Thurgood Marshall’s 1930s world formed by the separate but equal doctrine, and Perry Mason’s fictional 1930s world in which lawyer ethics were still optional, seem very strange. What will our world seem like in 80 years?
The summer after my graduation was perfect. I wasn’t working; couldn’t find any. So I kept my own hours — noon to 3 a.m., working on the Great American High School Novel. Only problem: I really had nothing to say about high school. But I think my inchoate hope was that by making sense of it all through fiction, I could still get the girl to love me.