Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 14, 1990 TAG: 9006140020
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SYLVIA RUBIN SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
By the time Scott Turow reaches the 77th floor of the Sears Tower in Chicago, where he is a high-powered criminal defense attorney, he has already spent most of the morning writing fiction.
Not the kind of book that sits in a cardboard box until an agent is found, but a potential blockbuster, along the lines of his first novel, "Presumed Innocent."
You could call him the Bo Jackson of the Ivy League set, an upper-class fellow at ease in both the world of the literati and the ultimate yuppie life of the lawyer.
The attorney in him gives a firm handshake, brushes down the pinstriped trousers and answers questions with needle sharpness.
The writer in him greets one at the door with a warm smile, saying, "Please call me Scott. None of this Mr. Turow stuff."
His new novel, "Burden of Proof," (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $22.95), is a psychological thriller about suicide, a commodities scam and the sexual awakening of a 56-year-old widower.
Turow, 41, is one happy guy - someone who always wanted to be a writer, but became a lawyer to make money, and now earns big paychecks from both.
"Burden of Proof," Turow's second novel, has an advance printing of 800,000. The paperback rights sold for a record-breaking $3.2 million.
And did we mention that as an attorney he charges $220 an hour?
"All writers have to do something else to make a living until their ship comes in," he says, matter-of-factly.
The ship has docked.
Turow's first novel, "Presumed Innocent," the best-selling murder mystery that everyone took to the beach a couple summers ago, sold 712,000 copies in hardcover, 4.3 million copies in paperback. The movie, starring Harrison Ford, will be out in August.
"Burden of Proof," with reprint rights already sold in 15 countries, will be in bookstores on Monday.
Turow even made the cover of Time magazine last week - barely. After all, Gorbachev was also in the news. "Last week was the only time in my life I ever rooted against world peace," Turow says, bursting into laughter.
As many Scott Turow fans already know, he wrote most of "Presumed Innocent" during the half-hour train commute from his home north of Chicago to his downtown office. While other passengers were shaking off sleep, he would spit out chapters. Then he took three months away from his office to finish it.
"I'm really quite obsessive. One thing the law practice does for me is keep me from being totally devoured by the writing."
He is the first to tell you he is driven, a character- 6 1 TUROW Turow istic instilled in him by his father, a prominent Chicago gynecologist.
"I grew up with this strong male macho figure; this guy was always working, I was always taught that being a doctor was the right hand of God."
So when he decided to become a writer, his parents were less than enthusiastic.
"I didn't have their blessings. No matter what they say now. They don't quite remember how vigorously they opposed me."
He delivered the second blow when he moved to California to accept a creative writing fellowship at Stanford. He had mainstream fantasies. He wanted to make money.
"Most writers I went to school with were also teachers. That was not ultimately satisfying to me."
So the sensitive writer took the law school admission test.
Not only did he pass, but he also was accepted at Harvard. But Turow, the type who reads five novels at once, couldn't do only one thing at time.
He would go to law school, but he would also write about the experience. The result was "One L," the non-fiction account of a first-year law student that has become a classic among law students.
It sold 300,000 copies. He was 28.
After that, came three children, "Presumed Innocent," success as a lawyer, a house in the upper-class suburbs, another novel.
In "Burden of Proof," Turow tells the story of Alejandro (Sandy) Stern, the brilliant lawyer who successfully defended murder suspect Rusty Sabich in "Presumed Innocent."
A relatively minor character in the first novel, Stern is the heart of the second. But he is rarely seen in court this time - readers meet him at home, where in Chapter 1, he discovers the asphyxiated body of his wife, Clara, in the garage.
With that event, Stern's very controlled life begins to unravel; he realizes he didn't really know the woman to whom he had been married for 31 years; his three grown children are either afraid of him or estranged. He sets out to find why his wife committed suicide - and discovers some unpleasant things about himself.
While the reviews have been favorable, some critics complain that the book picks up steam slowly, that Turow puts Stern in too many unlikely sexual situations, that the ending doesn't work.
One reviewer, while praising Turow for his writing skills, ultimately dismissed the novel as just another item to throw into your beach bag.
Turow doesn't appear stricken by the criticism.
"I make both a deliberate effort to transcend the genre and to write books with popular appeal while still maintaining a serious pursuit of modernistic and post-modernistic fiction," he says, sounding like both a lawyer and a writer.
"I believe sexuality dominates the imagination and human condition. If people want to pretend that's not true, let them. But I know that people think about it all the time."
His third novel now in the works, Turow continues to live in the same house he bought six years ago, and to write on the train, tapping out his thoughts on a lap-top.
He prefers to write in the mornings. "In the afternoon, I'm too steamed up from being a lawyer to write."
On the 10:54, there is an unspoken pact between the other riders and Turow.
"Many of them know who I am now, but they leave me alone. I am grateful."
At home, he used to write in a basement office, but graduated to an upstairs study, a gift to himself with the royalties from "Presumed Innocent."
Though he still practices law, he has cut back his cases about one-third over the past year or so.
"I would never tell a client to call back because I am writing. I will always interrupt the writing for the client."
Aren't there days when Scott Turow isn't exactly sure who he is?
"I am who I am," he says. "I enjoy both careers.
"I couldn't give up either one. I don't understand the need for people to pigeonhole. I am both a lawyer and a writer of books both serious and popular. That's it."
by CNB