“When I finished writing Empire of Lies I looked into the mirror and said, ‘Son, you’re never going to win another writer’s award.” Successful novelist, screenwriter and political/cultural pundit Andrew Klavan grins at me over his coffee in a decidedly left-of-center “enemy camp” coffee house. Meeting with Klavan in a place like Studio City’s Aroma Café makes me feel like Patton’s Third Army has just shown up to support my tiny and outnumbered rifle squad.

Empire of Lies is Klavan’s fast-paced, gritty novel that features a conservative Christian protagonist who uncovers an extremist Muslin plot to kill hundreds, but can’t convince a duplicitous media of the terrible truth. Think of it as a kind of North by Northwest meets the War on Terror.  The 2008 political thriller was a daring poke in the eye to the elitist New York and Hollywood left. His flawed heroes are part of what sets his writing apart. They’re made of flesh and blood with their own personal failings. “That’s my nature, I can’t write them any other way.”

Klavan’s erudite style and gutsy prose in books and screenplays like True Crimes, Don’t Say a Word, The Animal Hour, Corruption, Dynamite Road and the recently released Identity Man have earned him dazzling reviews, incredible sales, prestigious writing awards and international acclaim. His popular and no-holds-barred young adult series The Homelander, deals with the exploits of a teenager who wakes up to find himself in a radical Muslim United States and fights back.     

“As a writer you’re artist and business man. You are your business, but you have to speak the truth, too.  In the past I’d get two-hundred reviews on any of my other books, all great. Empire of Lies got one major review, which accused me of being a right-wing crackpot. Can I prove that happened because the central character is a conservative Christian and the bad guys are the media and Islamic jihadists?  No, but it all seems pretty strange.” 

Last year Klavan caused more than a few Hollywood lefties to choke on their morning croissants when he published a Los Angeles Times opinion piece dealing with the liberal blacklisting of film industry conservatives. Several so-called Hollywood journalists attacked Klavan demanding proof with a snooty attitude of, “We all know that conservative writers and filmmakers are just not as creative as liberals.”  (more…)

A personal incident has given me a particular perspective on recent news about the media. Last Tuesday, I received word that the French release of my thriller novel Empire of Lies had been canceled by publisher Seuil Policiers. The editor who originally bought the book had left the French company, and the new editor, my agent says, feels that “she can not publish . . . because of the political and religious aspects of the story.” This, even though it’s in breach of a contract for which I’ve been paid in full. 

Empire of Lies features a politically conservative Christian protagonist, Jason Harrow, who believes he has uncovered an Islamist terrorist plot being obscured by the leftist mainstream media. “Lies, lies, lies,” the emotionally troubled Harrow murmurs at his television set. “It’s all about what they don’t say.” It will come as no surprise that my friend Andrew Breitbart praised the book as the only thriller he’d ever read in which the mainstream media were the villains.

The book’s French cancellation is, I realize, a rather small cultural event. Yet it gives specific color to the recent revelations on the Daily Caller website that left-wing journalists conspired to suppress scandals that might harm Barack Obama and to the brouhaha over Breitbart’s online release of a video that resulted in a government worker’s momentarily losing her job. In both stories, one thing leaps out at me: everywhere, the Left favors fewer voices and less information, and conservatives favor more. Everywhere, the Left seeks to disappear its opposition, whereas the Right is willing to meet them head-on. (more…)