PITTSBURGH — A morbid dream planted the seed for what would become Brian Cuban's debut novel.
The 60-year-old Dallas resident and Mt. Lebanon native — who, yes, is the brother of billionaire Mark Cuban — was having a recurring dream about throwing dead bodies onto a bonfire at the site of an old general store in his hometown. He would wake up "scared s***less" and wondering when the police would be coming for him.
"That was the genesis of 'The Ambulance Chaser,'" Cuban told the Post-Gazette. "It occurred to me that there's a character and a plot here, and I'm going to write a novel."
"The Ambulance Chaser" (Post Hill Press, $17), which is set in Pittsburgh, is Cuban's first work of fiction. He previously published two painfully candid memoirs: 2013's "Shattered Image: My Triumph Over Body Dysmorphic Disorder" and 2017's "The Addicted Lawyer: Tales of the Bar, Booze, Blow, and Redemption."
Cuban is a licensed attorney and graduate of Penn State University and the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. More importantly, he is 14 1/2 years sober after suffering from an eating disorder and addictions to drugs and alcohol. Cuban is quite open about that part of his life but was ready to try something new. As he put it: "How many times can you tell your own story?"
He's the middle child, sandwiched between older brother Mark and younger brother Jeff. Brian Cuban said he was often bullied about his weight at Jefferson Middle School and Mt. Lebanon High School, which led to his body-image struggles. When his brother became owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, Cuban was in the full throes of addiction and says he wasn't shy about using his last name "to become one of the biggest douchebags on the Dallas party circuit."
In retrospect, he is now aware that he hid behind his many vices and famous last name in lieu of forging his own identity.
"I have gone through life with enormous privilege that a lot of people don't have: skin color privilege, financial privilege, name privilege," he said. "I would be completely disingenuous not to acknowledge those things. ... I wasn't ready to take advantage of all the privileges I had to find recovery."
His road to sobriety began in 2005 after a friend forwarded to his brothers a disturbing email he had received from Brian that seemed to foreshadow a suicide attempt. Mark and Jeff Cuban immediately flew to Dallas and checked him into a psychiatric hospital. They still live within walking distance of him in case Brian ever relapses.
"We've always been very tight," he said. "That has never changed. I credit my brothers for saving my life in 2005."
He drew from his past demons in crafting Jason Feldman, the main character of "The Ambulance Chaser." The lawyer with a cocaine addiction and a part-time job as a drug mule sees his life upended when a secret from his high school days threatens to be revealed. Most of the action takes place in and around Pittsburgh, including the Cathedral of Learning in Oakland.
Cuban said he considered setting "The Ambulance Chaser" in Dallas or even Philadelphia before ultimately landing on Pittsburgh. There's plenty of his own experiences in this novel, like the time he accidentally delivered flowers meant for a woman to the apartment of a neighbor who had recently died. He also included a conversation he overheard between Pitt law students about having sex on one of Pittsburgh's inclines.
Many of the names in the novel are amalgamations of ones he found in his Mt. Lebanon High School yearbook. Cuban admitted that there are "pieces of me in Jason," including his profession, his drug habit, his mother's maiden name and other details. Without giving too much away, he says Jason's journey is nothing like "the traditional hero's journey."
He would very much like to write a sequel to "The Ambulance Chaser" featuring even more Pittsburgh locales, like Rivers Casino on the North Shore. Cuban had a lot of fun crafting these characters and believes "there's a lot of meat left on the bone for a completely new story."
"I am very proud to have written a book that I hope represents Pittsburgh in a good way but is also realistic about what Pittsburgh is about," he said. "Everyone I have met along the way is in a way part of this book. I pay homage to all of them and this wonderful city that I still think about all the time."
