Author News and Book Reports
Scott Turow pleads guilty to breaking his vow never to write a sequel to 'Presumed Innocent'
Newly elected president of the Author's Guild, bestselling mystery suspense novelist, and former Assistant U.S. Attorney turned white collar criminal defense lawyer Scott Turow had not published a new novel since Ordinary Heroes in 2005 when he showed up with author Ridley Pearson at the 2008 Miami Book Fair International to talk about a book he was writing at the time. Turow began with the backstory of his dual writing and legal careers, starting with his surprising u-turn from the Stanford Creative Writing Center to Harvard Law School and the genesis of his first book, One L, a non-fiction memoir of a law school student's experiences, which, as Turow tells it, had some uncomfortable, unintended consequences causing him to return to his writing roots in fiction. Law degree in hand, Turow next landed a job as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, where he discovered his fiction writing voice and true passion. Turow then recounted the story of how he managed to write the breakout bestseller Presumed Innocent and wrapped his presentation with a guilty plea of writing the one thing he swore he would never write--a sequel to Presumed Innocent, which lands in bookstores next week under the title of Innocent (Grand Central Publishing; May, 2010). Turow then took questions from the audience on the influence of his law career on his writing; the Hollywood auction for rights to Presumed Innocent; the role of Tommy Molto as the first person narrator in his new novel, Innocent; and his future as a white collar criminal defense lawyer in the new economy.
