‘The hard part, the heavy lifting in your life, has been done’
Bestselling novelist and lawyer Scott Turow talks about marriage second time around, more movie prospects and his rock band with Stephen King. By Hannah Stephenson
Lockdown is providing the rare treat of relaxation for bestselling legal thriller writer Scott Turow in the Florida sunshine where he spends his winters.
But he reckons he and his second wife, banking executive Adriane Glazier, will be holed up there for most of the year – and seems to be enjoying every minute.
Unlike his peers including John Grisham and Lisa Scottoline, who gave up their legal careers to turn to writing full-time, Turow has remained a practising lawyer, dividing his time between taking on cases, some pro-bono, from his Chicago base, and writing bestselling legal thrillers.
“For decades, I’ve been a parttime lawyer,” the genial author and partner with international law firm Dentons explains.
“Most days I’m a writer. On the other hand we had a brief to file last week, so everything else gets pushed aside. You have to be wise about what to take on. But I’m sure that five years from now, I’m not going to be practising law anymore. It has a natural tendency to wind down.”
It may be three decades since his debut novel Presumed Innocent was adapted into a hit movie starring Harrison Ford and Greta Scacchi, but his star is far from being on the wane.
Turow turned 71 in April but shows no signs of slowing down. He’s written 11 bestselling novels and three non-fiction books, which have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold more than 30 million copies.
In his latest thriller, The Last Trial, we see the return of the familiar defence attorney Sandy Stern, who first appeared in Presumed Innocent but is now 85 and taking his last case defending his long-time friend, a Nobeldecorated doctor and medical researcher accused of murder, fraud and insider training.
The story unfolds around a new anti-cancer wonder drug, g-livia, pioneered by the doctor’s research company, which initially promised amazing results and saved Stern from an early death from lung cancer, but has allegedly led to the death of other test subjects.
The doctor is also accused of altering data to hide the problem from the medical authorities and of selling off a large slice of stock before the data was made public.
All the trademark Turow twists and turns are there, as well as meticulous research into the difficulties in bringing a new drug to market.
The irony of penning a story which highlights such a dilemma isn’t lost on Turow, as the real-life quest to find a Covid-19 vaccine continues.
“The timing is good. If people don’t understand why there’s not a vaccine tomorrow, this book will help them understand it. I admit that I didn’t have as great an appreciation as I should have, of the dilemmas that the pharmaceutical companies face and the immense amount of money they waste on drugs that are thought to be effective that turn out not to be.”
Over the years, Turow’s work has been adapted for both TV and film – and there is interest from Hollywood studios in adapting The Last Trial, although he’s cautious about the outcome.
“This is not typical Hollywood demographics. An 85-year-old man and an elderly defendant is not what Hollywood is typically looking for, but the world of TV these days is much broader. We’ll see what happens.
“I didn’t write the novel thinking that people in Hollywood were going to be battling over the rights, but there’s a fair amount of interest.”
With no thoughts of retirement, Turow reflects that ageing has its up-side.
“There are compensations. I have five grandchildren now and it’s wonderful. It’s as exciting as anything in my life
Scott Turow’s new novel The Last Trial features lawyer Sandy Stern, who appeared in his debut hit Presumed Innocent
to watch them grow up.”
He married for the second time four years ago.
“To be honest, it was my wife’s strong desire to get married which was the principal driver – as it happens she was right. I felt we had a great relationship but there’s something really great which emerges from that lifetime commitment.
“I was like a lot of guys, thinking, ‘What’s the difference? We’re not going to have kids together, we’re committed to each other.’ I had no thoughts of leaving this woman.
“But I didn’t consider what marriage would add to the relationship.”
His divorce from artist Annette Weisberg, after nearly 40 years of marriage – they had three children together – had initially put him off getting married again, he admits.
“There’s nothing about the process of divorce that would make anyone want to repeat it, but the saying that a second marriage is a triumph of hope over experience is certainly the case.
“I have a wonderful relationship now with my ex-wife. We’re in steady communication usually about our kids and our grandchildren. I’m sure our kids are always thinking, why couldn’t the two of you have treated each other that way when you were married?”
Marriage second time around is very different, he reflects.
“You’re not going through the daily toil of child-rearing, which frankly takes your attention away from each other. In the case of my marriage, I don’t think we came out well at the other end of that process.
“You don’t have that going on when you’re older. You don’t have the anxieties of building your career. We don’t live with terrible financial pressure, which is often the case in the first marriage.
“The hard part, the heavy lifting in your life, has been done. Now you’re on the glide path and you know who you are. And if you are lucky and understand what didn’t work the first time, it can work very well.”
He continues: “My wife is a really positive person. There’s a lot going on in the world which you could focus on which is not good.
“But her attitude is, ‘Look at how beautiful this is and aren’t we lucky to be here and that the kids and grandchildren are all healthy?’ That positive attitude is good to be around and it combats the grumpy part of myself.”
When not in lockdown, he plays golf and tennis and spends a lot of time with his children and grandchildren and is also looking forward to meeting up with his band The Rock Bottom Remainders – a group of top novelists including Stephen King, who between them have published more than 150 titles and sold more than 350 million books, although their musical skills are questionable, he muses.
“We have continued, even though many of the members are in their 70s, a little like The Rolling Stones – that’s probably the only time that The Rock Bottom Remainders could be compared to The Rolling Stones.
“Steve (King) is such a gigantic star. When I first joined the band I was told that travelling with Steve is like travelling with a Beatle.
“I whispered to one of my bandmates, ‘Do you realise that you have on this stage a number of writers who have had incredibly blessed careers, but if you put together our sales figures Steve has sold more books than the entire band put together?’”
Though Presumed Innocent, published in 1987, made Turow an ‘overnight success’, he points out that he’d written three unpublished novels before hitting the big time.
“’Overnight’ was really 20 years,” he says wryly. “That tempered my inclination to get carried away with myself.”
After Innocent, the sequel to Presumed Innocent, was published in 2010, he thought there might be a third Rusty Sabich novel.
“I won’t say there won’t be, but the next book I write is not going to be that novel,” he says.
“I didn’t write the novel thinking that people in Hollywood were going to be battling over the rights, but there’ s a fair amount of interest”