Beyond the Book: Background information when reading The Summer of 1787

Beyond the Book

This article relates to The Summer of 1787

David O'Stewart has been a trial lawyer for twenty-five years. He began writing before law school as a reporter for the Staten Island Advance. He also wrote a monthly column on the Supreme Court for the American Bar Association Journal for almost ten years. In recent years he has turned to fiction, publishing a short story, When They Did It, in New Millennium Writings that was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He has recently completed a novel, as yet unpublished, and is working on a follow-up to The Summer of 1787 that will explore the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868. The book's working title is Radicals: The Men Who Challenged A President And Rewrote The Constitution, and is targeted for publication in 2009.

"One weekend I sat down to read James Madison's notes on the debates of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, all 500-plus pages, from cover to cover. I was angry because I thought my opponent in a lawsuit was misstating what happened in Philadelphia that summer. Once I started reading, I stopped worrying about my case. Instead, I focused on the drama, the wisdom, and the occasional depressing blunder of the fifty-five Framers who wrote the Constitution. I thought I knew a lot about the subject. I had clerked at the Supreme Court for Justice Lewis F. Powell, and had litigated many constitutional cases. But there was so much I didn't know. I decided that I wanted to tell that story. Now, a few years later and after a lot of research, I have." - David O'Stewart.

Interesting Link: A "Constitutional Smarts" quiz at the author's website.

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This "beyond the book article" relates to The Summer of 1787. It originally ran in May 2007 and has been updated for the May 2008 paperback edition. Go to magazine.

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