORK JOURNAL) 9:10 a.m. Blasted day yesterday, when I was just getting a handle on the new approach to this confounded book, or thought I was. Timothy Warshaw, the red-hot moviemaker of the hour, with an artsy departure from his disaster blockbusters--he copped an Oscar for Best Picture, Midsummer Night''s Dream, directed by a nutty Japanese with a cast of all unknown teenagers in masks--the critics rolled over neighing and kicking their hooves in the air--this Warshaw phoned and offered me "one million dollars for a half-hour conference." Turned him down rudely. Last night at dinner we talked about it. BSW: Good. That half-hour conference is baloney. He''d get his money''s worth out of your hide, one way or another. Is this new "impossible novel" of yours really started? HW: Two preliminary journal files. No copy yet. I was drafting the first page of an opening scene when Warshaw bulldozed past Priscilla and got to me. BSW: What do you want to do about it? HW: Nothing. Write the book. BSW: Well, I''ve had my doubts, you know. Not much interest in Moses nowadays. HW: Oh, no? What do you suppose Warshaw wanted to talk to me about? (Imitates Warshaw.) MO . . . SES . . . BSW: No! Wow. HW: Coincidence? What else? Security breach? Nobody, but nobody, except you--and Priscilla, typing my notes, and she''s a silent tomb--knows that I''ve been working on a Moses novel. BSW: It''s a ploy. HW: Forget it, then. BSW: No. Give him the half hour, but don''t take his money. Just listen. HW: What''s the point? BSW: I''m curious. He''ll spill something. HW: You sit in. BSW: Sure. (E-MAIL) WARSHAWORKS CENTURY CITY, CALIFORNIA 90067 From: Tim Warshaw To: Hezzie Jacobs Nullarbor Petroleum, Houston Subject: Wouk Well, Hezzie, I did manage to get through to Wouk. You can tell this mysterious Australian investor of yours that it wasn''t easy, and he wasn''t encouraging. Wouk doesn''t sound over the phone nearly as old as he is, going on 97, but he was abrupt and peevish. No interest whatever. Surely if this investor is at all serious, his proposal can''t hang on getting that mulish ancient to write the film. That''s an irresponsible whim. It won''t work. It''s a deal breaker up front. Otherwise his offer is certainly intriguing and exciting. Why can''t you put me in direct touch with him? An e-mail address, if not a phone number? I have persuasive power, you know. I got the bank to fund Yoshimoto''s Dream, when you and other investors ran for the tall grass, telling me such dizzy nonsense hadn''t a prayer. I''m looking at my Oscar on the desk as I write. Tim (NOTE) From the desk of TIM WARSHAW Andrea, hold everything. Call Hezzie Jacobs in Houston, tell him Wouk just phoned me. I''m off to Palm Springs in the Falcon. Order a limo to meet me Signature Airport. T. (HW NEW NOVEL WORK JOURNAL, THURSDAY) 4 p.m. Another day shot, no new writing, no nothing. Warshaw''s half hour--and he stuck to it, I''ll say that--killed the day. Waiting for him to get here, settling him in for the half-hour conference, seeing him out the door, then chewing over this strange business with my lady, and here I am with one day less in my life to do what haunts me, "the impossible novel." Here''s Warshaw''s pitch in brief. An Australian eccentric of great wealth wants a movie made about Moses, and is ready to fund it. The approach came via one Hezzie Jacobs, a Texas venture capitalist who sometimes dabbles in films, though his main interest is oil from algae. Jacobs has a vast project of algae ponds going in Nullarbor, Australia. This eccentric investor, a uranium tycoon, has money in it. When Jacobs told him a Moses film might cost two hundred million, all he said was, "Fair dinkum," Australian slang for okay, or the equivalent. Now, here''s what Warshaw left out, and it''s crucial. My accountant, who''s wired to insiders in the film game, tells me Warshaw in fact is over a barrel. The Oscar went to his head, he''s always been a high flier, cross-collateralized up to his ears. He''s put some new projects into development, and another of his disaster productions is getting filmed in Turkey right now, Aeneas and Dido, a sexy epic based on the Aeneid, with a fall of Troy bigger than D-day in Saving Private Ryan. He''s been close to freezing that production, short of cash and low on credit, so the rumors fly. Still, he''s meeting his huge budgets week by week and acting carefree as a hummingbird. And the back story on that (my accountant again, and this gets convoluted) is that Jacobs, knowing Fair Dinkum''s obsession to get a Moses film made, has started quietly bankrolling Warshaw, gambling that sooner or later it''ll happen, Fair Dinkum will come across with an investment of four or five hundred million dollars in WarshaWorks, and Jacobs figures to skim off lots of cream. What it seems to come down to--and I begin to see why Warshaw was ready to pay me a million for a conference--is this: the uranium nabob either backs WarshaWorks with a whopper of a "stimulus" or Warshaw is in real trouble, and that seems to depend on whether he can get me to write a Moses film! So the thing stands. Distracting, but diverting, I have to say. Meantime, no work. (E-MAIL) From: Rabbi Mordechai Heber To: Mr. Herman Wouk Subject: Hezzie Jacobs Sorry to bother you, Mr. Wouk. A venture capitalist who owns a winter home here wants to see you. Mr. Jacobs is a good man, not religious, but he''s kept my little day school alive. You know how I guard your privacy, but as a special favor to the children of our school, will you see him if he flies here tomorrow? I need an answer right away. (HW NEW NOVEL WORK JOURNAL, FRIDAY) 9 a.m. The plot thickens. Exponentially. Not for my book, my third false start goes into the files, hopelessly wrong. It''s the Fair Dinkum thing. Turns out that this Hezzie Jacobs owns a home here and is coming from Houston to talk to me. Rabbi Heber interceded for him. I don''t say no to the rabbi . . . (FAX) NULLARBOR PETROLEUM LLC "Freedom from Mideast Oil Through Algae" HOUSTON -- MELBOURNE FAX (STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL) From:

Details ISBN1451699395 Author Herman Wouk Short Title LAWGIVER Publisher Simon & Schuster Language English ISBN-10 1451699395 ISBN-13 9781451699395 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY 813.54 Residence Palm Springs, CA, US Birth 1915 Pages 240 Year 2013 Publication Date 2013-10-29 Imprint Simon & Schuster Audience General UK Release Date 2013-10-29 We've got this

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