Lawyer scratches the itch to write

Growing up in Delaware County, Kevin Morris always knew he wanted to be an author. "That was my first passion," he says.

He just got a little sidetracked for a few decades there, becoming one of the most successful entertainment lawyers in Los Angeles.

Morris, 50, is perhaps best known for crafting a series of crazily advantageous deals that have made Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the South Park and Book of Mormon guys, into an economic engine that rivals the GDP of most Scandinavian countries.

Six years ago, the creative urge resurfaced stronger than ever. Morris rented a hidey-hole office in Santa Monica, away from his home in Malibu and his firm's office in Century City, and began writing fiction whenever he could steal a few hours.

Eventually, he assembled a batch of short stories (nine, a subtle tribute to J.D. Salinger) that he was proud of, and began submitting it to publishers and literary agents.

Despite his connections, Morris got only terse, generic rejection letters - if he received any response at all.

"Finally, a friend made one of the agents spell out his decision," says Morris. "He said, 'These stories are just white man's problems.'

"I sulked and sulked and then said, 'He's right! Of course, that's what I write. I'm not a Haitian refugee.' "

Thus was born the drolly titled short-story collection White Man's Problems, from which Morris will read at Head House Books on Thursday evening.

"I felt the stories were really poignant," says Richard de Wyngaert, the bookstore's owner. "I loved the way Morris explored the elusiveness of happiness and the choices we make and how they define us."

Kirkus Reviews called it "a clear-eyed, finely wrought and mordantly funny take on a modern predicament by a new writer with loads of talent."

The stories fall into two basic categories. They are either about growing up blue-collar in the Philadelphia suburbs with WIP as your wake-up call, or they are about successful professional men who feel unmoored and dissatisfied, a brand of privileged agony familiar to readers of Jonathan Franzen.

Morris was raised in Media, but the family moved to Lenni when he was 12 after his father lost his job at the chemical company FMC.

"I was a basketball player," he says of his years at Penncrest High School. "That was my main escape. Basketball and books.

"The family life wasn't easy," he continues. "Like most Irish families, there was alcoholism. I wanted to get out of there and I knew if I did well in school, I'd be able to."

At Cornell University, he left a strong impression on one of his professors, Glenn Altschuler.

"It was clear even then that he was incredibly intense, ambitious, and talented," says Altschuler.

As a writer, Morris wears his influences on his jacket sleeve.

The first story in White Man's Problems, "Summer Farmer," is a meticulously structured homage to John Cheever, right down to the appropriated title.

Alert readers will also notice nods to more regional literary lions.

"John Updike is my hero," Morris says. "I think there's a fantastic but underappreciated tradition of Pennsylvania writers, from John O'Hara to Updike."

Morris anticipates that some critics may question his pedigree, wondering what a prosperous man can possibly teach us about the human condition. But he argues that his business successes have given him a unique perspective.

"I feel more confident writing about the American dream because of my situation," he says. "We certainly are focused on the 1 percent as a culture, so some stories [set in that milieu] - bleak stories - should be of interest.

"We have problems that would strike the rest of the world as ridiculous, but the pain is real," he concludes. "I was trying to identify the pain and gallows humor of it all."

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