Survivor guilt Veteran screenwriter Jeffrey Lewis looks at his ’60s generation in novel debut

Writing his debut novel was something akin to a class reunion for Jeffrey Lewis.

“Meritocracy: A Love Story” (Other Press) provides Lewis, a veteran screenwriter, the opportunity to look back at his generation, many of whom were lost one way or another during the Vietnam War.

The Castine resident does this through a story focusing on six Yale graduates who gather along the Maine coast one fall weekend. The central figure, Harry Nolan, enlisted in the Army and is about to be shipped off to Vietnam, perhaps in hopes that it will enhance his political future (his father is a senator). He is surrounded by his new bride, Sascha, and four friends: cordial Tennessean Cord, caustic Teddy, tabula rasa Adam and Louie, the story’s narrator, who is secretly in love with Sascha. The novel follows how this friendly sendoff deteriorates into something tragic.

So what exactly is meritocracy?

In the book, Lewis describes it as a system that espouses “equal opportunity for all, but in its operation is a picking and choosing of those most worthy to advance.”

In an interview, Lewis, 60, said he used the idea “more descriptively than analytically. I was more interested in what became of all my friends.”

So how much does Louie the narrator reflect Lewis the author?

“I know that the descriptions of events and character relationships in the book are fictive,” said Lewis. “But the attitudes of the narrator are largely infused with things I’ve thought or felt or have been, but I can’t tell you how much. Others who know me will have various opinions. Calling the narrator Louie made it easier to write, gave me solid ground to stand on.”

The idea of “Meritocracy” reaches back to 1999, when former Yalies George W. Bush and Al Gore were running for president. What he thought of the pair is written in the novel: “The year George W. Bush and Al Gore ran for president, it seemed like the whole country was clicking its tongue about them. The boys of privilege, the smirk and the lame, and everywhere the implication [if not the accusation] that this was the best our generation could produce.”

This got Lewis thinking about the events that had taken a toll on his generation, especially the Vietnam War.

“The Vietnam War in our imagination wasn’t a big war; it was a colonial war,” he explained. “The number of lives lost, while terrible, didn’t compare with the World Wars. But we didn’t notice that it hurt the people who fought in it, who fought a dirty war against a popular insurgency, a war full of lies that the American public was told. It also hurt those who resisted the war, who committed to positions that the public was unable to reconcile with the American mythology. So they were relegated to being cranks and cowards, and were subsequently omitted from the national dialogue. We don’t acknowledge that loss, so it’s different from other wars.”

Returning to writing fiction has brought Lewis full circle. A graduate of Yale and Harvard Law School, he worked at small magazines and for a short time was a Manhattan assistant district attorney.

He moved to Los Angeles, and began writing for the long-running NBC drama “Hill Street Blues.” In all, he was the credited writer on two-thirds of the episodes produced, ending up executive director and earning two Emmy Awards and a Writers Guild Award. He went on to create or co-create the series “Bay City Blues,” “Beverly Hill Buntz” and “Lifestories.”

Then he walked away from series TV in 1990. Part of it had to be a disgust with the environment: “TV gets a better rap than it deserves,” he said. “It’s so much harder to get something good on TV because of the commercial [considerations].”

But those weren’t the driving forces that led him to move on: “I felt that I was getting to the age that if I seriously wanted to write other things, I’d better get serious about it. Also, I had enough money to get by.”

He still writes screenplays for the studios and networks. His most recent film project is the screenplay for “Paint,” a film set in the New York art world, to be directed by Robert Altman and starring Salma Hayek and James Franco. It’s tentatively set to be shot this winter. But he’s not seeking out such work, but rather is concentrating on his novels.

Screenwriting did give Lewis a set of skills that are serving him well in fiction: “The value of a story, a certain economy in writing, learning to think about what audience is out there.”

Most importantly, while filmmaking is a collaborative venture, he’s more in charge writing fiction.

“I’m able to be more my own master in fiction, making statements that are more personal and specific than commercial TV and film allows,” he said.

Lewis splits time between Castine and Los Angeles, but he hopes that writing fiction will allow him to spend more time in Maine, especially now that his daughter will be attending Bowdoin College this fall.

The author sees “Meritocracy” as a multiple-book series, following those of his generation through the decades to the millennium. The second book, “The Conference of the Birds,” is set in New York City in the 1970s and is due out in a year. He’s now writing the third book.

Lewis said there’s a need for a closer look at those turbulent times.

“I’m hoping to add some bit of documentation to the public imagination of how my generation lived,” he said. “I don’t think it’s been sufficiently done. We’ve been dependent on film to do that, but film can be so commercially corrupt, so consensus driven.”

“Meritocracy: A Love Story” hits book shelves Sept. 7. As a rookie novelist, Lewis isn’t sure how he will react to criticism.

“It’s written in hopes of my gaining understanding and gaining understanding with others,” he said. “So far, I’ve been gratified by people finding in the book the things I found in writing it.”

Jeffrey Lewis is planning stops at 6-7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 26, at the Compass Rose Bookstore in Castine and at 4-6 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 29, at North Light Books in Blue Hill. Dale McGarrigle can be reached at 990-8028 and dmcgarrgle@bangordailynews.net.