Judge Stone
Judge Stone
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James Patterson on Judge Stone
In his own words: quotes and insights from the author.Why he wrote it
A courthouse dream decades in the makingThe idea did not begin with Viola Davis or with the abortion case at the novel’s center. It began with a book Patterson read at Vanderbilt in graduate school, one that lodged in him for years before he found a shape for what it had made him want.
There was a beginning of an idea, and it had to do with a big courtroom trial. Part of it is ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ just the effect that it had on me when I was in graduate school at Vanderbilt. And I kind of wanted to write a big courthouse Southern. [paraphrased from audio]
Patterson had seen Davis’s screen work for years, but it was a different kind of text that convinced him she was the right collaborator for this particular project: her memoir, Finding Me, which he read before approaching her.
Of course, I’d seen her in a lot of films and TV, but reading Finding Me made me realise she was a really good storyteller, a very honest storyteller. That was really attractive to me, particularly with this project.
When the Sydney Morning Herald framed the book’s subject, an illegal abortion in Alabama, as a bold or politically risky choice for a mainstream American author, Patterson rejected the premise entirely. He came to the subject from polling data, not from a partisan position.
I don’t think it is. This shouldn’t be political. It should be something people are willing to talk about.
He pointed to surveys showing 85 percent of Americans believe abortion should be accessible in cases of rape, and argued that the restrictive laws on the books reflect legislators, not the public. The gap between those two things is, for him, the story.
How he wrote it
Two people, no committee, real dialoguePatterson has co-authored many books, but he drew a distinction at USA Today between this collaboration and the layered approvals typical of a film production. The absence of institutional interference was, for him, a feature of the process worth naming.
With Hollywood, with movies, you have a lot of people. There’s the studio and the manager and the agents and the other actors. It was just two of us. Our thing was, let’s just keep making this better and better.
Davis rewrote substantial portions of his dialogue, and Patterson explains why that made the book function in a way his drafts alone could not. Her judgment came from a specific professional reflex, not from general instinct.
One of the hugely important things that Viola brings to this project – including re-writing a lot of my dialogue – is that she’s used to getting scripts written by other people and going ‘I don’t know if this is going to play.’ In this case, that was never a problem; we knew the dialogue would work because Viola knew it was something she could say as an actor, something that would drive the narrative. That’s important and really useful.
Nova, the 13-year-old at the center of the abortion case, was the character they returned to most often in revision. The risk was a familiar one in fiction and film: a child who speaks with an adult’s precision and loses all credibility as a child.
This little girl, her thinking is good. But she’s a little girl. [paraphrased from audio]
Patterson pushes back at the 92nd Street Y on the shorthand most readers and critics reach for when describing what makes his books work. Short chapters are the surface explanation; he names something underneath it.
Everything that I do, it must have a voice. There’s a big difference between the Jane Smith novels and this voice. [paraphrased from audio]
The Jane Smith novels he references are his own long-running FBI thriller series, driven by a very different register. His point is that the chapter length is a consequence of voice, not a trick applied to any manuscript.
On what’s at stake
A country that has stopped talkingPatterson’s concern about public discourse predates the specific case in Judge Stone. He arrived at the book’s subject through a larger worry about what American political life has lost, and he named it without softening at USA Today.
In my time on the planet, and I could be wrong on this, but I’ve never seen less open-mindedness. There was a time in the Senate, in the Congress, where these people would disagree and then go out for dinner together and talk about stuff. And it doesn’t seem to be happening. And I think that’s terrible. I think that’s a terrible thing.
Judge Stone, the circuit court judge at the novel’s center, does not deliver a verdict on the abortion debate itself. Patterson explains at USA Today why that restraint is the point of the book, and what he hoped it would model for readers.
One of the interesting things here is Judge Stone doesn’t really come down on one side, she just conducts this discussion, which I think we need to do more of. Let’s discuss this stuff. I have respect for people who honestly come to either side of it, as long as they come to it honestly, but then talk more.
The scenario Patterson wants readers to sit with is not abstract. He spells out, at USA Today, the specific legal circumstance the book puts on trial and what he thinks it demands of anyone willing to engage honestly.
When we get into these really tricky situations like a 13-year-old who’s been raped, where do we go with that? The idea that in some states, the doctor could get a life-ending sentence, where do we go with that? Is there any fairness there? Let’s talk about it because we need to talk about it.
What he wants us to sit with
Justice as a way of being, not a verdictPatterson’s description of Judge Stone as a character is also his description of what he thinks public life is missing. He draws the contrast at the Sydney Morning Herald between the book’s fictional judge and the tenor of the actual country she inhabits.
One of the things we’re struggling with in this country right now is justice. Judge Stone is a just human being. She never takes sides in this case and you don’t necessarily know where she will come out on some of the issues. She simply tries to be equitable.
Patterson told CBS News that ambition for a book is easy to state and hard to deliver. His assessment of whether Judge Stone got there is blunt.
You know, every book you start, you want it to be great. And sometimes, you have to settle for not so good, or very good. And in this case, I think we settled for great.
What he wants after a reader finishes is not agreement with any position the book takes. He told the Sydney Morning Herald: ‘There’s nothing better for me than if at the end of the whole thing people are talking about the book and discussing it. That’s what we need more of... discussion. Let’s keep our minds open and keep talking.’