The Costco Connection - May/June 2010

author spotlight

Author still guilty of penning first-rate legal thrillers

Inn cent Scott Turow pleads

By Christine Thomas

Even though Innocent can function as a
sequel, Turow was conscious not to imitate its
predecessor. He sets it apart from the opening
with a first-person narration, not by Sabich,
but by his son—one that also offers a chilling
glimpse of the novel’s thematic exploration of
change, love and loyalty—then rotates
through multiple viewpoints, including
LAWYERS MAKE great storytellers. Chicago
criminal defence attorney, one-time Stanford
writing teacher and best-selling author Scott
Turow has a good reason why: “Every trial
lawyer lives by the motto that if you want
to teach a jury something
you tell them a story,” he tells

The Connection.

It’s no wonder he has soared in parallel careers since the publication of One L, about his first year in Harvard Law School, in 1977, and his breakout novel, Presumed Innocent, which marked him as a genre-busting, literary legal-thriller writer, in 1987. Eight other books and more than 20 years later, Turow has come back to the beginning. His new novel, Innocent— the first full-length one in five years—resurrects Presumed Innocent’s Judge Rusty Sabich, now a bit older and once again at odds with adversary Tommy Molto after the enigmatic death of Sabich’s wife.

Turow writes at home in the mornings
and on the train while heading to work, where
he often devotes time to pro bono cases he
takes on as a matter of principle and values—
a way to share some of his good fortune with
the underrepresented and disadvantaged.
“I’m lucky that I’ve had a pretty long highlight
reel, certainly as a lawyer,” says Turow, citing
a complex capital punishment case as one of
his most remarkable. (Known as the Alex
Hernandez case, it was described in Ultimate
Punishment). “And obviously, as a novelist,
I’ve had a good roll of the dice.”
Sabich, Molto and an important female char-
acter. But because Turow writes his way
through stories rather than thinking them out
beforehand, he wasn’t always
sure how Innocent would be
structured. “You put your
heart and your hands out in
front of you and see what hap-
pens,” he explains.

u e hd d the ordinary,” says Turow. “I want to a The Costco Connection Innocent is available in most Costco warehouses. Every trial lawyer lives by the

JEREM Y LAWSON

Like his other books, Innocent started with an isolated event, this time written

Though he has scaled back his legal duties to make room for his now primary role as a writer, he still feels engaged when practicing law. “It enables you to do a lot of different things,” says the sharp and erudite Turow, who doesn’t seem to stay still for long. “Whatever happens, by the time Innocent comes out I intend to be enmeshed in something else. That’s the best antidote to the ups and downs of publication.”

”

Whether that’s the comic thriller idea he’s been pushing around or that play he’s always wanted to write, it’s certain his next creative endeavour will be surprising. “People don’t want to read about the humdrum and ordinary—they live the humdrum and the ordinary,” says Turow. “I want to write about change.” C

A return to the Presumed
Innocent landscape gave Turow the opportu-
nity to revisit what he admits is an alter ego of
sorts. “I wanted to be with Rusty again, I
really did—this flawed, sensitive smart guy
who I really seemed to understand,” he says.
“He’s different from me in lots of ways. He’s a
judge and I’m not; he grew up in a working-
class family and I didn’t; and he was a creature
of the state criminal justice system, while I
came out of the federal system. He’s a quiet
and more aloof guy than I am. But I share
many of his failings and some of his strengths.”
on a Post-it
note. “At some
point I had jot-
ted just a little
idea for a scene—
a man is sitting on a bed in which the dead
body of a woman lies,” he says.

Christine Thomas is a Hawaii-based freelance book critic and writer.

FRANCE FREEMAN

While writing the serialized novella Limitations for The New York Times, he felt called back to Sabich. “I turned around and saw the note on my desk and realized Rusty Sabich was the man sitting on the bed. Then I was really off to the races.”