by Grace Mead
The characters in this novel are fictional and composite, with most containing nods toward those I love. All but a few collect what I’ve admired or inferred or speculated about those I’ve been fortunate to know throughout my life; the rest are drawn from my fears and nightmares. I’ve worked through my own self-loathing through a series of approximations: thinking of racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, biases against those with mental health issues, biases against those from rural areas, biases against those of humbler means, biases against those with certain political beliefs, heterosexism, homophobia, and then, finally, transphobia as I met people of all sorts who were considerate and kind. In the end, having encountered so many different types of caring people, including trans individuals, I was left no choice but to stop hating myself.
Select References and Recommended Reading
Writing a novel has been a welcome respite from my day job, where I can’t and don’t make up facts. In Defense of an Other, I have striven for realism—rather than depicting reality—everywhere other than the discussion of the state of the Supreme Court’s law in the late 2000s on equal protection.
I hope the trial scenes realistic, but they are inspired by trials I’ve participated in and read about in many different states, mostly outside of Louisiana. Every trial raises dozens to hundreds of legal issues, and I’ve elided many to advance the plot and focus the themes. In that sense, this book is analogous to casebooks given to law students, which include copies of judicial opinions edited to focus on the discrete issues being taught in that course. But I wanted to describe the trial at some length. Cases evolve from the underlying facts to a trial of those facts to an appeal over years, and I wanted to capture the humanity and complexity underlying what can ultimately seem narrow, antiseptic legal issues.
Although they don’t lie at the core of my practice, I’ve been reflecting on equal protection issues for over fifteen years and I’m certain I’ve failed to include many important materials that I’ve read.
Nor have I tried to include the results of every internet search I conducted while writing this novel or a complete set of factual references. Wheaton is fictional, and I’ve taken liberties with the history of Angola; indeed, the description of Angola has at least one deliberate anachronism. Again, writing a novel should have some perks.
But for select references and recommended reading on the issues most central to this novel see the following:
Adarand Constructors v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200 (1995)
Balkin, Jack M., Living Originalism (Belknap Press of Harvard University, Kindle ed. 2011)
Bergner, Daniel, God of the Rodeo: The Quest for Redemption in Louisiana’s Angola Prison (Random House, Kindle ed. 2016)
Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986)
Brown v. Bd. of Education of Topeka, Kansas, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)
Howard, Sen. Jacob H., Remarks Introducing the Fourteenth Amendment to the Senate, Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. 2766 (1866)
Howe, Sen. Timothy, Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. S. app. 219 (1866)
Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003)
Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584 (2015)
Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996)
Scalia, Antonin, A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law (Princeton University Press 1997)
United States v. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. 2675 (2013)
Acknowledgements
Thanks to those at Clink Street and Authoright, including Peter Salmon, who offered keen insights and notes on how to improve the rewritten novel. Gareth Howard and Hayley Radford ushered me through the editing and publishing process. We all built on the draft developed over years, with the editorial support of Erin McKnight and William Kowalski. Jimmy Fusaro, at X-Fit in New York City, edited the passages concerning boxing and fighting and inspired those scenes; he’s a tremendous personal trainer. Thanks also go to those at Universal Acting in Miami, where I took classes in 2017 for insights into how to strengthen the novel.
Too many individuals to mention have taught me how to be a better lawyer and indirectly improved the discussion of every legal issue addressed. All views and any errors are mine.
About the Author
Grace Lee Mead grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana, and then went to Dartmouth College. After college, she went to the University of Chicago Law School, where she was Editor-in-Chief of The University of Chicago Law Review.
She then clerked for the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which has jurisdiction over the federal trial courts in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. After clerking, she worked for five years as an associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York. Since then, she has worked at Stearns Weaver Miller Weissler Alhadeff & Sitterson, P.A. in Miami, where, since 2008, she has been a shareholder. Again, all views and any errors are hers.
Copyright
Published by Clink Street Publishing 2018
Copyright © 2018
First edition.
The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that with which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
ISBNs:
978–1–912262–25–0 paperback
978–1–912262–26–7 ebook