Gary's Corner - 2005

In the Shadow of the Law By Kermit Roosevelt. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. Library Call#: PS3618 .O68 I5 2005.

The title of this first novel by Kermit Roosevelt comes from the narcissistic, arrogant head of the law firm, Morgan Siler. "Peter Morgan watched and understood what most did not: that we live all our lives in the shadow of the law". Of course, this is truer of the employees of Morgan Siler than most people, where hiding documents for a tort case is common and where pro bono work is sneered at; the two main cases of the firm are just that. For "training", first year associate Mark Clayton is sent to handle a pro bono death penalty case, which everyone expects him to lose. Meanwhile, the other main case is about a chemical disaster at a Texas company, Hubble ("Our boys were storing some unpleasant chemicals and none too carefully").

The book is full of colorful and mostly unsavory characters, with the exception of Mark Clayton and Katja Phillips, an out of place idealist, ("others competed, others desired, Katja just performed"). There's also Ryan Grady, a lecherous nere-do-well who reads women's magazines for tips on how to pick up women. Walker Eliot, who spends much of his time wool gathering, and Harold Fineman, a loner who runs from his Jewish roots by listening to Wagner are also part of the firm. As the various characters act out their parts, their disintegration becomes both funny and tragic. Still, the main character of the book, the firm itself, endures even as the book hammers away at the immorality of corporate law. In the Shadow of the Law is sometimes like reading a primer on high power defense firms, but looking past that, it is a very enjoyable read which manages several big surprises.

Arc of Justice: a saga of race, civil rights, and murder in the Jazz Age, by Kevin Boyle. NY: H. Holt, 2004.

On a hot September night in 1925 in Detroit, Dr. Ossian Sweet and his wife Gladys moved from the slums of Black Bottom onto nearby Garland Street. After a summer of Ku Klux Klan activities and segregationist homeowner association meetings, white residents were confident of their ability to restrict Detroit's black population to a small overcrowded, dangerous area. Dr. Sweet, together with several friends, was equally determined to occupy his recently purchased, overpriced home. On their second night there, with a crowd of hundreds of hostile whites on the street, rocks began flying toward the house. From an upstairs bedroom, shots were fired into the crowd and one of the whites was killed. The police guarding the house acted immediately arresting the Sweets and nine others in the house. While the KKK attempted to polarize the city's electorate, the recently formed NAACP in 1925 was looking for a cause. The case seemed to be a slam dunk for the prosecution. Many felt the prosecutor didn't deserve his salary if he couldn't convince an all-white jury to convict eleven black men who, according to Detroit papers, "invaded a white neighborhood armed to the teeth."

The prosecution, however had not counted on a number of things. Major NAACP backing and editorials by the likes of W.E.B. DuBois and prominent Protestant theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, helped convince Clarence Darrow to head the defense team. Under cross-examination by Mr. Darrow, the carefully rehearsed prosecution witnesses fell apart and the case reverted to a simple one of common law and property rights. This well-researched book is a slice of America during the jazz age. It creates a context not only for past events, but current ones, as well. More than a social history, it is more like a tour de force of an America not so long ago that we can afford to forget it. I highly recommend Arc of Justice for both it's worth as a social history and its great storytelling.