By Stephanie Eisemann, news staff
Accomplished author and Northeastern Law School alumnus Peter Orner will be releasing a screenplay starring Edward Asner as soon as next year, based on his novel “Love and Shame and Love.” The film is currently in post-production and will be released through film festivals.
“I co-wrote the screenplay with… Ralph Jones [but] I much prefer doing what I do,” Orner said “Writing for film, I find that it involved too many other people, and I’m very much someone who likes to control everything. Writing for the screen, there’s other things too of course, but mainly dialogue… and I had fun doing that, but I think where my calling is, to control everything, the lights, everything. So I felt like I was out of my element a little bit, but I’ll probably try it again.”
The story follows four generations of the Popper family as they struggle to remain whole while overcoming external adversity and inner turmoil. Rooted in imagery from main character Alexander’s childhood, the novel runs the gamut of emotion, chronicling the highs and lows of a family in disarray. As the title indicates, the idea of love plays a central role – how it brings people together and tears them apart – as everyone is simply searching for some kind of connection with another.
Jones, who also serves as director of the film, sent the script to the famous actor. Asner, who is best known for his role on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and, more recently, for his voice work in Pixar’s “Up,” felt the script was well-penned enough to jump into the project. As a politically involved man, Asner responded quickly to the anti-war themes of the story.
The actors “did a really good job of becoming my characters and I can’t ask for more than that,” Orner said.
Orner has been writing since his days at Northeastern College of Law, where he was a student from 1993 to 1996.
“The first story I wrote back then, I was in law school,” Orner said. “It was about a couple who were living together and the man wakes up and his girlfriend’s breaking all the windows in the apartment. And then they have a conversation about that.”
Orner’s professors recognized his potential early on.
“He was always interested in stories and stories – not necessarily happy ones – abound in the criminal law,” Daniel Givelber, former dean of the law school, said. “He would have been a good lawyer but, like all his readers, I am delighted that he chose to write rather than litigate.”
Orner did pass the bar exam and occasionally takes pro bono immigration cases in San Francisco.
“I do love the law,” Orner said. “But I love writing more, and yet I often write about the law and lawyers are often characters in my fiction… I come from four generations of lawyers, so I guess it’s sort of in my blood that I’m interested in how the law solves problems and I guess more importantly how the law doesn’t solve problems. The limitations of the law is sort of what I’m interested in.”
Orner believes that his concise and direct writing style was influenced by his legal training. However, he credits Northeastern Law for more than just literary impact.
“It was Northeastern that taught me the discipline to be a writer and the worldliness,” Orner said. “All my professors were extraordinarily [sic] engaged with the world and that’s what I try to do as a writer… I think law school was formative in my writing experience, like I wouldn’t do what I do without going to law school, which a lot of writers probably wouldn’t say but I do, and it’s because Northeastern is so special. Had I gone to a traditional law school, I would have dropped out in the first year for sure.”
Brook Baker, professor of law for whom Orner was a TA, was also aware of his passion for creative writing.
“At the time, I thought that Peter had a promising future in law, but I also knew he was interested in creative writing… I wasn’t sure whether his legal training might have caged some of his talents… I felt close to Peter because he was such a dedicated TA – he felt like a budding colleague,” Baker said.
Orner indicated that he did not feel held back by his Northeastern Law experience, but rather inspired by it.
“At Northeastern they taught me how to think,” he said, “and I’m very, very grateful.”
Orner is currently working on several projects, including a book of essays and a non-fiction book set in Haiti that should be released within a year or two. In the past, the alumnus has been the recipient of prestigious awards, including the Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2002-2003) and the Guggenheim Fellowship (2006). Orner said he appreciates the honors, but he cares most about creating stories that connect with the readers.
“I kind of write for individuals,” Orner said. “And if I hear if I’m in a reading or I get a letter or an email from somebody who really is somehow emotionally moved by what I’m doing, that’s the best.”
Photo courtesy Peter Orner
