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Pat Barker, The Ghost Road: In the final volume in Barker’s precisely written, powerful WWI trilogy, we reach the end of the story for Billy Prior, the rebellious lower-class boy-turned-officer, Wilfred Owen, the shellshocked poet who headed back to the war, and their psychologist William Rivers, whose job it is to make young men psychologically fit enough to return to the front. “Fit,” not “healthy,” because it is a continuing puzzlement whether true sanity wouldn’t be to do anything possible to stay away. Rivers spends a lot of the book remembering his earlier researches in the South Pacific, among people he could only understand as savages possessing a special connection to the natural, spiritual world. This book moved me less than the first two in the trilogy, in part because Rivers is retreating into his own past rather than grappling with the potential evil in his job, but it remains beautifully written and devastating in its portrait of the indifference of war’s harms.
Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man: Nick Charles, happily (and drunkenly) married to Nora, takes on the case of a murdered man at the behest of his daughter, who has secrets of her own. There’s a lot of drinking, a lot of talking, a lot of passes by loose women at tight men. If you want the archetype of the guy who doesn’t care but still somehow works to get justice, you can find it distilled here, softened only by the inexplicable fact that someone loved him enough to marry him and he seems to reciprocate.
Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon: Everyone knows it doesn’t make any sense. But the archetype is even purer here, a man who only knows how to relate to other people by insulting and using them but who nonetheless pursues the truth. “When a man’s partner is killed he’s supposed to do something about it.” That’s the real story, the only story, and the girl he loves is worth much less than that.
Paul Levine, Solomon vs. Lord: An ambitious young prosecutor’s career is derailed, in part by the courtroom manipulations of a disillusioned defense attorney. When the now ex-prosecutor lands the defense case of a lifetime, she has to partner with her bitter adversary to have any chance. But does their mutual antagonism hide some deeper attraction? Well, of course it does. This fairly predictable legal romance is at its best with some colorful minor characters, who move through the narrative with their own agendas rather than just serving to advance the plot.
Kermit Roosevelt, In the Shadow of the Law: A very different legal novel, written by a friend of mine. It’s about a powerful DC firm and several of the lawyers in it, partners and associates both, as they work through two cases that will end up changing their lives. One’s a death penalty case, taken to improve the firm’s pro bono profile, but no one but a flailing junior associate even cares about it. One’s an enormous tort case founded on a chemical plant explosion that killed and maimed a number of people in Texas, but the younger lawyers quickly learn what the senior ones already know: death and suffering are irrelevant; what matters is whether the company that’s paying the bills can escape liability. It’s beautifully written, with many sharp insights into the types of people who take big-firm jobs, from self-deluded slackers to true believers of various stripes to smart kids who just want to make good. The portrait of the self-absorbed former Supreme Court clerk, the figure closest to Kim’s actual experience, is particularly savage – seduced by the money and prestige, he spends most of his time collecting material rewards and then focuses his undeniable brilliance for a few hours at a time to show off his legal skills, never thinking of the clients even as he claims to love the abstract law most of all. It’s impressive that Kim would risk being thought of as that guy – which I can confirm he isn’t -- even though he says this isn’t a roman à clef.
Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man: Nick Charles, happily (and drunkenly) married to Nora, takes on the case of a murdered man at the behest of his daughter, who has secrets of her own. There’s a lot of drinking, a lot of talking, a lot of passes by loose women at tight men. If you want the archetype of the guy who doesn’t care but still somehow works to get justice, you can find it distilled here, softened only by the inexplicable fact that someone loved him enough to marry him and he seems to reciprocate.
Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon: Everyone knows it doesn’t make any sense. But the archetype is even purer here, a man who only knows how to relate to other people by insulting and using them but who nonetheless pursues the truth. “When a man’s partner is killed he’s supposed to do something about it.” That’s the real story, the only story, and the girl he loves is worth much less than that.
Paul Levine, Solomon vs. Lord: An ambitious young prosecutor’s career is derailed, in part by the courtroom manipulations of a disillusioned defense attorney. When the now ex-prosecutor lands the defense case of a lifetime, she has to partner with her bitter adversary to have any chance. But does their mutual antagonism hide some deeper attraction? Well, of course it does. This fairly predictable legal romance is at its best with some colorful minor characters, who move through the narrative with their own agendas rather than just serving to advance the plot.
Kermit Roosevelt, In the Shadow of the Law: A very different legal novel, written by a friend of mine. It’s about a powerful DC firm and several of the lawyers in it, partners and associates both, as they work through two cases that will end up changing their lives. One’s a death penalty case, taken to improve the firm’s pro bono profile, but no one but a flailing junior associate even cares about it. One’s an enormous tort case founded on a chemical plant explosion that killed and maimed a number of people in Texas, but the younger lawyers quickly learn what the senior ones already know: death and suffering are irrelevant; what matters is whether the company that’s paying the bills can escape liability. It’s beautifully written, with many sharp insights into the types of people who take big-firm jobs, from self-deluded slackers to true believers of various stripes to smart kids who just want to make good. The portrait of the self-absorbed former Supreme Court clerk, the figure closest to Kim’s actual experience, is particularly savage – seduced by the money and prestige, he spends most of his time collecting material rewards and then focuses his undeniable brilliance for a few hours at a time to show off his legal skills, never thinking of the clients even as he claims to love the abstract law most of all. It’s impressive that Kim would risk being thought of as that guy – which I can confirm he isn’t -- even though he says this isn’t a roman à clef.
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