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North Shore, Boston. MA THINKING THE UNTHINKABLE in Grossman's Executive Actions By Gary Band, Staff Writer On September 10, 2001, documentary film producer and author Gary Grossman was in New York for a meeting with the History Channel. During their discussion about an upcoming project, Grossman joked that with all the programs the HC had done, pretty soon they would run out of history. Of course the next day everything changed, and history was made by 19 terrorists armed with box cutters and the ability to fly airplanes. On September 12, Grossman, along with Robb Weller - co-owner of their 11-year-old Emmy Award winning production company Weller/Grossman Productions - somehow secured a rental car in Westchester. And during the long road trip back to his home in Los Angeles, Grossman conjured an idea for what would become the novel Executive Actions (ibooks, distributed by Simon and Schuster, August, 2004). His premise derives from a question of sinister complexity: What would happen if the highest levels of the American government were infiltrated by those whose actions could change America's relationship with, and ultimately destroy, the State of Israel? "I realized the things I was thinking about in fiction may be possible in real life," said Grossman, who has lived in Los Angeles for the last 20 years. He was in Boston and on the North Shore promoting his book at the end of September. He's hardly a stranger to this area. A graduate of Emerson College and Boston University, Grossman has written for the New York Times and the Boston Globe, and covered presidential politics for WBZ in Boston. He taught journalism at Emerson, BU and the University of Southern California, and has produced news programs for ABC, CBS and NBC. This is his third book, following Superman: Serial to Cereal and Saturday Morning TV. Despite poor copy-editing, Executive Actions does not disappoint. The story is at once frightening in its conception and, with everything that's happened from September 11 forward, entirely plausible. Like the pundits who are considering every electoral possibility leading up to the real life 2004 presidential election, Grossman, while saying he doesn't want to put ideas into people's heads, raises important questions about the potential for the type of scenario he describes. "Ultimately, we don't know what we don't know," Grossman says. "What is possible? What are some people willing to do to change our relationship with Israel and the balance of power in the Middle East?" The fictional election around which Grossman's story revolves takes place in an alternative 2008. The first term of a popular Republican president named Morgan Taylor, an ex-Navy fighter pilot, is coming to an end. The Democratic candidates vying for the nomination are Montana Governor Henry Lamden and Vermont Congressman Teddy Lodge, whose roots are in Marblehead. By invoking real-life figures such as Howard Dean, George W. Bush, the late Uday Hussein, Libyan leaders, and laws established following September 11 - Grossman lends to his story an air of authenticity and a sense that it could really happen. In something of a political Da Vinci Code, where time and everything else is stacked against the protagonists, Executive Actions moves back and forth between Hudson, New York, Washington, DC, Marblehead, Boston, Fisher Island, Florida and Tripoli, Libya. Despite his pedigree, good looks and Kennedy-esque appeal, Congressman Lodge is trailing his Democratic challenger Henry Lamden in the polls. That is, until a shocking event occurs during Lodge's speech in Hudson the day before the New York primary, propelling the 519-page story forward into a web of dangerous liaisons and attempts to connect the dots before Inauguration Day, seven months after the story begins. Following the events in Hudson, President Taylor engages the help of his friend, Secret Service Agent Scott Roarke, to investigate the crime and follow the clues wherever they may lead. His paths cross continually with New York Times reporter Michael O'Connell, who has been following Congressman Lodge in the race for the Democratic nomination. While asking questions at the Boston law firm that represented the Marblehead Lodge family, Roarke joins forces with an attractive Jewish lawyer named Katie Kessler. In between their romantic trysts at Kessler's Beacon Hill apartment - when Roarke isn't off tracking the unknown assassin or posing as a journalist in Libya - Kessler provides essential legal counsel that prevents the unthinkable from happening. But Roarke, Kessler, President Taylor, the FBI and CIA directors are all in the dark about how to connect the dots until a history teacher and freelance cameraman named Chuck Wheaton sees something that no one else saw in the video of that fateful June day in Hudson. Grossman keeps both his antagonists and protagonists active From the assassin who keeps changing his appearance and location to the mysterious puppet-master Ibrahim Haddad in Florida, the feuding brothers and spying assistants in Libya and high-level sleeper spies whose true identities are not revealed until nearly the end, the story keeps you guessing throughout. The plot is both compelling and frightening to consider. Even after the epilogue, the characters and the story go on. Look for the sequel in 2005 |