A Word on Words; 3015; Amy Gutman

ron johnson you know once again welcome to word on words our guest is amy gutmann aleppo any it's so nice to see you again is great to be in the senate that we're going to talk about a political death your new mystery novel a thriller as a threat and it's a thrill and you know throw to read i haven't seen so it i used to be a journalist so we work together and now she's in the business of factional in the business of writing almost more the latter now the former that's right that's right oh after after a career in journalism is all you wanted to do an anti gay law is only writing and this is the first effort and it's gotten strong reviews and it is a terrific mystery tell me we're taking from the view of a lead of weed killer well what what what are not what it is then down actually is is sort of a date and answered question i guess

for for readers are about the kind of the spot that i am i think pain is include elements of myself i after i'm working in journalism for a number of years that your intent cnn and mississippi went to harvard law school which i actually really enjoy i really enjoyed studying the law i think it's a fascinating way of looking at our system of justice and the rules by which we which we live ah i don't want to practice and i'm very large very i'm very prestigious new york law firm and what's known as a white shoe law firm that's the term that's the tuesday night these firms and i spent two years there and it was there that the idea for this book really began to percolate and i'd always been sort of a very literary reader i realized he says and now my undergrad law school at harvard on jane austen i don't always have a real thing for the nineteenth century classic writers a great one george eliot on for service and once i started practicing law i started making a bee line for thriller it's and i started reading all over the map

john grisham mary higgins clark i mean they met and i was just i was i was i did a lot of money at the time get this white shoe law firm and the moment they hit the shelves i would buy them and i would read them at home in mind bath tub after my sixteen eighteen hour work day and for some reason they really seemed to sort of fill in eden and they were so these adult fairy tales are aware of where good and evil sort of conflict aired and then gerd always try out ah what i want to do when i set out to write a chemical bath a really egghead always missed writing i actually was able to do writing as a lawyer but obviously a very different kind of writing the idea that i wanted to write a thriller a real page turner of the novel you very quickly there's also sort of interested in writing a coming of age story that really dealt with a lot of the more troubling issues that i found as it as a young lawyer practicing like this large armed and to my mind fairly oppressive place we as young lawyers often worked on eighty plus hours a week hundred hour leaks

on where we're certainly not unheard of and i was wondering why what are we doing why are we doing this is this really wyatt a life was supposed to be on i think for some people this this way of like does work i think it's a very small group of people on for him this is really really suits on a lot of other people are there for many many different often very complicated reasons they may be hiding out from something else in their life and i think that's a very common thing to be going on and that's actually played situation i mean sitting here thinking what did she mean when she said kate and i and then i realize i believe the first question i was going to say yes it

is beautiful senior for it low for a building for well right now it does not fare well i guess it is it does give too much away to say that our heroine has as is common in these bikes does hurt by the you know somebody to get in the app on and so madeleine right now iran is and is it is a very beautiful female lawyer who aren't has is is quite a brilliant lawyer betty whose career really i'm talk took energies of took off when she had an affair with a very prominent com senior partner at the firm was in fact a managing partner and one of things i was really interested in exploring in the book as sort of women's experience and the workplace and since i'm a lawyer if it happened to be a law firm ants my feeling is that there is always an element of of sexual tension and pork the sex is always an issue in some way and

i was really interested in the whole range of ways from things that are really not us and simply just a part of just being men and women and that there's going to be some sort of armed connection that maybe somewhat different than a connection between a man and a man or a woman and a woman to two to a very extreme situation on which is on the sexual assault would which does occur in my book which is really sex as violence to another situation which is now one situation which to my mind is one of the murky asked of all possible situations which is a case where a woman voluntarily engaged in a sexual relationship with someone who had a lot of power over her career she did not suffer because that relationship we're not talking about a case the issue becomes a partner and she says she suffered from the image of of having to use sex to get where she wanted and that's what everybody in that law firm been there

awhile think sir nose or lisa exactly and the question is and the way i tried to protect natalie is actually she well might have made partner without that you're really matter no no one will ever know and i think that that's a really insidious and as you know when in the course of the book that doubt can be extremely damaging to a sense of self that a woman has invested so much in her career not to now well the power figure out in the end the story is emerging from the ask for a meeting the ways that law firm is the major issue after a contest with a with a family less attractive their lawyers but but there is tension there between them a mini along but they don't know they're competitive still and there is an industry in that law firm and there is a moment when

kate feels that though she is really being asked to perform she is challenge to be a lawyer that having been there in the lurch there's a moment when alan says to really be very careful very careful be very clear i know if you don't understand that and i'd only way he used to henri because that is part of the mystery kate apparently had never really looked at herself without her glasses and that's a little thin black clue rosa you out there but but there was a list through the industry and i talk about the power figure the power figure out like carmel strike car mouse ears in some ways he's an extremely attractive extremely charismatic figure on and i think he

is for can eat away at the beginning of the book we get a son skate mom grew up without a father and part of her story is really i'm searching for searching for a for a home for over a place where she belongs and feel safe and something a safety that presumably is is even less than it might otherwise have ban on because of of this this lack of love of a father of someone who is there for her to a sort of a mystery to herself in a lot of ways and as the book unfolds in either their various histories and in one of the mysteries is on who who is taken karen and tom so to her encounter with cardinals matt owens encounter with cardinals and at it at an age when she was much closer to kate's age now there's about a ten year battle as the older woman that katie is some is a good catch pen ten fifteen years younger than madeleine on and i guess and in creating carter mel spy i

again a lot of this comes from my own experience working in a large large white shoe law firm these very powerful often very good looking older man do exert a tremendous paul often on these young impressionable very ambitious women and yet again it's it's just very interesting to me because it's certainly not our conventional notions of sally not sexual harassment don't let me just tell you where i would when i get out of reading a cajun and carter first all having madeline and talking to corner of a ballad essential about carly does about and so yes i think the magnet is there for carter he laid out on the group for the right bump but he's but he feels it and so he sort of reaches out to her and brings her into

his circle she only other hand there's nothing but this fall think may be buried in her psyche is another researcher maggie may be pulling her without her knowledge yes either maryland sees it balances out and sees it knows it understands that through it is doing very well is it position to tell car i'm going to do this i'm not going to do that right and she does quite effectively or legal matters say this is where i am and i have displayed in the wreckage while we also create a variant variant and ugly dylan and media barons right sorts of smut publisher right wary in your experience having worked for a publisher named john singing where did this what margin of rubble are

like me and so that and certainly a half publisher actually i was really interested in the notion and does this actually came from it is a fictional character he is is you know has all of them are their fictional characters to some extent i draw in tights but i'm one of the gao you're usually larry flynt and read a lot of the papers and the gucci any case has been cases and that was something you know i have i read court filings in that case just to get an idea for sort of the legal issues might be in a case like this but really of the character himself well what i want to derail on one of the one of the things i wanted to do here ways deal will do what the far and again i was trying to create a spectrum in terms of you know a woman's experience of herself as a sexual being in the workplace or your quote worse than having to deal with a guy like chuck thorpe either there is a scene where his sound and his one of his secretaries is interviewed and you have this really this picture looks very

beaten down woman who's in this really pathetic way trying to be very overtly sexy obviously has no confidence no ability to to stand up to two years in the hills of speak truth to power no ability to get to do that i'm not and then you've got to hate who are have such a belief in such a commitment to her place of work on where they are in fact are spending this guy a lawsuit because he is our children's literature in right right he is any but there's concern because he is affiliated with one of their largest client a big corporate clients and to his recently acquired his publication and so it's very much a business decision and there's their a lot of time the without going into all the details that are there a lot of problems with the losses that there there's a great concern that that wide world media could suffer liability on i played in a very difficult situation as many

innocent and all you do is lawyers because on the one hand every client deserves representation and on the other hand doesn't have to come from you and that again gets back to the issue of how do we choose to spend our lives and tam how how much do we believe in the system i you and i were talking a little bit earlier about you know the death penalty cases at all which is on a completely different subject that i think yes on look at various cases and saddam at times it can become a little difficult to really justify artists and visits the system the system works and that we can say that as a lawyer it gives you a tremendous amount of comfort but for many ambassador if it's an ugly demonized monster and not just perceived by the public to be a bad guy yeah but know you to be a bad guy it's a very interesting an issue that i wanted and this was again as a lawyer when i think of what is on this interesting legal

issues presented in the book actually a number of lawyers have read this book and been fascinated by that idea by this question and it's never been addressed in case i actually had researched it in connection with the sexual harassment case i was working on at at another law firm never could really find much on it but here we have a case where a track for publication patch is allow it is political commentary in a fashion that score first amendment speech and you have a case here where he is debating in a very provocative way has these very sexually charged issue is in a geopolitical issue which our political affairs we have years barry beaten down the sort of sexual in this very sexualized environment armed with his female worker now it if i'm publishing of a magazine writer that is based on the sex

right and i entitled if she doesn't resent it to talk about sex in a crash gross way in my secretary's instead invasive personally last night in fact i want it exactly because it's my work happen like this is what i needed to put out my magazine comfortable with its position for a comfortable position for a defense lawyer have to take but i do believe that everybody is entitled to a defense then you're there telling those of you just joining we don't really need to worry about her new book the political death let me ask you about a little bit of the final jumps off the page of that audience where you got that time and why use of garlic is part of taste all right right were critical data is really it's the chorizo or trick or metaphor for the buckets are the really the organizing principle of the bach on is suggested by the title a clinical data the phrase as it is it really has two meanings

the first meaning is it's a turn of art that is used on by homicide investigators and what a critical death means a critical vaccine is a scene where armed investigators the cops go to the same and the scene presents ambiguous lay and basically in other in other words it's unclear whether you have a homicide or suicide can be other kinds of ambiguity says wollard accident natural world for the purposes of my book the ambiguity hum for fur for readers of the bikers you'll discover is that there is there is a case where i am that there is that there's a lot of uncertainty and clarity about whether there is so when it's a homicide or suicide so the plot level that's the significance of the title at a much broader metaphor couple dionne the term equivocal back goes to this this central question is this a way to live and in the trajectory of the book is really tate at the beginning being so thrilled to be getting back to samson and males to her new low

law firm which is some sensitive nose or and send them for short which anyone has worked in a lot of big understand the signal again said that acronym alma says she's getting back so excited feeling really that she has arrived because she is affiliated with this prominent yet eminently a sort of well respected worldwide your reputation on the law firm she just doesn't want to think about the other stuff she has her friend tara who doesn't play out that you take a defensive saying we have structures my time and terraces to her paid slavery structured people's timeline on that view that as a particularly good de france on the set so equivocal back on that that the second meeting of a chemical bath really is this question i was on where we here on earth for an end to get is it two to live like that's a man that it's worth looking at kate is really as as this book maslin of another spot is really living a life that

has very little to do with who she really has what her deeper values are she really isn't that letting herself think much about that one of the yeah one of the bonuses in the industry is that it's not just up to discover who were the killers they've also discovered something about yourself that way up there is the scene you mentioned bayard so stumbling bumbling a potential witness who's going through the position that carla power figure bent and kate tell young right they were aggressive loyal they are making a deposition of this witness who just is going to say look i worked for and i work for chuck and

others may go the same thing that i thought was going to chuck in any trouble and she's worried about a kate is worried that those witnesses that terrible witness carter only other hand takes it at face value at that point a book is it occurred to me that maybe for the first time kate so a different card then the father figures she had been admiring she lives where the shootings maybe there is a method to his madness but at least at that point it seemed to me that she began to question herself for myself as a young lawyer you know watching witnesses be prepared for for deposition which is essentially what that is you wanna know what theyre you interview them arm and tom you they're always to have you there in my experience because you don't wanna worry about a retraction arm sometimes you get them to sign an

affidavit at the interview before the deposition see you can walk in testimony on but it was being very naive when i started to practice struck by the extent that the stories were shaped by the lawyer and this from ever think well for churches fact of course they weren't it i did have some notion they would say well what happened it a much more likely scenario is well so my understanding is x y z and abc happened he says is that age and then you get them lie down and you move through the relevant testimony and time will could you put that yes so that that's right as men could you put that in your own words in a campaign i see that but it wasn't really saps is that was it it was real real folks at wilson of bonding with down and you're locking in a story and so in having to hate on it and then actually and this is a bit more of an extreme

situation because carter really does have reason to note that on any anyone there would have had reason to know that this does not small right she would have even had time to read the papers that she's on yet being asked to come in that's what raises kay tackles along that well you know the output as the story unfolds the recent mystery deepens the family you get into the past the buried past but not the forgotten pest mountain dinosaur reason she warns cage for a reason and that mystery i don't want a huge you know of the same rigor as you read this book is that mystery about it will in the end the year

but the less let's just talk about where you envisioned how you how did you create that situation that provides the ultimate answer your listeners when you sell to write this book did you know yeah that's where you're going to get i get that was one thing i really had in mind the arc of the bach i knew who had done it and why they had done and he wanted to i knew why they had been looted the great mystery yeah yeah how did you know it will become opposed to unfold to an extent but i didn't i didn't work with an ally on this but my new book i am working with an outline on in large part because my publisher required an outline to give me my first installment on on my advance so that was that was a compelling reasons but i'm actually i'm finding is jerry frew yet since this vote was obviously my first novel

and you know and was waiting for if he expects to mature as an will try to sell it was actually sold at auction that it was very very heartening to play it yeah i just i think i think basically i just i started out with some characters i started out with the arc of the story and i started out with that central metaphor the equivocal death metaphor because that was really you know when i was at my law firm looking around at all these brilliant vital young people you know i it degrees you know from from wealthy in the family is that you know it looks certainly a lot of people do this because of state wants that that is a huge reason everyone and tom stricken like is this like what is driving you'll hear why why is this the thing that you have all of the options you have in the world today of why is why is this the lion on it's so i do have to say that in writing one of the fun things are it the vote was going back to sort of the snow you know that i am here happened for so

on and realizing just really how aware yes not being there are some of the things we're such as at my law firm the lights would not go out you couldn't turn them out they would with automatic unless he went out of office and it forgot to actually go under our passes and curl up to try to get maybe ten or fifteen minutes of sleep when we were there overnight because only then would you use that voice and when she walks it would take walks into a room and a light doesn't come on now something happened while she was in trouble the day that are funny thing about that is i i was an hour interviewing and your publication ii told that story and i later got a call from a from a former colleague he said oh my god that brought back such memories that amy i did that when i was eight months pregnant and i just thought you know i thought it was bad for me can you imagine climbing and tear gas to

sleep for ten minutes when you're eight months pregnant i just kind of mind boggling snow and then another another story which is a true story that i go through in here not not at the firm where i work at another firm has sung and it was a great i was able to throw amputees these great stories and i'm someone who had about a partner through a stapler and really what we've been talking about her new book the political birth at all thank you for joining us and i think all of you for joining us they'd be watching a word on words keep reading