Word: reader
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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This is the question Scott Turow makes his readers confront throughout the course of Presumed Innocent. The magic of Presumed Innocent, Turow's second book, is that Rusty--and through his eyes, the reader--is simultaneously the insider and the outsider. Rusty's own desires and friendships and infidelities and hopes are, at the root of it all, the cause of his predicament. And while the reader is not in Rusty's shoes, he or she is subject to the same desires that brought Rusty down...
...reader sees Rusty not as a simple victim but as a driven person forced to pause and confront the complexity of his own mind...
Presumed Innocent's finest moments are its courtroom scenes. Many of the facts pertinent to the case are known to the reader before any of the witnesses take the stand, and a few shockers surface during the proceedings. But the primary excitement is derived through the interplay--how will these characters, whose relationships Turow has gradually revealed, respond to the drama...
Central to the story's unfolding are Rusty's own reactions, as well. At times cynical, at others devastated, at others calculating, Rusty consistently challenges both himself and the reader to explore and analyze victimization...
Turow does not release the reader from the challenge proferred. This challenge is not to solve a crime, but to recognize that all people can play multiple roles--victim, aggressor, lover, thinker--without paradox...