Alan Drew's "The Recruit"

Alan Drew is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Gardens of Water and Shadow Man. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. An associate professor of English at Villanova University, where he directs the creative writing program, he lives near Philadelphia with his wife and two children.

Drew applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Recruit, and reported the following:

The Recruit is a character-driven thriller set in 1987 Southern California, when growing white supremacist movement begins using the fledging internet to spread hate across the nation, plan attacks, and recruit young men. In Rancho Santa Elena, a master-planned exurb of Los Angeles, Jacob Clay, a troubled fifteen-year-old kid, is indoctrinated into the terror network and attacks the Vietnamese refugee community. Ben Wade’s got to stop the boy and the network while challenging his own racism and the racism in his community. Also, there’s a snowmobile chase, a plane crash, a big fire, gun shots fired, among other things. Even though the book is set in 1987, it speaks to much that is happening today, including conspiracy theories and the attack on the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

If we could go back in time and make a film out of The Recruit in, say, the mid to late 90’s, I would want Chris Cooper to play Ben Wade. Ben can play the tough guy cop, but he’s carrying around a very painful past which makes him emotionally vulnerable—something he works hard to hide. I think about Cooper’s role in John Sayles’s Lone Star. As an actor, he seems capable of exuding a tough exterior that hides a deep well of emotion and intelligence, which would work perfectly for Ben Wade.

I could see another Cooper work for Ben, too: Bradley Cooper. Ben’s in his late thirties, an aging body surfer who is still pretty cut from riding waves. Like most guys who live in saltwater, he’s a little rough around the edges—sunburned, bleached hair, sea salt on his skin—and Bradley Cooper, thinking about his role in A Star is Born, could pull that off, I think. Also, in Shadow Man, there’s an important moment in the book where Ben’s falling apart, his life unraveling in ways he can’t control, and Bradley Cooper seems capable of conveying that type of anxiety.

For some reason I always come back to Jessica Chastain for forensic medical examiner Natasha Betencourt. I’m thinking of her role in Zero Dark Thirty, that character’s almost obsessive intensity, her deep intelligence, and her willingness to risk her own emotional health to finish the job.

Director? I’m not sure, but I loved Tom McCarthy’s directing of Spotlight, the 2015 film about the Boston diocese child sex abuse scandal in the 1970s. The film was both propulsive and contemplative and it dug deep into the radiating trauma caused by such systematic abuse. That kind of directorial touch would be perfect for both Shadow Man and The Recruit.

Visit Alan Drew's website.

My Book, The Movie: Shadow Man.

Q&A with Alan Drew.

The Page 69 Test: The Recruit.

--Marshal Zeringue