A letter to young law-school grads seeking to change the world.
Labor attorney Geoghegan (The Secret Lives of Citizens, 1999) uses his brief exposure to the criminal justice system as a stepping-off point for a broadside against the conservatism of our courts.
The author’s role as second chair in a murder trial leads him to conclude that the judicial system, including himself as a lawyer, needs a wake-up call if it hopes to mete out justice fairly. To begin with, he writes, international human-rights accords would have knocked out the first trial against his formerly teenage client if the US government had signed those agreements. Since it had not, Geoghegan finds himself in a retrial before a hardscrabble judge in a South Chicago courtroom, a sobering experience for an inveterate paper-pusher who normally settles cases over the course of a few months. He is trying to get the 22-year-old out of jail on the grounds that the boy was coerced to participate in a fatal armed robbery. The result is irrelevant; most such cases end with minority youths staying in jail. The author notes that a relationship exists between a society’s inequality and the percentage of its population in prison, a relationship that explains why more people are incarcerated in the US than in Russia. The autobiography here is as interesting as the progressive asides. Geoghegan’s insouciant style makes fresh the ins and outs of an attorney’s day and the way lawyers handle each other and judges. When he starts in with his own angst, some readers will yawn; a Harvard-educated attorney lamenting the ills of liberalism amid the degradation of an impoverished neighborhood doesn’t earn much sympathy. But when the author trains his sharp mind on the ineffectiveness of the courts in, say, ending segregation, compared to the work of activists like Martin Luther King Jr., he makes a strong case that should resonate with everyone.
A letter to young law-school grads seeking to change the world.Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 1-56584-732-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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