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"The Futurist," a fast-moving novel by James P.   Othmer, is not just a richly-textured study of world-traveling high-profile characters at the top rungs of business and government circles.   Influential people like the protagonist, Yates, a middle-aged, single, James Bond / Indiana Jones type who crashes from grace early in the book, while delivering a seemingly career-ending speech that pokes fun at the hypocrisy of himself and audience members like him who try to foretell, analyze and shape opinions and attitudes.   The book is not just about Yates and the others.   It's about you and me and our friends and co-workers.   On another level, oddly enough, for me it's also a self-help book.   The book triggered quite a bit of self-examination and I actually feel better having read it.

During the last few years, when I read fiction I hope for it to not merely entertain me but also to trigger me to feel like I'm in a new place, emotionally and spiritually.   "The Futurist" caused me to reflect on my own past and to examine my present with a hopeful eye toward improving my personal future.   This realization happened for me during reading the book and for several weeks afterward.   Pretty powerful.   Don't get me wrong.   The book is not at all preachy but rather is packed with action, a sufficient but not excessive amount of sex and violence, suspense, and sweeping scenes from around the world.   I found myself on several occasions laughing out loud, and in a couple of instances choking up.   As a writer, I also was impressed by Othmer's clever devices, such as the inclusion of speeches and letters, the frequent synopses of past accomplishments and events in Yates' life showing the breadth of Yates' persona and of people in general, and the mixture of tenses.   Terse clear writing and Hemingway-like dialogue caused me to stay present, right in the room with the characters.   I liked them, even their names - Yates, Campbell, Blevins, Johnson and Johnson, Marjorie.   The book is very funny and witty in many sections.   The more I delved, the more I felt that the author, who was once a Creative Director with Young & Rubicam, a leading worldwide ad agency, must have led a very exciting Yates-like life of his own.   I look forward to reading his other work.   And, I eagerly await the movie to see if it does the book justice, a tall order.   One disappointment for me near the end of the book was that some of Yates' future was revealed.   I was hoping for a sequel to the book and to the movie, and wanted to be surprised in the future.

The book is at the right place and right time for me, like a self-help motivational book without the heaviness.   I'm undergoing certain serious doubts and career changes, like Yates, and seeing Yates's actions and feelings being played out helped me to examine my own past and present.    The introspection coupled with seeing the interplay of characters in the book, and people in my own life, had a positive effect in helping me to evaluate matters. Similar to the exhilarating, yet calming, feelings you get when you see a fast-pasted film that is chock full of interesting people having engaging conversations, making you love life again when you leave the movie theatre.    "The Futurist" did that for me.   And instead of watching a movie in two hours on a Friday night, it happened over ten days, an hour or so each night, starting after 11:30.   Each night, I read in my overstuffed family-room chair under the close soft light of the pole lamp, with warm sake on the nearby small table.   I was very present during those evenings, and savored each chapter. The book's impact started strong and grew with every evening.   I haven't felt this type of in-the-moment closeness since, perhaps, way back when reading "The Celestine Prophecy" by James Redfield.   Just like Yates, who was brought low by a confluence of events and facing his own inadequacies and lack of control that are in part self-inflicted and in part just the way it is in this nutty world with geopolitical nightmares ever present in the daylight, I too face myself and my world, off kilter.   I felt like I was riding two rollercoasters at the same time, one Yates' and one my own, and all from the surreal comfort of my reading chair.   I finished the book on a cloudless 75-degree late summer Sunday late afternoon, facing the sun, surrounded by the order of nature in full bloom and the overwhelming presence of green and blue.   After reading the last page, I closed the book, shut my eyes, and traveled around some more, smiling.

About the author.

About the author.

Frank Sisco is a CPA and Personal Financial Specialist, and author of many articles about personal finance and issues of life and money.   His firm, Financial Management Corporation, is located in New Rochelle, NY.  Frank makes his home with his wife and daughter in New Rochelle, NY.  He can be reached at 914.740.4422 or by email at ideasmoney@aol.com.  Visit his website at www.LifeAndMoney.com, which contains this and prior articles.