Just Southern Food at Paul's

Dinner and Acknowledgments.

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.