Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Courtroom Drama: Background information when reading Defending Jacob

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reading Guide |  Reviews |  Beyond the Book |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

Defending Jacob by William Landay

Defending Jacob

A Novel

by William Landay
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • First Published:
  • Jan 31, 2012, 432 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Feb 2013, 496 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About This Book

Courtroom Drama

This article relates to Defending Jacob

Print Review

The thrill of watching a trial unfold - the impassioned speeches, quick-witted lawyers, surprise witnesses, the piecing together of clues, not knowing if justice will prevail - it can all make for exciting, and in some cases legendary, storytelling. "Courtroom drama", a subgenre of "legal drama", is a term used to describe dramatic fiction in which legal litigation plays out with suspenseful and climactic courtroom scenes. In modern times, these scenes usually take place in what we recognize as legal courtrooms (hence the name), though in older texts the "courtrooms" might actually have looked like public forums or gatherings.

Though we often associate the genre with television (e.g. Perry Mason or Law and Order) or film (think of Jack Nicholson's "You can't handle the truth!" moment in A Few Good Men), courtroom drama is overwhelmingly popular in literature as well. [Indeed, it predates television and film by a couple thousand years; one of the first written works that we would now label as "courtroom drama" is The Eumenides, a Greek tragedy written by Aeschylus and performed in 458 BC. In it, Athena acted as judge, and Apollo, the defense attorney.]

scene from The Merchant of Venice

According to author Catherine C. Mambretti, "In the West, it was not until literacy became widespread (after the invention of the printing press in the mid-fifteenth century) that fictional trials can be found." From William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice in which Antonio and Shylock go to court over an unpaid debt, to Charles Dickens's Bleak House in which feuding family members argue over inheritance; from Franz Kafka's existentialist The Trial to Reginald Rose's Twelve Angry Men and Harper Lee's beloved classic To Kill a Mockingbird, courtroom drama has been delicious fodder for literary greats throughout the ages.

The popularity of courtroom dramas increased in the 20th century, perhaps because legal cases had more media coverage than ever before. The infamous Nuremberg Trials, in which WWII Allied forces took members of the Nazi party to court in 1945-1946, emphasized the idea that justice could be obtained via law and order rather than violence. The rise of television and film accentuated the drama in legal cases, making them all the more entertaining to literary and viewing audiences. For example, in the video below, Gregory Peck plays Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, directed by Robert Mulligan (1962).



Today, courtroom drama is often written by lawyers-turned-authors, such as Scott Turow, John Grisham, and William Landay, author of Defending Jacob.

Filed under Reading Lists

This "beyond the book article" relates to Defending Jacob. It originally ran in February 2012 and has been updated for the February 2013 paperback edition. Go to magazine.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...
  • Book Jacket
    The Rest of You
    by Maame Blue
    At the start of Maame Blue's The Rest of You, Whitney Appiah, a Ghanaian Londoner, is ringing in her...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.