Narayan Radhakrishnan's Interview with
Andrew F. & Gina Macdonald
Authors of
Scott Turow: A Critical Companion

Narayan:
What prompted you both to take up this task of writing about Scott Turow?

The Macdonalds:
What prompted us to write about Turow? Gina, an inveterate & lifetime reader of all crime fiction, had read all of Turow, & the complete works of a large number of other authors of legal fiction, both British & American; myself a Turow devotee since Presumed Innocent, had read all but Pleading Guilty (frightened off by critical reviews, not wanting to see a weak performance). I taught Personal Injuries twice to literature majors, with mixed success. We had both published short encyclopedia-type entries on various Turow novels (for Contemporary Popular Authors, The Encyclopedia of U.S. Popular Culture, & Twentieth Century Crime & Mystery Writers) & had a chapter on Presumed Innocent, book & movie adaptation, in It's A Print (Bowling Green Press: Fall 1994).

“Gina had also taught legal writing to future law students (with One L a recommended secondary reading), & we both taught Law School Admission Test preparation courses to future law students fearful of this formidable barrier, a demanding trial of legal logic, precision, & clear writing. With a long history of teaching writing at all levels & to a wide variety of students, we were (& still are) both steeped in debate about civic issues, point-counterpoint arguments, rhetoric in the sense of formal argumentation, & the like. We thus were completely attuned to Turow's issues & interests. When Greenwood provided the opportunity by responding positively to our proposal, we took it; it was if we had been preparing for this book for years without knowing it.

Narayan:
Did you meet Mr. Turow personally & conduct interviews with him before going full steam ahead with this book -- or is the information based solely on the books themselves?

The Macdonalds:
We met Mr. Turow fairly late in the process, in July 2004. Our first draft was perhaps 70&per; done, a good point at which to sit down with him fully informed by our reading & writing (though the timing was dictated by his availability after the Reversible Error miniseries & our summer vacation & funding opportunities). We met for a Sunday lunch at a very pleasant restaurant near Winnetka, Illinois, not too far from Turow's home. The interview continued after lunch for an hour-&-a-half. Mr. Turow was very forthcoming & generous, putting nothing off limits except, to protect his family, his immediate personal life. He also responded to follow-up questions by email. It was a very thorough & satisfying interview.

Narayan:
This book has everything one needs to know about Turow. Now, how was the research like -- how did you amass such a heavy lot of information. How did you both share the research, rather what was the modus operandi in the research. How much time did this project consume?

The Macdonalds:
Time, well, we could say almost twenty years, since Presumed Innocent in 1987 (does reading the works count? As above, it feels as if we were preparing for the book all along). But after the contract was signed in the summer of 2003, with a draft due a year later, we set to work re-reading, going back to quickly-read works, & researching biographical & literary critical background. (There was not much of the latter, rather surprisingly; in point of fact, Greenwood's Critical Companion series is meant to remedy just this lack of serious treatment of popular authors who write quality works. There were tons of reviews, of course.)

“Gina is the researcher, & wrote most of the biographical & literary heritage chapters, as well as large chunks of the chapters on particular novels, especially concerning how reviewers responded. I did much of the analysis parts & the conclusion. But, in fact, it is sometimes difficult to say who did exactly what. We have always worked together rather seamlessly, passing drafts initially written by one of us back & forth until the prose is polished & each of us is satisfied. An abstract idea from one of us would lead to specific supportive details from the other, & vice versa. It is sometimes hard for us to tell who wrote the original sentence, given revisions by each of us. Married partners have the real advantages of proximity, empathy, & understanding; although some couples might find the process painful & divisive -- it works for us.

“Research” in literary analysis can mean searching library & internet sources or books, articles, reviews, commentary, & the like... a task made much easier by databases & search engines. (For our chapter in Katherine Klein's Diversity In Detective Fiction we spent a week in a local public library, physically examining literally thousands of paperbacks to see if their detectives were truly “ethnic”; the library dust was almost toxic.)

“Research” can also mean re-reading & marking up the novels to highlight key passages, repeated themes, convergences, imagery, & all the other elements of textual analysis the work comes in organizing all this “evidence” into accessible order which can be turned into sentences & paragraphs. This type of research dominated our effort. The most painful part of any writing project like this one comes after the first draft, which can actually be fun to write, like assembling a puzzle & explaining an enthusiasm. Revision, however requires intense concentration on details no one might ever notice. The research took a year or so, off & on, mostly off; the writing of the first draft took a full summer of intense effort, with little else accomplished; the revision took place over five or six months, with exhausting attention to details during the couple of weeks we had the edited & the copy-edited text in our hands. We also proofread, & Gina wrote the index & completed the bibliography & legal vocabulary used in Turow's books -- all major tasks.

Narayan:
As you would be aware Turow¹s next novel Ordinary Heroes will be published this year. Did you feel, you know a “Gee, I missed that!” feeling? I ask because Turow is an author who doesn't churn out books year after year -- there is a good gap between one book & the next.

The Macdonalds:
Turow told us about his new novel in the interview & it is discussed briefly in the biographical chapter. As of July 2004 he said he didn't have a definite title, & it was not clear when it would come out. His apparent diversion of interest into non-fiction death penalty issues (Ultimate Punishment) after Reversible Error suggested he might not keep to his normal publishing schedule for fiction. Naturally, we would have appreciated the title & an early peek at Ordinary Heroes, but we can understand Turow's reluctance to expound to unknown interviewers about a work in the throes of writing/revision

“As we mention in the book, academic critics have not always been fair to Turow or other writers of quality popular fiction. We were Southerners & very much an unknown quantity. Then too his description of his writing process suggested an intuitive approach, with bits & pieces collected, set pieces written, a broad overview concept (which he shared with us) but with the full plan not finalized until the final months of writing, So yes, we did feel a missed opportunity, but that may be the hazard of writing about living authors. Safely dead, the author can be relied on not to come up with a work that contradicts all the confident critical assertions made about his canon (unless posthumous works sprout up, of course). Alive, well... we wouldn't wish to take away anyone's right to reinvent himself.

Narayan:
You have also focused a little on some of the short stories & plays by Turow. Why do you think that they have not made it to the same league as that of his novels? & more importantly why do you feel Mr. Turow is keeping a low profile as far as short stories & plays are concerned.

The Macdonalds:
We think Turow puts a lot of effort into everything he does, short & long, but he also has an overarching vision that is his best quality. In the interview, we asked if he kept a journal or commonplace book. Not formally, he answered, but he did record bits & pieces of dialogue, events, happenings (such as the Chicago steam baths of Pleading Guilty) that could be usable in long works. We think his short stories & perhaps also his plays can be seen as intermediate steps in the process of going from recorded events to full fictional treatment. See how this bit or episode plays on the road, in theater parlance. He might want to be judged on the final product, not on a trial run, no pun intended.

Narayan:
The coming years will witness more & more Turow bestsellers hitting the market -- & so would there be a revised edition of the critical companion -- say within 5 years from now?

The Macdonalds:
Greenwood's Critical Companion series has an uncertain future, so that's up to them. However, their past pattern has been to ask their authors to add a chapter to be provided on CD ROM disk to future buyers. Would we like to write further on Turow? A hard question for someone just recently done with a major project (you want to run away for a while), but yes, because we feel simpatico for Turow's outlook & point of view. What form that would take is unknowable at the moment.

Narayan:
Having read all the Turow works, having researched a heavy lot -- in short, can you say what is the secret behind Turow's success?

The Macdonalds:
Our concluding chapter on what makes some works of literature endure & others not, tackles this question in a broad way. Specially, with Turow, intelligence, phenomenally hard work, attention to detail, a truly sharp & clear sense of his audience, patience (the three year cycle, permitting the previous qualities to assert themselves), the ability to express arcane legal topics in accessible prose, a rare talent for seeing the human drama in courtroom issues... we could go on & on. Could Turow have ended up as another bad novelist, trying to write James Joyce for the umpteenth time? His practicality & happy choice of profession saved him from this fate, & opened the door to what he does better than any of his competitors.

Narayan:
Again, though I feel that Turow¹s works are more in-depth than that of Grisham's legal thrillers -- why do you think that Grisham still is more popular marketwise, compared to Turow?

The Macdonalds:
Grisham is a page-turner, by no means a contemptible skill, as Turow mentioned in our interview, but a very narrow one, focused on plot &, to a lesser extent, character. Prose style, depth of theme, enduring issues necessarily fall by the wayside. The prose is undemanding of readers except in terms of engagement with what will happen next, & provides just enough identification with the protagonist for the audience to care about him/her. The human thirst is primarily for stories, then all the rest, & this accounts for popular success. Grisham meets this need, but Turow, though keeping us turning pages, also gives us the satisfactions of literature as well. But Turow's prose & issues require work on the part of readers -- his works are more than simple entertainment.

Narayan:
A quick question, your favorite Turow work & why?

The Macdonalds:
For me, it would probably be Personal Injuries, which accords with my sense of reality: how people behave, & especially, when dealing with larger civic problems, whether of corruption (we live in South Louisiana & New Orleans!) or of personal relations. As profound as Presumed Innocent but less contrived. I also like Laws Of Our Fathers since it speaks to my generation's experiences.

“Gina prefers Presumed Innocent & Burden Of Proof for their contrasting portraits of defense lawyer Sandy Stern, his intuitive, controlled public presence in the former & his naive private self facing hard personal truths in the latter. She also finds the complex layers of possibilities intriguing & the preponderance of metaphors to provide insights into character psychology appealing.

Narayan:
So what's next for both of you -- will there be another “Critical Companion” in the near future or...?

The Macdonalds:
As noted, the Critical Companion series is winding down, so almost certainly not. Nor another legal thriller topic for the moment (running away, as we said), but maybe in the future. Andrew is currently teaching film comedy, & we both have a new interest in Bollywood films, which are beginning to cross over into the American market. We are flogging some academic writing textbooks we have in draft (grammar & rhetoric), & Gina is exploring the possibility of a book on the historical mystery.

Narayan:
It has been great talking to you both, thank you, Mr. & Mrs. Macdonald, for taking time out of your busy lives for such detailed answers.

Do catch my review of Scott Turow: A Critical Companion - I hope it makes you go out & buy yourself a copy!

Narayan Radhakrishnan
2005©Narayan Radhakrishnan
Published DATE