Customer Reviews

Laws of Our Fathers

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(23)
2 star:		(20)
1 star:		(32)

 

 

There is a great 600 page thriller hiding inside the 800 pages of The Laws of Our Fathers. Specifically, I'd suggest losing the last 100 pages and most of the first 100. The central account of the trial is powerful and gripping, and the flashbacks to the sixties are well done as well. The characters, as is usual with Turow, are deep and interesting. But there are LONG detours into what I found to be excessive tangential and background material. This happens on and off throughout, but most of this is concentrated into the last 100 pages of the book, by which time you've already had the climax wrap-up of not one but -both- main plot lines, and you're thinking "and now why do I have to go through ANOTHER 100 pages?" No good reason presents itself (from a thriller reader's point of view) just a lot of wallowing around in characters' minds. I have no argument with those who say Turow (or probably more accurately, this book) "isn't for everyone", or that the book has touches of "literature" as opposed to simply mystery/thriller (One of the editorial review clips called Turow the "thinking man's John Grisham" which gave me a chuckle). But first of all I'd take exception with the view that the "literary" elements were exceptionally well executed, because they do have a tendency to bring an otherwise gripping plot to a grinding halt. And secondly I think it's fair to warn readers looking for a mystery/thriller (even a deep complex one) that it will take 100 pages or so before you start getting what you paid for. I enjoyed this book, but you should go into it with eyes open.

Yes, this book is complicated and long. But for those with a keen literary eye, it delivers. I've been so disappointed with recent John Grisham novels that I found the weightiness and substantive content of this Turow novel very satisfying.

I would agree with those who say that this book transcends the genre. This is no mere courtroom drama or legal thriller. It's really several novels in one; the flashback sequences to the 60s could even stand on their own. As a post-60s Gen Xer, I was intrigued with the seemingly eyewitness account of what life was really like back then.

It is possibly true that this book may be a bit long. Yet I was so impressed with Turow's narrative voice and the authenticity of such a diverse cast of characters that it held my interest. A good deal of thought and research went into this one, and it really warrants a more thoughtful read than your average formulaic legal drama. Two thumbs up.

Reading this book was like pulling teeth. What I love about Turow is the character development he brings to his books, tightly woven with tight, sharp legal thrills. Grisham's best is a comic book next to Turow's worst. Quite simply, Turow treats his readers like adults, while Grisham treats his like ignorant children.

BUT: In "The Laws of Our Fathers" Turow has gotten carried away. I can only surmise that he awoke one day and decided to write the Great American Legal Novel, as Laws of Our Fathers reads like a combination of Hermann Melville and Saul Bellow. The issues covered -- race and war in the 1960s; religion, separation, parenting, and isolation in the 1990s, are all sigificant and all worthy of a novel. What they are not worthy of is being combined into a single "mass market" novel. The plot simply collapses beneath the weight of the Important Social Matters about which Turow writes.

As I say, Turow writes for the thinking person and one expects to be challenged when one buys his work. But in Laws of Our Father the endless pages of 75-line paragraphs made me time and time again put the book aside. There needs to be a periodic tease that makes the reader want to continue, and in Laws of Our Fathers they were too far apart by scores of pages.

Fortunately Turow returns to form in Reversible Errors, so one can hope that Laws of Our Fathers is an anomaly.

This is an all-around poor novel. Turow tries to mix elements of his legal thriller formula with an attempt to write a great novel about aging, crime, redemption, and other "Big Themes." The result is a botched mess, a sloppy book that fails to grasp the reader's attention.

The first problem is Turow's overwrought prose. I have not read any of his other books, so I don't know if this is a common problem for him. Nevertheless, he make the mistakes you would expect from a novice writer. He never picks the simple, direct word or phrase when he can think of a more convoluted one. An early example: The main character is recovering, not from breast cancer, but from "cancer of the breast." What? No one talks like that, and it is consistently distracting.

The second problem is with Turow's outrageous, maudlin sentimentality. Every character is suffering from some deep personal tragedy and meditates on it for pages on end. These passages sap the life from the novel and make the plot slip away.

Even this would be forgivable if Turow had given us likable characters. His characters are not sympathetic in the least, however. One major character, a judge, takes a case she has no business judging, given her long personal history with all of the people involved. Worse, she only further entangles herself as the trial goes on and consistently allows her emotions to compromise her integrity as a judge.

About the other main character, the less said about him, the better. A pompous windbag with no personal integrity, his main contribution to the plot is a scheme to defraud his own father, who is a Holocaust survivor. Ugh.

The book is also far too long. Half of it is devoted to flashbacks to the 1960s that drag on and on. While the current-day trial sequences are decent, they are a small part of the novel. Moreover, the trial's resolution is singularly unsatisfying. As if this wasn't enough, Turow then throws a long, meandering conclusion in that feels thoroughly tacked on.

My first Turow novel, and likely my last.

"The laws of our fathers" is at times a very challenging book to read, as the point of view shifts both back and forth in time, but also from the perspective of the two main characters; Seth and Sonny. This completely unorthodox method of storytelling does indeed take the reader by surprise, however, once the the reader has gotten use to it, one can start to enjoy the books brilliance.

The paths of former couple, Seth and Sonny, cross during the trial of the murder of a senators wife. The defendant: Nile Eddgar, the son of the senator and the murdered wife. Sonny is the presiding judge, while Seth is a journalist covering the trail.

Turow somehow manages to tell us the story of Seth and Sonny as a couple back in the late sixtees and early seventees, their professional relationship twentyfive years later and the thrilling trail of who killed, and why, the wife of senator Loyell Eddgar.

"The laws of our fathers" provide no good-looking superheros who save the day and ride into the sundown, thank God, but portrays ordinary people with believable thoughts and problems who struggle to make sense the world they live in - the same world we all sometimes find hard to understand.

Highly recomended by yours truely.

People looking for a page-turning thriller like early Turow or Grisham may be disappointed in this effort. But those looking for a more complex novel will be deeply rewarded by Turow's examination of relationships, history, and the inner workings of the story's 3 main characters. I found his development of Sonia to be skillful and wonderful to watch. I was very pleasantly surprised by Turow's insight into the human heart and psyche.

This is definately not one of Turow's best books. I have enjoyed many of his others, but this one gets lost between the present day (mid-90's) and the 60's. I know he was trying to set the sage for the present day story with background of the characters relationships in a different time and place, but the reader gets lost in too much detail and extraneous information.

Avoid this one. It's good for a cold,winter evening but only as a fire-starter.

Laws of Our Fathers starts out with a bang, then becomes a slow and boooooring rehash of all that was bad about the sixties. That I finished it at all speaks more to my stubborn heritage than Mr. Turow's writing. I probably won't even read his next one - quite a comedown, considering Scott Turow was one of my all-time favorite writers.

Give this one a miss.

This was the most boring book that I've ever read, bar none, and I've read a lot of boring books. The only remotely interesting chapter is the first one and from that point the 'novel' (loosely used word) spirals downward until the final few chapters which (in the case of the italicized chapters) are literally unreadable. Other reviewers have talked about this being 'literary fiction'. Apparently if it's really boring, uninteresting, not exciting and oh, reduntantly written, it must be literature. BAD BOOK! BAD BOOK!

Before beginning, let me note that I am reviewing both the hard cover novel and the abridged audio cassette version. I rate the book as a five star item, and the audio cassette as a four star item.

Scott Turow writes the best legal novels that I have ever read. I have been a fan of his since he wrote One L about the first year experience at Harvard Law School.

In The Laws of Our Fathers, he uses courtroom drama as a plot device to explore the nature of morality, truth, and human relationships. In every sense though, this is a profoundly philosophical novel parallel to Crime and Punishment in many ways. By constantly surprising the characters and the reader with hidden currents in a multigenerational story, Turow helps us to understand the weaknesses of human-directed attempts to create justice and make peace. You are left realizing that God's laws may be far more useful for every situation than our own.

The story opens with a violent crime going awry (different from planned). The plot then develops around the murder trial of a probation officer, Nile Eddgar, whose mother has been killed. Can anyone other than Turow imagine a plot that makes sense that would be so constructed? All of the parties in the case have ties to one another that go back into other times and other places, and these stories are told in flashback to provide perspective on the meaning of the events that have taken place.

The description of the defense in this novel is masterful, and will be admired by anyone who has ever tried a criminal case. Even if you are not a lawyer, you will admire the grace of how the truth is subjectively exposed to put the best face on the defendant's situation. Very beautifully done!

The writing is the great strength of this book. Unfortunately, by abridging the novel in the audio cassette some of the remarkable development is lost. On the other hand, Blair Brown is superb as the voice of Judge Sonny Klonsky and those who appear in her courtroom. Her performance adds a lot of depth to that character.

After you have finished enjoying this novel, I suggest that you think about something that you thought you knew well when you were much younger. How have your views changed since then? Are both views true? What made them change? Is truth time dependent, experience dependent, or dependent on what? In particularly, think about some area where you once were at odds with your parents and are now in harmony with them. Which of their "laws" do you observe now? Which do you think you may come to observe in the future? What disbelief is holding you back from embracing their views? What views have you not considered yet?

Enjoy and appreciate the fragile beauty of the slowly revealed truth around us!