Diving into Lara Bazelon’s first novel, A Good Mother, I had some trepidation. For one thing, I knew Lara was a real trial lawyer, and that meant Lara knew that real trials were boring and tedious, so writing a book about a trial meant it had to be juiced up, edited, and gamed to some extent to create something thrilling enough that it made you want to read the next page. There’s a reason some lawyers (and judges, though they’ll deny it) fall asleep during trial, you know.
But what’s very hard to do is create a trial that’s both compelling enough to make you want to read more of it while incorporating the aspects and “feel” of a trial that made it real. There’s a lot of that in A Good Mother, and trial lawyers will see the gems under the surface they know only too well rather than just the hyped-up drama that ranges from overly pat to overly melodramatic. And yes, occasionally so wild that you have to suspend your disbelief. This is not a hornbook. Then again, nobody wants to read a hornbook for giggles. You’ll want to read A Good Mother. Continue reading