The intrepid Man Book Club headed north to Sonoma as Paul hosted
us at his Glen Ellen home last Sunday afternoon. The venue and atmosphere were a perfect foil for the gritty
reality of this month’s book—Bryan Stevenson’s autobiographical Just
Mercy, the story of one attorney’s crusade to prevent the execution of
prisoners across the South. Paul’s vineyard home was as far as one
could get from the bleak death rows in Stevenson’s book.
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Paul rose to the occasion—as host and as Southerner-in-spirit—by
serving a full Southern spread: grits with a Creole tomato gravy, shrimp,
sausage, and collard greens. It was precisely the kind of meal that
the men Stevenson writes about would never have tasted in the sordid conditions
of their incarceration—at least, not until their last meal. Well
done, Paul, on both the hospitality and the not-so-subtle reminder of what was
at stake in our book.
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Our Review
and Discussion of Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson.
Just Mercy is part memoir, part legal argument,
and part moral reckoning. Stevenson, a Harvard Law graduate who
founded the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama, tells the story of his early
years as a capital defense attorney in the South. The narrative
alternates between the harrowing case of Walter McMillian—a Black man sentenced
to death for a murder he did not commit—and a series of related vignettes about
other inmates whose stories illuminate the systemic failures of the American
justice system: its racial disparities, its disproportionate treatment of the
poor, and the troubling ease with which it imposes the ultimate punishment on
those least equipped to fight back.
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As a group, we found the book admirable but, at times, almost
unbearably heavy. Several of us—Dean and Dan among them—acknowledged
that it wasn’t Stevenson’s writing that wore them down, but rather the weight
of the material itself: the racism, the desperate circumstances, and the sheer
accumulation of injustice. Dan, who watched a 60 Minutes segment
on the book and admitted he made it only 70% through, wished the narrative had
focused exclusively on McMillian. Those who found the multi-story
structure frustrating, though, were outnumbered by those who appreciated
it. Paul and Tom both liked how Stevenson moved chapter by chapter
between individual stories and the broader issue of unequal justice, even if it
did (according to Larry) give the book the feel of a long-form magazine
piece. Tom was also struck by how easily a young person running with
the wrong crowd can end up on death row, a point that resonated with those of
us who have raised teenagers.
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Much of our admiration, predictably, was reserved for Stevenson
himself. Stan, who read the book more than a decade ago but listened
to it again on Audible, was struck by how Stevenson dedicates his entire life
to this crusade and by how horrifying it is that a single man’s perjured
testimony can send an innocent man to death row. Stan could relate,
at least in part—he spent six years early in his career working for a nonprofit
before concluding, with some reluctance, that he needed to “make a
living.” Glenn commended Stevenson for finding his calling in
serving those on death row and inspiring many others to do the
same. He also posed the awkward question of how we’re expected to
rate a work of non-fiction—especially one suffused with so much moral urgency—against
conventional literary criteria.
Andrew found Stevenson’s closing
argument during the hearing on the motion to set aside McMillian’s conviction
especially powerful—a moment that, Andrew felt, captures the essential message
of the book: our judicial system makes it far easier to impose the death
penalty on defendants who don’t deserve it than to set it aside when the
evidence demands otherwise. Andrew also observed that while efforts
like Stevenson’s have helped swing the pendulum back toward a more just system,
a troubling question lingers: why should equal justice depend on the political
climate of where you happen to live?
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Our Rating
of Just Mercy
When the ratings came in, we landed at a well-deserved 7.6—one of
the stronger scores we’ve given a non-fiction title. Terry, who
didn’t finish the book, sat this one out numerically. The rest of us
clustered in the 7–8 range, a tight consensus that reflected our collective
sense that the book’s importance and Stevenson’s achievement were not really in
dispute, even if a few of us found the reading experience more draining than
enjoyable. We agreed that sometimes we need to be reminded of the
privileged lives we lead in Marin (and Sonoma) County. Just Mercy did
that for us this month—a stark reminder that in parts of this country, equal
and fair justice remain just words for too many people, particularly those of
color or those too poor to afford adequate legal representation.
Next
Up: The Winner by Teddy Wayne
Dan is our host for next month, and he’s steered
us away from the death rows of Alabama toward what promises to be considerably
lighter terrain: Teddy Wayne’s The Winner. We look
forward to whatever Dan has in store for us—and trust that the book, whatever
its merits, will produce fewer existential crises than our last selection.
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