Word: turow
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Lawyer Scott Turow makes a smashing fiction debut with his gritty Presumed Innocent. -- What does it take to be culturally literate...
Writers want to be read; most of them will also confess to dreams of striking it rich. Every so often, reality conspires to reward both desires at once. The latest beneficiary of this bolt-from-the-blue largesse is a Chicagoan named Scott Turow, 38. Since 1978 he has been a lawyer in his hometown, working for eight years in the U.S. Attorney's office and then as a partner in a private firm. He has also, like thousands of others among the gainfully employed, written in his spare time. Eventually he completed his first novel. Unlike most such manuscripts...
...Turow's good fortune cannot be written off entirely to luck. Although a beginning novelist, he is a published writer; his One L, an account of his first year at Harvard Law School, received admiring attention when it appeared in 1977. In addition, Turow's legal training and experience as a prosecutor have honed some skills useful to lawyers and storytellers alike: an eye for significant details, an ear for how people talk and what they may actually mean when under pressure. Presumed Innocent has not stumbled into success. It is a clever, carefully prepared plea for popular attention...
...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...
...Turow's book is laced fairly liberally with sex and seaminess. All the better. There's no denying that Presumed Innocent is a good read, in the popular sense of the term. In this case, it's an intelligent and fascinating read as well...