The bestselling author of The Hot House once again combines the facts, the real people, and the location itself into this true story, a wide-ranging portrait of the interplay of race, sex, and justice in the American South, made all the more real because it takes place in the same small Alabama town that was the fictional "Maycomb" in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Optioned for film by MGM. Photos.
"Part detective story, part social commentary, part intellectual autobiography, part philosophical analysis, this is a jury book unlike any other."—Anthony Kronman, Sterling Professor of Law and former Dean, Yale Law School "[Norma Thompson] teaches us, brilliantly and painlessly, why judging, as opposed to simply knowing, is an essential part of a responsible human existence, recounting the trials and crimes and moral dilemmas of antiquity and classical tradition in a stunningly original reading."—Abraham D. Sofaer, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, and former United States District Judge In 2001, Norma Thompson served on the jury in a murder trial in New Haven, Connecticut. In Unreasonable Doubt, Thompson dramatically depicts the jury's deliberations, which ended in a deadlock. As foreperson, she pondered the behavior of some of her fellow jurors that led to the trial's termination in a hung jury. Blending personal memoir, social analysis, and literary criticism, she addresses the evasion of judgment she witnessed during deliberations and relates that evasion to contemporary political, social, and legal affairs. She then assembles an imaginary jury of Tocqueville, Plato, and Jane Austen, among others, to show how the writings of these authors can help model responsible habits of deliberation.
Frank Secich's autobiography presents a candid look at the longtime rocker's storied past, including untold tales of his Rock'n'Roll journey with Blue Ash, The Dead Boys, Stiv Bators Band, Club Wow, and current outfit, The Deadbeat Poets.
"Alexander Welsh has a personal voice, amused, witty, ironic, and proselytizing. He wears learning lightly and ranged widely over genres and disciplines, pleasing the cultural generalist as well as the nostalgic individualist."--Times Literary Supplement. "[Welsh's] work on narrative is consistently... among the most theoretically original, daringly interdisciplinary, and substantively important that we have."--Modern Philology. "A book this intelligent with this large a thesis and range of interests... naturally leaves one wishing for more."--Nineteenth-Century Literature
