Gary's Corner - 2004

The Advocate's Devil by Alan Dershowitz

The Advocate's Devil is the story of a defense attorney, Abe Ringel and his client, Joe Campbell, a pro-basketball star who is accused of date-rape. Dershowitz, the high power attorney of Claus Von Bulow and O.J. Simpson, has written a defense apologia about an attorney who comes to believe in the guilt of his client. The novel moves along at a quick pace and gives us a "behind the scenes" look at the sort of client Dershowitz has defended throughout his career. Campbell is charming and smart and his manipulation of the jury ("Campbell was testifying with out taking the witness stand & he was having a running, silent, private conversation with Ms. Scuba diver, the most important and dangerous member of the jury") bespeaks a case right out of the headlines. With the help of Talmudic advice dispensed by his dying mentor, Ringel manages to maintain the moral high ground in a case that becomes increasingly sleazy. In all, the book ends up telling us more about Dershowitz than anything else, but if only for that, it is worth the read.

Paradise by Toni Morrison

Paradise is about the town of Ruby, Ok, a town settled by a wayfaring group of ex-slaves sometime after the turn of the twentieth century. "Paradise" may refer to the town itself or it may refer to "The Convent", a refuge for women seventeen miles outside the town where the book begins with a brutal slaughter. Paradise examines the black experience during the 1960's-70's in a microcosm. Removed from outside influences, Ruby is completely self-contained with its own bank, stores, and its own oligarchy, which decides how the town is organized and run. The tension in the novel comes from outside challenges to this self-contained oligarchy which eventually erupts into violence. Despite the beautiful writing, this is not an easy book to read. There are many characters, each following his or her own story line and dramatis personae would have been helpful. This book follows in the literary tradition of Faulkner and O'Connor and is very densely written. Still, any book which opens: "They shoot the white girl first, with the rest they can take their time," is a book which grabs and intrigues the reader from the first moment and proves that Toni Morrison is an author who holds up her end of a Pulitzer Prize winning bargain.

A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines

A Lesson Before Dying is the story of two men, a black plantation school teacher and a black prisoner awaiting execution. Taking place in Bayonne, La. in 1948, the book uses major issues of race and identity to discus what makes a man a man. The book begins with Jefferson being sentenced to death for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Jefferson's god-mother convinces the local school teacher, Grant Wiggins, to speak to Jefferson. "I don't want them to kill no hog". she said. "I want a man to go to that chair on his own two feet." And so Grant's jail-house visits to an initially un-cooperative Jefferson begins. Grant meanwhile is trapped in his own prison, that of segregation, a married girlfriend, Vivian, and a southern society that directs him to the backdoor of a white man's house rather than the front. A society where he is routinely ignored and pointedly excluded. Grant suffers a quiet desperation until his visits with Jefferson assume their true meaning in the lessons of pride and dignity. This is a powerful book. What could have been a clichéd pot-boiler about the indignities of segregation turns this legalistic novel into an explanation of what it means to be human. As Grant and Jefferson are both granted insight and a secular salvation, with this book we can all read on and applaud.