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Thine Alabaster Cities Gleam: A Story of the Last Half of the Twentieth Century, Vol 1: Misfits in America

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Misfits in America is, at its heart, the author's diagnosis of the perceived ills that defined the second half of the twentieth century in America. I might describe the book as a literary memoir, and it is amazingly engaging. Lawrence Velvel is an extraordinary man in many ways, and his years of experience in the legal profession come through resoundingly in the text of this book. Among other things, Velvel is the dean of the Massachusetts School of Law (which he helped found) - a law school committed to providing a legal education to minorities, working class individuals, and others traditionally excluded from studying law. You might wonder just how engaging a story a legal scholar can tell - but Misfits in America is anything but dull, boring prose. Velvel may be an academic, but he is also a born story-teller who kept me fascinated from start to finish. Even as he uses the story to voice his own social criticism of modern American life and justice, making a few points that I don't personally agree with, I never bristled a single bit.

This book, the first in Velvel's Thine Alabaster Cities Gleam quartet, basically tells us the story of Harry Brohnz, a brilliant thinker with an amazing ability to go right to the heart of every problem, a man who should have had an incredibly successful legal career. Harry, though, was handicapped by a seemingly unconquerable commitment to social justice and a belief that good always prevails through hard work and dedication, that one should work for the benefit of others, and that honesty is always the best policy. These are all wonderful character traits, but they are liabilities for anyone wanting to be truly successful in the perverted legal system of post-World War II America. Things should not be this way, and that is what Velvel's story is really all about. He gives us an incredibly refreshing look at our modern legal system, decrying the elitism of the whole culture (especially law schools), and condemning the outright greed and selfishness that is ingrained into and drives far too many lawyers and judges today.

Misfits in America is also a look at growing up Jewish in mid-twentieth-century America, as the narrator, Harry Brohnz, Lionel Wolfe (who becomes the focus of Trail of Tears, the second book in the quartet), and their fraternity brothers at Michigan all come from Jewish households. The college stories are fascinating, not least because, for this class of extraordinary young men, academic success paled in comparison to winning the inter-fraternity sports championship, and the days were filled more with pranks than learning. Velvel criticizes the university system as a whole for, to some degree, wasting four good years of its students' lives; not only did universities seem not to care about academics, they turned a blind eye to cheating. Much more pointed criticism is directed at the law schools, however, where elitism ran rampant. Every school (except Yale) wanted to be Harvard, and Harvard grads (unless they were Jewish) got all the best jobs. Law school itself did little to prepare its students for actual legal work, instead concentrating on demoralizing students and wringing every remaining drop of social justice and ethics out of their systems. Since Jews were unable to land jobs at major law firms (even if they had a Harvard degree, as Brohnz did), both Brohnz and Wolfe go to work for the Department of Justice - where both idealistic young men are further appalled by the attitude of the government, which was just as likely to trod on individual rights as not.

Brohnz is even further disillusioned after his move to the academic world. Unable to get the job he wanted and impatient to move in the direction of constitutional law, Brohnz joins the faculty at a small, Midwestern law school, hoping to make a difference in the lives of at least some law school students. While there, he becomes increasingly disillusioned with the ongoing war in Vietnam. Believing that Johnson's war was unconstitutional (since Congress alone was given the right to declare war), he begins bringing suits against the government arguing this very point. No matter how brilliant his work, though, he draws little attention - he's battling both the elitism that says professors at small Midwestern law schools don't merit attention and a government that has long ago abandoned the principles it was founded upon. Velvel believes that federal judges ignored their constitutional duty during the Vietnam conflict, and that argument forms the crux of this book.

This is both a tragic and hopeful book. Velvel makes no secret of the fact that he believes federal judges continue to ignore their constitutional duties, that the whole legal system is afflicted with elitism of the worst sort, and that America as a society has lost its way over the course of the last half-century. Harry Brohnz, never able to shake his belief in social justice, ultimately comes to believe that most people can always be counted upon to do the wrong thing. Still, he never gives up his ideals, never sells his soul, never stops trying to do the right thing himself. Velvel himself basically calls out those who have perverted the ideals of the American Dream - judges, politicians, academics - and shows how their betrayal of ethics has spread to society itself in the form of business scandals, a loss of faith and trust in the government, etc. Misfits in America is a truly powerful book that challenges all of us, especially those in law and politics, to do whatever we can to insure that the American Dream is not lost to us forever. You will find much more than an inside look at the legal profession in these pages; you will gain insight into the very fabric of modern American society.

When I was in high school it was clearly stated in the West Mesa student handbook that a student's participation in activities (not to be confused with sports) was to be limited to a set number of activities that could not exceed a certain number of points. The idea was clearly to distribute opportunities to students at what was then the largest high school in the state of New Mexico (so large in fact the school was on split session, with juniors and seniors attending from 7 to noon before the afternoon shift showed up). Under these rules a student would not be able to be student body president, co-editor of the newspaper, a member of the national honor society, compete in speech and debate, and so plays. But nobody stopped me even though the points associated with these activities (and others) were worth three times the proscribed limit of points.

From this experience I learned that I could do what I wanted despite the rules. This is a rather dangerous thing for a teenager to learn, but when I went to college I used these guiding principle to take upper division classes my first semester of college. I was able to do this for two reasons. First, I entered college as a sophomore, having taken the general College Level Examination Placement test and having received thirty college credits. Basically you took a test and they compared your scores to the average college sophomore, and if you did above average you got credit. At the first college I attended they would give me credit for specific courses, such as Introduction to Physics, because of my score. This astounded me because I had never even taken high school biology, had not taken a math course since my freshman year (you needed one credit of math to graduate) and could not remember how you multiplied fractions (I must have figured it out). Apparently the average college student was something of an idiot if I could get credit for physics. I took three more specific CLEP tests and had 39 credits without setting foot in a college classroom. The second thing I did was to never see a college advisor. After all, they were the ones who knew the rules and would tell me I could not take the courses I wanted to take (i.e., an early variation on the don't ask/don't tell approach to conflict resolution).

This extended journey down memory lane represents my personal reaction to reading "Misfits in America," which is Lawrence R. Level's first volume in his series, "Thine Alabaster Cities Gleam: A Story of the Last Half of the Twentieth Century." The thesis of the book and the subject of its final chapters has to do with the illegality of the Vietnam War, specifically in terms of constitutionality issues regarding the failure of Congress to declare war and abrogating its detailed responsibilities to the president. However, in a larger sense Velvel is not only explaining why the country is the way that it is and why Vietnam became all that it became, but why his main protagonist, Harry Brontz, is the man the Velvel writes about. It is that last part that inspired deep thoughts regarding my past and I think this volume will inspire others to do the same, especially if they did not go on to law school. I was the only member of my college debating team not to become a lawyer, although I did toy with the notion of going for fun (I was trying to get a teaching job of a university that would allow its professors to attend the law school for free) to study constitutional law. Clearly I ascribed to Oscar Wilde's witticism that, "The study of law is sublime, and its practice vulgar." However, after reading the manifesto of reforms that Dean Velvel enumerates in his message to students at the Massachusetts School of Law, I am willing to rethink my position, although probably not my vocation.

"Misfits in America" constitutes an argument, more than a narrative. Although arranged chronologically overall, Velvel will jump back and forth in time to make a point, rather than to simply tell a story. His personal experiences serve as both the evidence and the rational for his scathing critique on what is wrong with the American legal system, from the hallowed halls of "elite" law schools to the failure of the United States Supreme Court. The latter is particularly damning because Velvel is able to castigate the court from both the liberal and conservative perspectives (former debaters particularly enjoy arguments where you win either way). The evidence for these arguments comes from both the real world and the world of academe, with the personal experiences of the protagonists in the book, Harry Brontz and Lionel Wolfe, who are presented as law school classmates and fraternity brothers at Michigan.

The term "protagonists," used to describe Harry Brontz, Lionel Wolfe and other characters in this book, is important because although this is a memoir you can forget about spending your title Googling their names to find out what these former graduates of the Michigan Law School are up to today (Velvel cites Abraham Lincoln early on as a key role model, but his approach here brings to mind Silence Dogood). Those who are so inclined and who are in a position to do so can do their own annotations as to which school is Midwest State, unmask the various characters, and settle the argument as to who had the highest GPA in the history of Harvard Law School. Such points are moot for me because I am more concerned with what is "real" than what is "true," and Velvel's book rings "real" (perception is key, a point made implicitly but repeatedly in this book). Ultimately I see his position as being more anti-conservative than liberal, a natural consequence of the political system being inherently conservative. That all three branches of government are currently controlled by political conservatives only strengthens the point, although it also means incumbents get to bear the brunt of these attacks. But Velvel had harsh words for just about everybody in Washington, D.C., with the notable exception of William O. Douglas, so I see a plague being called down on all of their branches.

I freely admit that I am focusing more on what Velvel has to say about the causes behind the problems that exist today, and clearly I am playing it out in my own mind on much more of a personal level than on the social. After all, there are two books to go in this series and I expect my thinking to progress to dealing more with effects and solutions as I continue to read. Because of my occupational psychosis I will be thinking more in terms of academia than of legal issues, but dealing with students who act more like consumers and who demand to be entertained as a prerequisite to being educated pretty much forces such issues upon me (fortunately the latter plays to me strength almost as much as the former offends me heart and soul). I know that the Rosie the Riveter experiences of World War II and the creation of the birth control pill were the key causal elements in liberating women in our culture, and Velvel comes up with something equally as important as a paradigm shift in the G.I. Bill. That the legislation was intended to have a big impact on housing for veterans but ended up transforming colleges because of the educational provisions seems obvious, and the fact that such profound changes were unintentional another one of those ironies that confronts you with a choice between deep laughter and bitter tears. The impact of sports and the self-perpetuating machine that are the nation's law schools come into play as well.

Until I reached the final set of chapters, which on balance are considerably shorter than the early ones, I was reading this book a chapter at a time before going to sleep. The reasoning behind this approach was that after reading each chapter I needed to go through a personal dialectic, critiquing Velvel's claims in terms of my own knowledge and experience to come up with how it all makes sense to me. The fact that Velvel refers to Professor Kingsfield from "The Paper Chase" as Professor Kingsbury may well be a pun rather than a typographical error or mistake of recall, but Velvel also quotes one of the most significant philosophers of the 20th century, Lawrence Peter Berra, THREE times in the book, so he comes out ahead in my ledger. Obviously I personalized reading this book more than others, but doing so does not preempt your ability to apply the lessons of "Misfits in America" to current constitutional crises or undeclared wars. It was just how I worked through the arguments and I think there is value for everybody in knowing how they were shaped and molded. Do I still do what I want? Count the number of words in this review (or the number and types of reviews I have posted) and see if that gives it away. Meanwhile, Dean Velvel's latest blog has to do with the current events topic of electronic surveillance, and I bet if you read this book you can hazard a guess as to what he is arguing with regards to that particular issue.

This is an important and also a very enjoyable book. That in itself is a rare combination, and worthy of attention.
As a UK reader with no legal background I was afraid that much of the material might be mysterious or irrelevant to me, but I could not have been more wrong.
Misfits in America is volume 1 of a quartet, but it can be happily read alone. The author has a sharp and amusing style, and never pulls his punches. His take on events of the mid twentieth century is refreshing, absorbing and relevant to modern events, and the language is pitched at the intelligent lay reader, not solely at fellow lawyers. The book deals with subjects important to the conduct of a free democracy - the conduct of law schools abd the legal system, the relations of the legal system and the political system, and especially the legality of wars declared by the President rather than by Congress. This might sound dry (and I am making it sound pompous, when it certainly isn't), but it comes vividly to life and sheds light on subsequent events. The author's reflections on Vietnam have led me to consider and partly revise my views on the Iraq war and Britain's involvement in it, no mean feat!

As I have been reading through 'Misfits in America', I am reminded in certain respects of Amoz Os, the modern Israeli writer, who, upon being criticised for some of the political stances of his characters, pled the defense of the characters being fiction - and therefore, by implication, that the stances would likewise be fictional, not necessarily his own. I get the same sense when reading this, that Velvel is using this fictional tale, drawn from his own experience, his own profession and his own time to critically examine the state of affairs both current and recent past, both in society generally and in the legal/judicial profession specifically.

Velvel's idealism is apparent from the very first page. Drawing from Abraham Lincoln's idea that it isn't good enough to do well for oneself, but rather one must also help fellow humankind, and exploring the less materialistic aspects of what the American Dream should incorporate, Velvel proceeds down a path that really would lead to the proverbial 'city on a hill', with alabaster towers that gleam in the distance. Alas, Velvel is not writing that kind of fiction. His fiction remains close the corridor of the progress of history, and so we see in compelling and interesting situations how the idea of America falls short in different ways, while still maintain the ideal.

Velvel's text in this first volume (originally conceived as part of a trilogy, and later growing to become part of a quartet) starts with the natural genius Harry Brohnz, the kind of guy many students hate to have in a class that is graded on a curve, as he sets the bar too high. Even from this start, we see Velvel's idealism, as it clashes with the idea of standardised tests being used as a label and measure of a person. Brohnz went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the 'Harvard of the Midwest', where he met Lionel Wolfe (who will figure more prominently later in the series), and later went to Harvard for law school, while Wolfe would remain at Ann Arbor. Brohnz walks between the privilege his genius gives him and the discrimination his Jewish identity causes, particularly in the 1950s American culture (perhaps best exemplified by the number of Hollywood personalities who had to change their 'too Jewish' names to more mainstream names to maintain popularity).

Velvel explores different incidents in college, in law school, and in teaching that, while fictional, it is almost certain that the incidents described are true (some read such that one simply can't make this up - Dr. Spiderman, for example, has to based on some true event and/or character) - perhaps simply the names have been changed to protect the innocent (or the not-yet-proven-guilty). Perhaps the heart of this volume of the quartet occurs rather more near the end, as he explores some fundamental inadequacies of the judicial branch of the time. While applauding such actions as Brown vs. Board of Education and other rulings that made the Supreme Court 'a liberal bastion, sometimes the liberal bastion, among the three branches of the federal government,' he still takes the judiciary to task for not stepping up to the responsibilities of being an adequate check/balance to the other branches, particularly the presidency as it embroiled the country ever more thoroughly in the Vietnam conflict. He also is critical in other, lesser known cases - United States v. Kras, for example, which turned on issues of equal access to the federal courts in spite of lack of monetary resources. It is clear the Velvel (through Brohnz) found the ruling abhorrent that Kras did not have a right of access because he lacked the $50 filing fee.

Lawrence Velvel is a great storyteller. Perhaps this is unexpected from an academic in the legal profession (Velvel is Dean and professor of law at the Massachusetts School of Law). This is the kind of book which compels the reader to keep reading; even though the general ebb and flow of history are fairly well known, the details that are presented keep the reader looking for more, and the personalities presented are also very interesting - perhaps even more so at the moment, as the country watches the retirement of and selection of a Supreme Court justice.

Five stars!

Misfits In America is the first volume of a planned trilogy titled "Thine Alabaster Cities Gleam" and authored by journal editor, lawer, academician, and host of "Books of our Time" (an hour-long television book review show seen throughout New England). The focus is the lives of two men who grew up in the 1950s. They are indoctrinated into the virtues extolled by the American Dream - honesty, hard work, competence, social justice, and modesty. At the same time, they see their generation misled, and that those who do seize success for their own are the ones who embody the opposite of the American dream - the liars, the lazy, the sycophants, the unjust. Embodying an era of the author's own life, during which he has labored as a pioneering lawyer who fought tooth and nail against the presidental war-mongering power that brought the Vietnam and Iraq wars, Misfits In America is a bold, involving portrait of society itself, and the failings it needs to overcome to move into a future that can in any way aspires to the noble ideals of its foundation.