Word: confessions
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...siblings are "like . . . a family of elves . . . If one leaves, none of the rest of us grow up." Wise child. The children's fatal interdependence provides the subject of this piercing first novel. Author Robert Boswell smoothly oscillates from third to first person, giving the principals a chance to confess and dream. The voices are wholly convincing, and Boswell's apercus provide psychological criticism, as when Edward unconsciously utters his own epitaph: "No one wants to hear about a good man being good. It's the failings people want to hear." Wise father...
Writers want to be read; most of them will also confess to dreams of striking it rich. Every so often, reality conspires to reward both desires at once. The latest beneficiary of this bolt-from-the-blue largesse is a Chicagoan named Scott Turow, 38. Since 1978 he has been a lawyer in his hometown, working for eight years in the U.S. Attorney's office and then as a partner in a private firm. He has also, like thousands of others among the gainfully employed, written in his spare time. Eventually he completed his first novel. Unlike most such manuscripts...
...whom he is sometimes compared, and Gephardt, whom he must beat in Iowa. Like Carter, he deadpanned, he discusses issues with his children. Babbitt quoted his nine-year-old son as saying, "Dad, you've really got to do something about colorization of classic films." The father had to confess that Gephardt beat him to it -- a jab at his rival's habit of riding trendy issues...
...youths, both 17. One of them, Terry Zilimbinaks, leaned over Weeks in his seat and uttered a number of racial insults. Weeks took out an unlicensed pistol, according to police, and shot Zilimbinaks dead. Like Goetz, Weeks slipped away unnoticed. Unlike Goetz, he did not turn himself in or confess. Police finally tracked him down six years later. The grand jury refused to indict him, and so he went free. There were few headlines, and the case was quickly forgotten...
Senior Writer Otto Friedrich pared the 544-page book down to 14,000 words for the excerpt. He met Cheng, who lives in Washington, for the first time this past March. "Her refusal to confess is absolutely extraordinary," says Friedrich. "As I spoke to her over lunch that day, I thought to myself, 'Would I have signed? Would I have given in, to spare myself the pain?' I looked across the table and knew that...