From Library Journal
The editors, mother and son, have brought together an assortment of intriguing and insightful essays written by individuals from different walks of life who share experiences with the criminal justice system that are more criminal than just. The thread linking these stories is that true justice is highly subjective and that our legal system attempts to approach it through objectivity and litigiousness. The result is a highly impersonal, paternalistic system that frequently smacks of condescension and chaos. Strict adherence to the rule of law can result in a form of justice skewed to the point where the innocent go to prison, individuals are convicted on the basis of guilt by association, or a jury is swayed more by the desire to emancipate its children from daycare by an afternoon deadline than to save a human soul. Useful reading for students of the psychosociological aspects of our criminal justice system.?Phillip Young Blue, New York State Supreme Court Criminal Branch Lib., New YorkCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
For this excellent collection of essays and stories, the editors asked several writers to examine the idea of justice. The results are startling: the essay by Blanche McCrary Boyd about Susan Smith (the woman who killed her two children in a failed suicide attempt, then claimed they had been kidnapped by a black man); Clarence Page's examination of the O. J. Simpson jury; Charles Johnson's short story about affirmative action; to Alex Kotlowitz's heartbreaking tale of the two boys in Chicago, aged 10 and 12, who were recently sentenced to prison for dropping their five-year-old neighbor to his death from the fourteenth-floor window of their public-housing high-rise. Some of the pieces are notable for their anguished personal tone, others for their thoughtful examination, poignancy, or objectivity. This carefully edited examination of justice is both a satisfying and an eye-opening read. Kathleen Hughes

From Kirkus Reviews
Good idea, disappointing result. Novelist Shreve (The Visiting Physician, 1996, etc.) and her novelist-to-be son, Porter, have collected short essays on justice authored not by lawyers or academics, but by writers addressing the subject through personal narratives. Running throughout these contributions is a central theme captured in the title: Justice cannot be reduced to questions of law. Unfortunately, the volume ultimately does not quite work. Selections that reflect personal experience, such as Richard Bausch's recollection of a racist remark made to a friend during his childhood, or a journalistic report, such as Blanche McCrary Boyd's account of the trial of Susan Smith, expose the potent emotions and nagging doubts that can surface when notions of justice are counterposed to clearcut questions of innocence or guilt. In contrast, the less focused and more abstract sets of reflections, notably John Casey's rather lengthy discussion of how questions of justice ``nourish'' fictional works, seem pallid and out of place. While the former outnumber the latter, however, in the end the whole volume adds up to less than the sum of its parts. The better essays are suggestive, but none are conclusive, and the overall effect is to leave the reader hanging in many different ways rather than illuminating the subject from a variety of perspectives. The premise that justice cannot be codified because it is a function of the complexities of real life is not only worth exploring, it may positively require more lengthy exploration than can be derived from short essays. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Book Description
SEVENTEEN DISTINGUISHED WRITERS ON THEIR PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF JUSTICE IN AMERICA Seventeen extraordinary voices explore the difference, often achingly personal, between true justice and the law. These brand-new pieces use powerful storytelling--as current as Clarence Page writing on the Simpson trial and Blanche McCrary Boyd on Susan Smith--to define justice, to give it a face, to show how justice affects the lives of every one of us.John Edgar Wideman uses his son's imprisonment for murder to reveal how law is often a tragic approximation of justice. Sarah Pettit writes on the "dizzy spin" of gay Americans who are told they are seeking "special rights." Julia Alvarez recounts the lingering effects of a brutal political regime on the civic behavior of her parents. Madison Smartt Bell examines the perhaps illusory idea of an inner sense of "true morality." And Charles Johnson imagines a black man, a white woman, and justice in the workplace. These and other major voices--Michael Dorris, Ntozake Shange, John Casey, Richard Bausch, Alex Kotlowitz, Beverly Lowry, Daniel Wideman, Gerald Stern, Garrett Hongo, and Susan Richards Shreve --are brought together in this cogent and timely collection. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Michael Dorris: Justice is one of those palliative myths—like afterlife with acquired personality and memory intact—that makes existence bearable. As long as we can think that our experience of being periodically screwed by fate is the exception rather than the rule we can hope for, as they used to say in commercials, a brighter tomorrow.Ntozake Shange: I've found what I can call justice by forever returning to the root of a language, the design of a plantation, the workings of a sugar mill, the chants of streer corner B-boys, the words of those before me—Garvey, Marti, Diop, Machel, and the images of Bearden, Barthe, Michaux. I have to scrape the bottoms of souls, dreams, nightmares, and syllables to taste what justice might possibly be.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------"[Works by] novelists, poets and essayists, professional users of language whose prose in these pages often soars to the lyrical." --Colman McCarthy, Washinton Post Book World BOOKLIST REVIEW BY KATHLEEN HUGHES:"For this excellent collection of essays and stories, the editors asked several writers to examine the idea of justice. The results are startling: the essay by Blanche McCrary Boyd about Susan Smith (the woman who killed her two children in a failed suicide attempt then claimed they were kidnapped by a black man); Clarence Page's examination of the OJ Simpson Jury; Charle's Johnson's short story about affirmitave action (the head of a Seattle company is faced with the decision of whether to hire a white woman from a familiar social situation, or a black man who is equally qualified by unfamiliar); to Alex Kotlowitz's heartbreaking tale of two boys in Chicago, aged 10 and 12, who were recently sentenced to prison after dropping their 5-year-old neighbor to his death from the fourteenth-floor window of their public high rise. Some of the pieces are notable for their anguished personal tone, others for their thoughtful examination, poignancy, or objectivity. This examination of justice is both satisfying and an eye-opening read." --Kathleen Hughes

Card catalog description
In Outside the Law, eighteen extraordinary voices explore the difference, often achingly personal, between true justice and the law. These original pieces use powerful storytelling - as immediate as Clarence Page writing on the Simpson trial and Blanche McCrary Boyd on Susan Smith - to define justice, to give it a face, to show how justice affects the lives of every one of us. The distinguished contributors ask questions like "How do we know what is just?" and "What are the effects of injustice?" and they refuse to let their responses remain in the realm of the abstract. John Edgar Wideman examines his son's imprisonment for murder to reveal how law is often a tragic approximation of justice, and Daniel J. Wideman, in one of the book's several instances of how the warp of justice affects generations of family, gives his own conception of his brother's incarceration. Sarah Pettit writes on the "dizzy spin" of gay Americans who are told they are seeking "special rights"; Julia Alvarez recounts the lingering effects of a brutal political regime on the civic behavior of her parents; and Madison Smartt Bell examines the perhaps illusory idea of an inner sense of "true morality." Charles Johnson imagines a black man, a white woman, and justice in the workplace, and Richard Bausch writes on a shameful boyhood incident - and the cultural assumptions that led to it.

FROM THE PUBLISHER