I tend not to write in “rave” language, but I’m pretty excited about this one. Life’s Illusions is the debut novel by Michael Kenny, and it’s remarkable this is his first book. A little background first. Although my career has been as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, I spent 30 years offering testimony about the psychological damage that someone had or had not suffered as the result of injuries and crimes. I’ve met with and gotten to know, love, and dislike numerous lawyers in the process of doing 2,000 cases. Here’s the line you’re waiting for: “Some of my best friends are lawyers.” Once I got far enough along in my career and life, and after my kids were done with their respective graduate schools, I chose to retire from the forensics part of my work and continue with the psychotherapy/psychoanalytic part of my practice. There’s no question that my quality of life has improved dramatically since I stopped dealing with the courts. But, it is fair to say that I was immersed in one part of the legal system for a long time, and I’ve known some formidable criminal and civil attorneys.
In Life’s Illusions, Michael Kenny begins the story by starting with the closing argument by Jonathan Kent, one of the biggest cases he tried over the course of his very successful career. I don’t remember a legal drama starting with a closing argument, but that’s what Kenny did, so much of the book was backstory. An important part of the story was Jonathan’s intense dedication to the work it takes to win trials, but his single experience with love provided an important background for his character. The backstory included the history of the precedent setting cases that he tried, and it described in detail the politics that went on within a Big Law firm. I found the entire story to be believable, and I’ve personally seen big time litigators have terrible home lives and big family troubles. It seems that to be a successful trial lawyer, one must disappear from his family for lengths of time, sometimes very long lengths of time.
I found the characters and the plot to be rapid paced and I did not want to put the book down. The quality of the writing was wonderful and the social issues were profound that Kenny was able to address through the cases that Jonathan tried. On the one hand, I was a little disappointed in the end of the book, but on the other hand, Kenny’s end to this story allows for a second book that would be a continuation for the characters he so powerfully created. After one novel, I’m a fan of Michael Kenny – I want more.
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