Presumed Innocent writer Scott Turow brings new book to Vancouver Writers Fest event
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Turow will be in Vancouver on June 3 (7:30 p.m.) at the Granville Island Stage for the Vancouver Writers Fest event Books & Ideas: Scott Turow — Presumed Guilty, along with award-winning author and screenwriter Susin Nielsen, the creator of Global TV's Family Law, whose latest book, Snap, is out now.
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'I think that my audience has always been disproportionately lawyers,' said Turow when asked about who comes to his live events. 'There are always some lawyers who want to write. The law is all about words. So, lawyers are word people to begin with. So, it's kind of natural.'
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When wannabe writers turn up, they invariably seek some sort of advice from Turow, who has penned 13 novels and sold more than 30 million books.
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'My advice is that there aren't any magic formulas, and you've got to stick your butt in the chair and do it,' said Turow. 'It's like everything else in life. You get better at it by doing it. You know the old joke; how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.'
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After doing a creative writing degree in the early 1970s, Turow went to law school and then practised law. He stepped away from commercial law in 2022. But, today, he still has his hand in the legal game as he is working on a pro bono civil case — which he thinks will be his last — leaving him to get his legal fix at a keyboard.
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While Turow's previous novels took place in more urban settings, Presumed Guilty is set in a small town with dynastic legal family.
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'The setting that I'm describing in Presumed Guilty is one that I know very well, and I've watched it with interest, even though I think we'll always be outsiders up there,' said Turow, who lives part of the time in rural Wisconsin. 'You're talking about an area, for example, where you know the economic prospects are limited, so you're basically raising your children understanding that they're likely to leave and not leave because they want to, but because they have to … This really is something that I thought I ought to write about, eventually, because it's not a part of American life that's glimpsed as often in our fiction.'
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He also liked the idea of a story surrounding a family where one member is suspected of a serious crime.
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'I've seen lots of good writing about this. There's just been a series on, I think it's on Netflix, called Adolescence, so this seemed really rich to me, because I'm always interested in drawing into the intersection between the law and family life,' said Turow. 'That's kind of a good matrix for me … When I got the idea, I thought wait a minute, this would be a really good coda for Rusty to end up as a defence lawyer. Then I was off to the races.'
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It's been 15 years since Rusty last appeared in a Turow novel, but the author said he has always had plans to revisit Rusty and his life.
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'When I left Rusty at the end of Innocent, I was sort of like, 'Well, you know, I'm not sure I can leave this guy in this position,'' said Turow. 'I always had the sense I would go back to him one more time.'
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