“
Flagrant Conduct is a stirring and richly detailed account of Lawrence v. Texas, the momentous 2003 decision that overturned Bowers [v. Hardwick]. Carpenter...tells the story through the eyes of the major players — the plaintiffs, arresting officers, attorneys, judges and prosecutors — most of whom were interviewed at length. The result is a book that turns conventional wisdom about Lawrence on its head. Indeed, the readers most likely to be surprised by
Flagrant Conduct are those who think they already know the basic outlines of the case.” (
David Oshinsky - New York Times )
“[An] important new book... [A] chronicle that peels the Lawrence case back through layers of carefully choreographed litigation and tactical appeals, back to the human protagonists we never really got to know, and back again through centuries of laws criminalizing “unnatural” sexual activity.” (
Dahlia Lithwick - New Yorker )
“Starred review. In compelling and eminently readable prose—as gripping as any detective novel—Carpenter reveals the details behind the famous legal battle. ...It is a story, according to the author, that involves the misuse of authority, the cowardice of elected state-court judges who rebuffed the defendants’ legal claims, and the refusal of legislators to repeal a dubious and odious law. An important book about a landmark case.” (
June Sawyers - Booklist )
“Dale Carpenter’s excellent new book,
Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas is not only an in-depth study of the complicated background of the case, but also a highly informative, detailed, even thrilling account of how the Supreme Court arguments reshaped American law, possibly even inadvertently leading to the legalization of same-sex marriage.
...Carpenter moves into John Grisham territory as a group of rebels with a very good cause...mount their battle against not only the Texas law but all existing state sodomy laws. Carpenter’s tale of the arrest — and how it affected these men’s lives— is fascinating, but his recounting of the Supreme Court hearings is a fine piece of dramatic reporting that sharpens the drama and presents the legal issues and personalities with clarity.” (
Michael Bronkski - San Francisco Chronicle )
“Starred review. [In
Flagrant Conduct] Carpenter presents an engrossing depiction of a pivotal case in 21st-century American jurisprudence.” (
Publishers Weekly )
“Dale Carpenter’s
Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas presents a micro-history of a Texas case that against all odds reached the Untied States Supreme Court and resulted in the constitutional abolition of anti-sodomy laws…. Living constitutionalists will look to evolving societal norms and the compulsion of precedent, including
Lawrence v. Texas, to argue that the time has come to recognize a constitutional right to marry whom you will.” (
Don Franzen - Los Angeles Review of Books )
“[An] informative, highly readable account of a case that has been likened in significance to Brown v. Board of Education and Gideon v. Wainwright.” (
Kirkus Reviews )
“
Flagrant Conduct provides a rich, meticulous, and fascinating account of the most important constitutional decision so far on the status of gays and lesbians in American society.” (
David Cole - The New York Review of Books )
“Dale Carpenter's
Flagrant Conduct does for
Lawrence v. Texas what Richard Kluger's
Simple Justice and Anthony Lewis's
Gideon's Trumpet did for
Brown v. Board of Education and
Gideon v. Wainwright. It tells the story of a profoundly dramatic and important Supreme Court decision in a way that brings to life the stakes, the participants, the justices, and the drama of the constitutional controversy. It is a landmark achievement.” (
Geoffrey R. Stone, author of Perilous Times )
“An important and scary book.” (
Larry Kramer )
“A terrific book. Generations of future readers of Dale Carpenter's powerful, enveloping narrative will shake their heads in disbelief that, until
Lawrence v. Texas, civil rights stopped at the bedroom door.” (
David Levering Lewis )
“Easily the best book of its kind since Richard Kluger’s
Simple Justice was published in 1975,
Flagrant Conduct is a rare combination of virtues. It is a gripping story of individuals fighting against systematic injustices intended for a general audience, but it is also a theoretically sophisticated work that represents an important contribution to legal scholarship.” (
Scott Lemieux - lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com )
“Dale Carpenter has gifted us with a landmark book to dramatize a landmark case. Gripping and brilliantly researched,
Flagrant Conduct takes us on a journey of hate and contempt, activism and dedication that finally led to the legalization of our right to love, to pursue intimate pleasures within the privacy of our homes. Everybody concerned about women’s rights, gay rights, civil rights and human rights will be informed and energized by this important splendid book.” (
Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt )
“... an exceptional book, in the tradition of Anthony Lewis’s
Gideon’s Trumpet (1964), expertly guiding the reader from the moment of the arrest through the culminating oral argument in the Supreme Court.
Flagrant Conduct is also a moving and deeply humane study of the law’s effect on ordinary people.” (
The Nation )
“In his sinuous, elegant new book,
Flagrant Conduct, Dale Carpenter... gives this landmark case the bold, intimate face it has long deserved, even as he conducts a captivating, forensic tour of its legal subterrain. The result, from its first pages, is a book that sets a benchmark for the writing of civil-rights history, a book with all the stirring social consciousness and staying power of Taylor Branch’s trilogy,
America in the King Years.” (
Kirk Swinehart - The Daily Beast )
“Carpenter brings to it all a novelist's gift for character and a dramatist's for scene. In the gripping chapter on the oral arguments at the Court, Paul Smith, the petitioners' counsel, is depicted as memorably as Gregory Peck in
To Kill a Mockingbird .” (
Tim Pfaff - The Bay Area Reporter )
“Superb and memorable…. Dale Carpenter’s assiduous unearthing of the case’s early history…highlights how every great constitutional decision owes its existence to obscure individuals whose crucial contributions proved more essential to the final outcome than anything in the legal briefs or oral arguments.” (
David J. Grarrow - New Republic )
