A warts-and-all portrait that leaves readers lamenting Darrow’s private failings, while still in awe of his immensely...
A comprehensive biography of the storied defense attorney.
At midlife, embarrassed by his comfortable railroad practice so at odds with his personal beliefs, Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) took on a series of high-profile cases whose underlying political, sociological and economic issues placed him at the white-hot center of the Progressive Era. His starring role in these courtroom dramas turned him into a legend. Making elaborate use of transcripts, observers’ accounts, correspondence and newspaper reports, Farrell (Tip O’Neill and the Democratic Century, 2002) chronicles Darrow’s most celebrated trials in detail: the defense of labor leaders Eugene Debs and “Big Bill” Haywood; the McNamara brothers, charged with firebombing the Los Angeles Times headquarters; homosexual thrill-killers Leopold and Loeb; Ossian Sweet, accused of murder for defending his home against a racist mob; John Scopes for teaching evolution in violation of Tennessee law; and the friends and family of Thalia Massie, on trial in Hawaii for a so-called “honor killing.” These cases—including two in which Darrow, almost surely guilty, was himself tried for jury tampering—dominate the narrative, but Farrell neatly places them within the larger context of this complicated man’s crowded life and practice. He covers Darrow’s small-town upbringing, his brief country-lawyer career, his move to Chicago and his rise within the city’s political and legal establishment. A puzzling mix of towering ego and bottomless compassion, Darrow was also an author and an in-demand lecturer who more than dabbled in politics. Also at home within bohemian circles, Darrow preferred the company of artists, professors and poets. (Edgar Lee Masters, who grew to despise him, was for a time his legal partner.) Twice-married, Darrow was also an inveterate womanizer, money grubber and shameless self-promoter who often bent the ethical code to combat what he saw as corrupt prosecutions. Farrell unflinchingly addresses these shortcomings, even as he underscores the genuine brilliance of a still-unmatched advocate for underdogs everywhere.
A warts-and-all portrait that leaves readers lamenting Darrow’s private failings, while still in awe of his immensely consequential career.Pub Date: June 14, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-385-52258-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
