Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Set in New Orleans during the bleak years after Hurricane Katrina, SERAPHIM tracks a murder investigation by a defense attorney who is driven to exonerate his client at any cost. Two young lawyers, Ben Alder and Boris Pasternak, arrive in the New Orleans public defender's office determined to represent those most in peril: kids who are to be prosecuted as adults. When 16-year-old Robert Johnson is arrested and charged with murder, the two set about constructing his defense, with Ben taking the lead. But years of heavy cases spark a burning recklessness in Ben. He does what he believes-- what he knows-- must be done. And in his fervor to absolve Robert, Ben spins a web to bend the narrative in his favor, one in which everyone is expendable-- even those his young client loves most.
A riveting story of loyalty and grief that cross-examines an unjust criminal legal system, SERAPHIM combines the grit and realism of Richard Price's Clockers with the empathy and psychological complexity of Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union.
Synopsis
From a former New Orleans public defender comes a gritty and thrilling interrogation of crime, violence, and the limits of justice in the chaotic times after Hurricane Katrina... A 16-year-old confesses to the murder of a local celebrity--a hero of New Orleans's shaky post-storm recovery... The boy's father, doing life in prison on the installment plan for a series of minor offenses, will do anything to save him...
Enter Ben Alder, a carpetbagging attorney (and former rabbinical seminary student) who has drifted down to New Orleans. He winds up defending them both.
Ben and his partner, Boris, are public defenders obsessed with redeeming their case history of failures, and willing to do anything to protect their clients. As Ben tries to disrupt a corrupt and racist criminal justice system that believes an inexplicable crime has been solved, he confronts his own legacy of loss and faith. And as the novel hurtles towards its tragic, redemptive conclusion, Ben finds himself an onlooker and a perpetrator where he thought he was the hero.
A riveting and propulsive story about loyalty and grief, Seraphim is also an unflinching cross-examination of a broken legal system; a heartbreaking portrait of a beautiful, lost city, filled with children who kill and are killed; and a discomforting reflection on privilege, prejudice, and power.