Milton Hirsch

About fifteen years ago, when my first novel The Shadow of Justice was released, I was asked to write a short piece for a bar journal about my authorship experience. Herewith some excerpts from that piece (and remember – this was written some time ago):

In the evening of his days, Clarence Darrow, that most mythopoeic of criminal lawyers, was asked the old bromide: To what do you attribute your success? “Hard work,” answered Darrow, with some depth of feeling; an answer that delighted his interviewer, until the old man added, “Yes, when I was a boy down on the farm in Ashtabula, I saw an awful lot of hard work. I knew I didn’t want any of that, so I became a lawyer.”

Picture me, then, as I was some years ago: a couple of decades into a career as a criminal lawyer, and hard at work. Worse yet, I was experiencing the criminal lawyer’s version of mid-life crisis. My faith in the criminal justice system, and in my own ability to add my grain of sand to the edifice of justice, was wavering.

The traditional methods of self-medicating a mid-life crisis are by buying a Ferrari or by having an affair with a younger woman. I knew that if I asked my wife about the Ferrari she’d say no. I was worried that if I asked her about the younger woman, she’d say yes.

So I wrote a novel.

It was cheaper by far than the Ferrari or the younger woman, and every bit as therapeutic. It turned out that an argosy of fictional lawyers, judges, cops, snitches, witnesses, and jurors had been living rent-free in my head for some time. They came pouring out, and in telling their tales I felt better about my own. Edmond Rostand was once asked how he could possibly have written Cyrano de Bergerac in six weeks, and replied that he had been writing it all of his life. . . .

We had a very nice vernissage here in Miami. (I know what a vernissage is only because I had one. It’s ... well, it’s like a coming-out party for a book.) It was held at Books & Books in Coral Gables, and organized by David Bercuson and Mitch Kaplan. David Bercuson is Miami’s premier entertainment lawyer (and he insisted repeatedly that if a movie were made from my novel, he act as the technical advisor for the sex scenes). Mitch is the proprietor of Books & Books, the moving force behind the Miami Book Fair, and the patron saint of lost authors.

The Shadow of Justice was critically well-received. It was chosen as the best work of the year in the mystery/suspense category by the Midwest Independent Publishers Association, and I was nominated for something called the Benjamin Franklin Award in the category of Best New Voice in American Fiction. (I got a big kick out of being a “new voice” at age 50. Hey, it beats not being a new voice at 50.)

. . .

I got a fan letter. I’m sure that Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard get traincar-loads of fan letters. I got one. It was from a Juanita Brooks in Brandon, Florida. She told me a little about herself (little old lady), and about what she liked about the book (plot really kept her on the edge of her seat), and encouraged me to write another novel. I tried not to over-react to having my own fan and my own fan mail, and Juanita declined my offers to mow her lawn and wash her car. I still have her letter.

Non-lawyers who learned that I had written a novel tended to ask, “I heard you wrote a book. What’s it about?” Lawyers who learned that I had written a novel tended to ask, “I heard you wrote a book. Is there sex in it?” To the latter question I had a couple of answers:

1. Yes. Madonna has agreed to play the role of habeas corpus in the movie.

2. Yes. David Bercuson has been retained as technical consultant for the sex scenes in the movie to be made from the book.

. . .

Two things I learned from writing my first novel:

1. Life imitates art. The protagonist of The Shadow of Justice is Clark Addison, a judge at the Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building, Miami’s criminal court. He’s a good judge. Currently, I’m running for judge and, if elected, I imagine I’ll be assigned to the Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building. I hope to be a good judge. (It would be unethical for me to solicit your financial support for my judicial campaign, so I’m not doing so. No siree, not me. I’m not soliciting YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR MY JUDICIAL CAMPAIGN. Wouldn’t do it.)

2. Groucho, as usual, got it right. It was Groucho Marx who said, “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” Difficult as writing a book can be, it reminds the writer of the importance, the art, and the joy of books. We lawyers spend our lives reading and writing, but not reading or writing books. Computers and Kindles convey information, but Groucho would never have described them as man’s best friend.