The Just and the Unjust

You have to remember that this is not exactly contemporary fiction. If you want to read a well-written story about a different time in America, you will enjoy this book immensely. But don't expect special effects, they hadn't been invented yet.

This is a solid, intelligent novel centering around a murder trial. Abner Coates is an assistant DA, and this is his first murder case. Cozzens isn't anything if not thorough, and the legal proceedings in all their details unfold impressively. Anyone interested in courtroom procedurals will find much to savor here (including the somewhat surprising verdict). In addition to the murder trial, there are other legal matters intertwined in the story, the most interesting being a case involving a schoolteacher who had some of his students pose nude for him. Coates's relationship with Bonnie Drummond, a woman he's been dating, is also explored. Cozzens writes with sureness and authority, sometimes so much so that the prose (and thus the characters) can seem bloodless at times. But his commanding and sturdy narrative skills are a pleasure to experience, and the feeling one has at the end is that the book couldn't have been made any better.

I read this book first in 1957 as a course assignment. I found it on my mother's bookshelves and, knowing that she read principally for enjoyment, I wondered why the professor had assigned it. I found it on first reading a fascinating account of a trial and of small town life, and a welcome change from the dry texts we had been studying. Later, when I came to practice law in a small town myself, I realized that Cozzens has captured better than any author I ever have read the "taste" of real law practice. I have read it several times and recommend it to any literate person.

This is the book that a trial lawyer (me) can give to his friends who want to know "what's it like?" In addition to capturing the terror and boredom of a trial, Cozzens evokes small town New England as well as anyone I've ever read. His flawed and believable characters wrestle realistically with moral and ethical dilemmas. Cozzens also shines in "Guard of Honor" and "By Love Posessed." I don't know why he has fallen out of favor. His style may be too dense for modern, short attention spans. Their loss.