is that a good dad? bo radley is the one who actually has it straight, right? he knows those kids are going to get into trouble. he s out there and he does something about it. he s the one who gets justice in the book. you know, and so when you really think about it, if you can put through this wonderful vision of the child, if you can stop looking at this problem from a child s point of view, then you ll get a new take on to kill a mockingbird, i think. you know, one that s much more actually meaningful to you. so ok. thanks. mary. yeah. oh, great. we lost you for a minute there. i know. yeah. so tell us how did you choose to kill a mockingbird as the subject for your book and for your film? you know, what made you take this on as a project 50 years after the book was published? well, my adult rereading of to kill a mockingbird made a far greater impression on me than my adolescent reading ever had, and once that happened i started to just satisfy my ow
school. they were all wrong. you know, it s a very interesting thing. when the paper chase came out, by the way let me digress. there was an absolute reaction from harvard law school. they said this is the most horrible book that has ever been published. how did this guy get into harvard law school? [laughing] there is some mistake. you know, there were people who wanted to take my diploma away. anyway, in the last 35 years, though, they ve mellod out. you know? they ve had me back. they ve given me awards. it s incredible. and why is that? is that because they ve changed in mir heart? no. it s because the television program gave them so much publicity. i don t mean to be cynical. i do like harvard law school. but come on, guys. ok. tony, you dedicated your life to the law and to justice. and you re known to take on the most impossible cases. do you think the justice system works? do you think it has value, at least the value that we seek to attribute to it? where we sa
and miraculously they raise their hand. [laughing] isn t it incredible? you didn t have to teach it the way i was taught at harvard law school. they were all wrong. you know, it s a very interesting thing. when the paper chase came out, by the way let me digress. there was an absolute reaction from harvard law school. they said this is the most horrible book that has ever been published. how did this guy get into harvard law school? [laughing] there is some mistake. you know, there were people who wanted to take my diploma away. anyway, in the last 35 years, though, they ve mellod out. you know? they ve had me back. they ve given me awards. it s incredible. and why is that? is that because they ve changed in mir heart? no. it s because the television program gave them so much publicity. i don t mean to be cynical. i do like harvard law school. but come on, guys. ok. tony, you dedicated your life to the law and to justice. and you re known to take on the most impossible
work of why we got interested. and i started writing a novel as i was approaching my 40th birthday. i wrote most of it on a ferry going to and from work every day. it took me three years. and that book became special circumstances, story of a murder in a big law firm. it came out in 2000 and spent seven weeks on the new york times bestsellers list. so for those of you who have bought my books, i thank you, because now i don t have to practice law full-time anymore. but all kidding aside, you know, i think crime novelists and readers of crime novels whether it s lawyer books or whether it s private detectives or cops, you know, in my world i m like unlike tony s, i can control the outcome. i can get justice in my books because i can fix the ending. and i start and most authors do i start with the ending. i know who did it, how and why. and by god, when i write that book, i m going to make sure justice is served. i think that s why people keep coming back to lawyer
books about a fictional defense attorney. the stories that you tell really get into, i think, the issues and stories of our time. and that s why your books have been so popular. first of all, you know, how did you become a writer? why did you become a writer? and how did you end up writing did a criminal defense attorney in san francisco, of all places? i was not told i would follow tony serra. i need to go back and prepare a little more. [laughing] i learned something, too. i guess i better stand up. [laughing] i m really honored to be here. i m the toy department. i write novels about the types of cases that lawyers like tony handle. in the daytime i work for a big law firm of the type that tony probably would not hold in the highest of esteem, but i m delighted to be here. you know, i think if you talked to most authors, they will tell you that there is something hot-wired into our system that says we need to try to tell a story. there is nothing at all in my background.