Episode 499 || Into the Backlist, Vol. 4
This week on From the Front Porch, it’s a new episode of Into the Backlist! Today, Annie changes her focus from new releases to dive into the backlist: the books that came out years ago, the books that didn’t get enough attention, the books you may stumble upon while browsing in an indie bookstore like The Bookshelf.
To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, stop by The Bookshelf in Thomasville, visit our website (search “Episode 499” on our website to find the books mentioned in this episode), or shop on The Bookshelf’s official app:
Defending Jacob by William Landay
Annie would put these on the shelf with Defending Jacob:
The First Day of Spring by Nancy Tucker
With Teeth by Kristen Arnett
Happiness Falls by Angie Kim
The Push by Ashley Audrain
The Whispers by Ashley Audrain
Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage
Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister
The President’s Lawyer by Lawrence Robbins
Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow
Past Into the Backlist titles:
Frances and Bernard by Carlene Bauer
The Ensemble by Aja Gabel (unavailable to order)
The Mothers by Brit Bennett
From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in South Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram, Tiktok, and Facebook, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website, www.bookshelfthomasville.com.
A full transcript of today’s episode can be found below.
Special thanks to Dylan and his team at Studio D Podcast Production for sound and editing and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.
This week, Annie is reading A Fine Sight to See by Sophie Hudson.
If you liked what you heard in today’s episode, tell us by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also support us on Patreon, where you can access bonus content, monthly live Porch Visits with Annie, our monthly live Patreon Book Club with Bookshelf staffers, Conquer a Classic episodes with Hunter, and more. Just go to patreon.com/fromthefrontporch.
We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week.
Our Executive Producers are...Jennifer Bannerton, Stephanie Dean, Linda Lee Drozt, Ashley Ferrell, Susan Hulings, Wendi Jenkins, Martha, Nicole Marsee, Gene Queens, Cammy Tidwell, and Amanda Whigham.
Transcript:
[squeaky porch swing] Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South. [music plays out]
“At some point as adults we cease to be our parents' children and we become our children's parents instead.” ― William Landay, Defending Jacob
[as music fades out] I’m Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and this week, we’re back with an installment of our podcast series Into the Backlist. Before we get started, a thank you to everyone who’s been leaving reviews for From the Front Porch. iTunes reviews and ratings are how new listeners can best find out about From the Front Porch and — as a result — find out about our indie bookstore, too.
Here’s a recent review:
Never Miss From The Front Porch
Love everything about this podcast from the upbeat music to the great conversation with Annie and her team. Too many great book recommendations to count! The show keeps me up to date on current releases as well as backlist gems. Makes me want to visit Thomasville, GA!
[00:01:22] Come on down, we'd love to see you. Thank you so much for this review. If you have not left a review yet, all you have to do is open up the podcast app on your phone, search for From the Front Porch, scroll down until you see 'Write a Review' and then tell us what you think. Your reviews help us spread the word about not only the podcast, but also about our small brick-and-mortar business, too. Now back to the show.
[00:01:47] Because From the Front Porch is a podcast very much wrapped up in the comings and goings of our indie bookstore, many of the books we feature are new-- or many times not-even-yet-released-- books, which means backlist titles (books published more than a year ago) can get lost or overlooked. As I began to think about podcast episodes for this year, I got to thinking about the magic of indie bookstores and how we try to replicate the in-store magic for you are often long-distance customer and podcast listener. One of the most magical things to me about browsing at an indie bookstore is the serendipitous nature of it: how you might stumble upon a book you've never seen before and be inspired to read it or buy it because of an in-store recommendation, or simply because the book begs to be read or write from the shelf. Now, don't get me wrong: I get that serendipitous feeling from new titles all the time, but it seems to especially come from unsung books, books that have been out for a while, or that one book that only that particular store seems to know about.
[00:02:48] This year I thought I'd dig through the imaginary bookshelf vault and highlight the backlist titles I think are special, books that we keep on our shelves, even though they were published years ago. To give you an idea, probably 70 percent of our book sales are front list titles. I would think 60 to 70 percent. The others are backlist titles. So when we keep a backlist title on our shelf, it's because somebody on staff is cheering for that book or rooting for that book. So these are the books we secretly hope a customer stumbles upon, asks us about, and then eventually takes home for themselves. So far this year we have done three into the backlist episodes I discussed back in January, I think it was January, Francis and Bernard, one of my beloved books. That's episode 460. Then we talked about The Ensemble, that was episode 465. And then back in May, I discussed The Mothers, which was episode 476. So if you are a backlist reader, if you're a frequent library user and sometimes new release books are hard to come by at your library, those backlist episodes might appeal to you.
[00:03:52] This is a series I've really loved doing this year. It's just been a fun way to go back really in my mental vault and see, hey, what was the backlist title I really loved and I'd like to bring more attention to? Which brings me to today's episode, where I'll be talking about William Landay's bestselling novel from 2012, Defending Jacob. In this John Grisham-esque suspense novel, we meet Andy Barber. Andy is an assistant district attorney who is beloved by coworkers and community members alike. It kind of feels like when we meet Andy that he's leading a bit of a charmed life, or at least a charm suburban life. He's happily married to Laurie, and together they have a quiet teenage son named Jacob. They're living this idyllic American suburban existence. And then the murder of a young boy shakes their community to its core. And the accused murderer is Jacob, Andy's son.
[00:04:51] What follows is true to the book's title. This is Andy's defense of Jacob and how it affects his family's once peaceful existence. I am a big fan of well-written suspense novels. Certainly when it comes to our staff members, Olivia is the expert. She is our mystery, thriller, sci fi reader. Occasionally, she'll dive into speculative fiction or magical realism. Certainly that is her genre, her lane of expertise. But I like a suspense novel, too. And Olivia and I joke that occasionally there's a Venn diagram of titles that we both really like. I like character-driven, quiet fiction. If you listen to the podcast, you know that. But I also love a page-turning thriller. Your Blake Crouch, your T.J. Newman etc.. Defining Jacob was first recommended to me by a former manager at The Bookshelf. Back in 2013, I had just started the process of owning the store and the then manager and I had completely different reading tastes and different personalities. It felt like we had little in common to discuss, and I was new in town, desperate to fit in. She could not stop talking about Defending Jacob, which at that point had been released as a paperback.
[00:06:02] It took me a few months to take the plunge. Even in those early days, it felt like I had more on my TBR than I could possibly begin to handle. But once I started the book, I could not put it down. The book is reminiscent, yes, of John Grisham, because, like Grisham, Landay is a former attorney whose expertise really lends authenticity and authority to his fiction. Defending Jacob is eerily realistic. It's a crime novel and a courtroom drama that feels like the very best law and order episode, the kind of episode you want to rewind and watch again. The novel is told in the first person, and so you, the reader, begin to almost become Andy: overwhelmed, stressed. One of the words that sometimes I use for really good suspense thrillers is claustrophobic, where you just feel like things are closing in on you. Reality begins to close in on Andy, and it also begins to close in on you as the book reaches its climactic moments. It's also, unlike many of the books I'm typically drawn to, in that so much of the storytelling takes place through dialog. Partly because a lot of this book takes place in the actual courtroom, and the style of the physical books format makes you feel like you are reading transcripts.
[00:07:17] So there is actual dialog in the book, and then there are actual fictional transcripts of courtroom dialog from the perspective of the courtroom reporter. I think this is what kind of adds to the breathless, claustrophobic sensation I'm talking about. I tend to read dialog faster than I do prose. And since much of the book takes place inside a courtroom, you get a lot of fast paced back and forth a rat-a-tat-tat like Aaron Sorkin style dialog. It's like you're in the courtroom bearing witness alongside the jury. When I-- and this has happened. This has happened every backlist episode. When I sat down to type up notes for the episode, I pulled out my paperback copy of Defending Jacob. I do love especially books that I read a longer time ago because I used to-- I'm not as good at it now-- write in the covers of my books the date I finished and my basic feelings about it. You've heard me talk about this, I think, on previous backlist episodes. So I opened my paperback, which I finished in August 2014, it says on the inside cover, and I was immediately sucked in.
[00:08:28] This happens with these backlist books where I pick them up off my shelf to type up notes for the episode, and instead what I really want to do is sit and read them. And it really did make me want to reread this book. The opening scene we're immediately introduced to Andy, he is sitting on the stand before a grand jury and he's being grilled by a former colleague, who he describes perfectly, in the prosecutor's office. So Andy was a former D.A.. As the book starts, when the book kind of flashes back to the year previous, he was a D.A. at that time. But at this point, the opening pages is kind of a flash forward. He's sitting on the stand before a grand jury. He's being grilled by this guy who was more or less his mentee. Andy kind of mentored him and made him into the prosecutor that he is. And that rat-a-tat dialog immediately begins where Landay does this really masterful job of setting the stage. He explains the basics of the justice system to the reader without ever making the reader feel talked down to.
[00:09:33] I think in a lot of legal thrillers, especially former attorneys, can get too bogged down in details and minutia. And instead, it feels like William Landay gives us just enough information so that we can understand where Andy has come from and where he is going. I will tell you that my attorney husband loves this book. I read the physical copy back in 2014, and then a couple of years later, I kept telling Jordan I became just like the former manager of The Bookshelf. She talked about that book all the time to the point where I thought, have you read anything else, like anything else that we could talk about together? And then I read it and I understood immediately why she had wanted to talk about it all the time. So I talked about it to Jordan. I knew he would like it. We wound up listening to the audiobook together. It's a great audiobook and he loved it. So I think the good news about this particular legal thriller is that a legal mind, somebody trained in the school of law will appreciate it and appreciate the attention to detail that's given. But a more lay reader, somebody who is like me and maybe familiar with the justice system-- I worked adjacent to the legal field for a few years. I think anybody could pick this up and really enjoy it.
[00:10:51] Once that chapter in-- so that opening chapter is at the grand jury, Andy is on the stand. We're then thrust to a year prior when Andy is still a D.A. and he begins investigating the murder of a local child in his suburban town. John Grisham, it should be noted, is very much a Southern writer. He's a Mississippi guy. A lot of his books take place quite realistically in the South. William Landay is a New England guy. And so this book takes place in New England. I, of course, love that setting, and I do love that this goes back and forth between a suspense thriller, a legal thriller, for sure, and then a courtroom drama. This book does clock in at 420 pages. So at first you might think-- like even when I went to pull it off myself, I thought, my gosh, this is thicker than I remember. So it doesn't look like a quick read. But remember, so much of this book is dialog, which just naturally takes up more space on a page. And then you just fly through it. I mean, to me, the mark of a good suspense novel, is when you read quickly. I like a quiet book, perhaps not just as much as, but more than the next person. But there is something about a book that you can sit and devour in 1 or 2 sittings because you just do not want to wait to find out what happens.
[00:12:17] I mentioned T.J. Newman earlier and Blake Crouch, those are writers who I think lend themselves to quick reading, and William Landay qualifies as well. So even when I sat down to research this book, once I started, what I really wanted to do was curl up on the couch and do a reread. Defending Jacob is a suspense novel, but something I haven't quite mentioned yet is it's also a book about fathers and sons and what we may or may not be genetically predisposed to. So this book was investigating inherited trauma. I think a lot of other novels really were. Landay writes a little bit about the possibility of a murder gene. Throughout the book, we discover-- and this is no spoilers, but throughout the book we realize that Andy, this kind of beloved guy in the community, has a darker past in that his father and grandfather have violent pasts and violent tendencies that Andy is constantly concerned and constantly fighting against. When our parents or grandparents have done things, we want-- oh gosh, I can't believe we're doing this. But to borrow a phrase from Colleen Hoover, we want it to end with us.
[00:13:26] And so Landay is kind of addressing that in this book where Andy knows about his past and his family legacy, but he's trying to stop that. But now his son has been accused of an extremely violent act and Andy is wondering, wait a minute, is this my family legacy? Is my kid genetically predisposed to violence and possibly murder? We're still seeing novels that are written about this today. I even think about an upcoming thriller that I think has a more snarky comedic tone. But there's a book coming out called Blood Test by Charles Baxter where this Midwestern guy who's trying to raise his family and trying to be this good guy, takes a blood test and finds out that he has murderous tendencies. Like there's this new blood test that can tell you will you become a murderer? And the main character in this book discovers that supposedly he will. And so I think we're seeing and we see all kinds of books, I think, now especially about generational trauma and about the complex nature of the families that bring us up and raise us. So this book, as much as it is a fast-paced thriller, a turn the page suspense novel, it's also asking big questions like do we know the people we love and live with? How well, how far would you go to protect or defend your kid?
[00:14:58] There is this really good interview that William Landay did in the paperback edition. He did it with Random House Reader Circle, and they're asking him about maybe the impetus behind the book and what he thinks about the concept of the murder gene and that kind of thing. And he has this great quote. He says, "It seemed to me that the questions that haunt us as parents were not so different from the questions that animate criminal law: Why do people do what they do? How do we encourage good behavior and punish bad? How do we understand one another? Above all, what does crime tell us about ourselves?" I think that perfectly sets the tone for this book. I think recently, especially on TV, I have seen people rave about the Bryan Cranston Show, The Judge, which Jordan and I watched the first one or two seasons of and really liked. And then I think about Presumed Innocent, which is a show starring Jake Gyllenhaal, which has gotten some buzz this year. If you have liked those shows, if you've ever wondered what would I do if somebody in my life was accused of violence, would I protect them, would I defend them, would I question them? I think this book will be for you.
[00:16:16] As usual, with these episodes, I want to give you some stats. So first of all, this book was originally published at the end of January 2012. In the hardback edition, it was 432 pages. It's around that same length in paperback. It was published by Delacorte Press, which is part of Penguin Random House. This book received starred reviews across the board. This does not always happen in my backlist episodes, sometimes I love a book that Kirkus did not or perhaps vice versa. But this one got star reviews from everybody. So Kirkus said "Landay is yet another lawyer-turned-writer, and it's inevitable that he'll be compared to Scott Turow. But this novel succeeds on its own merits." Scott Turow comes up a lot. He is the author of the book version of Presumed Innocent. He is an attorney-turned-writer. And look, here's what we forget about attorneys: they write a lot. Jordan writes a lot in his job. And so I think lawyers are naturally gifted or perhaps have been trained to be good writers. Are they always good suspense writers? No. But I think in Turow's case and in Landay's case, that certainly is true in Grisham's case.
[00:17:31] But I thought it was interesting that in these rave starred reviews defending Jacob received, frequently the reviewer says something like there are a lot of these. There are a lot of courtroom drama books. There are a lot of legal thrillers on the market. But they all say, but this one is worth your time. This one is worth deep diving into. This one is worth reading and investigating. There was also a starred review in Publishers Weekly. This was Landay's third book, by the way. This is definitely the one that hit big, but he had written previous books, including The Strangler. "Landay, a former D.A., mixes gritty court reporting with Andy's painful confrontation with himself, forcing readers willy nilly to realize the end is never the end. When, as Landay claims, the line between truth and justice has become so indistinct as to appear imaginary. This searing narrative proves that ancient Greek tragedies were right. The worst punishment is not death, but living with what you knowingly or unknowingly have done." It was a good review. That was that was a really well-written review.
[00:18:41] There was also a rave review from Janet Maslin in The New York Times. She wrote, "These are comfortable suburban parents who think they have done all the right things in raising their son. They've never needed to question that assumption. But the way that Jacob found Ben's body in the woods casts suspicion on Jacob, so does the fact that Ben was a bully, using Jacob as a frequent target. And it turns out to Andy and Laurie's horror that Jacob's classmates have always found him a little strange. There's more they uncover about this, and the more they uncover, the more Defending Jacob heats up." This is what's also shocking. I feel like my friends over on the Popcast talk about like Rotten Tomatoes and critic reviews versus audience reviews. And sometimes I don't always know the book equivalent of that, but I guess there are critic reviews like Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, New York Times, Book Page, and then there are also Amazon reviews and Goodreads reviews. And so there are many times where I feel like there's pretty heavy overlap, but there are occasions where a critic loves a book and then good reads doesn't rank it as high. This is a situation where I think critics and audiences agreed. Frequently when I recap a backlist title here, the Goodreads ranking is lower than I personally would put it. This was the exception.
[00:20:02] This is a 4.0 on Goodreads currently. I think of the books I've talked about this has the most reviews. This is probably the most frequently read backlist title I've covered this year. But this book has 300,000 ratings on Goodreads and 24,000 reviews. So this is a book that was popular when it released. It became an immediate bestseller. But it has become maybe more popular in the last couple years because of a TV adaptation, which we'll talk about in a just a second. The one sentence handsell for this book is: defending Jacob is a gut wrenching legal thriller that investigates how far a father will go to protect his son. One of my favorite parts of these episodes is I like to put these books on a shelf alongside-- I mean, that's something we think about as booksellers all the time. Perhaps you even think about it in your own libraries at home. Who are we going to put this book next to? What books belong to this book on a shelf? And I think certainly legal thrillers would belong with this book on a shelf, but also books about parents who begin to wonder, is there something wrong with my kid? Is my kid capable of violence in a way that could be threatening to other people? With that in mind-- just some light subject matter today.
[00:21:27] With that in mind, I would put defending Jacob on the shelf with the First Day of Spring by Nancy Tucker, With Teeth by Kristen Arnett, Happiness Falls by Angie Kim. Any of Ashley Audrain's books. She writes about this a lot in both The Push and The Whispers. Baby teeth by Zoje Stage. Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister. And then you're more traditional legal thrillers like The President's Lawyer by Lawrence Robbins. This is a book out, I think, this month. And Presumed Innocent, which I mentioned earlier by Scott Turow. My favorite quote-- listen, for a legal thriller that's heavy on dialog, this has a ton of quotes that I really liked. There were so many to choose from, including the one I opened the episode with. But there's also this "We are pattern-seeking, storytelling animals, and have been since we began drawing on cave walls."
[00:22:32] You should read this book if you like plot-driven books. This is a plot driven book where you don't know what could happen next, where characters keep you guessing as to their motives and behavior. If you miss John Grisham's older novels, or if you long for a Harrison Ford style action, thriller movie from the 90s, you should read Defending Jacob. And yes, there is a TV adaptation of this book, Jordan and I loved this TV show. I think it's got 70 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and like a 7.8 on IMDb. I don't understand why more people didn't talk about this show. I feel like I've heard a lot of people talk about The Judge, which I mentioned and presumed innocent. Defending Jacob is great. It's on Apple TV Plus and it stars Chris Evans, Captain America himself, and Michelle Dockery- Lady Mary from Downton Abbey. So Chris Evans, Michelle Dockery, and then Jaeden Martel, who you might recognize from the movie It, plays Jacob. I thought it was great. Cherry Jones is in the adaptation. J.K. Simmons. I thought it was really true to the book. I thought it was well acted. I think it's an eight episode mini-series.
[00:23:54] I think one of The New York Times critics said it was too long of a show, but Jordan and I disagreed. We really did like it. As I mentioned, the audiobook, narrated by Grover Gardiner, is also really great. So if you're an audiobook listener, you might want to pick up the audiobook version instead. I really liked this book. I think it's a great backlist title. You may already be familiar with it because it was a bestseller and it may have gotten recent attention because of the TV adaptation from a couple of years ago. But if you've not read it yet, if you've not taken the plunge, I think now would be a great time to do so. It'll get you thinking. It would be a great book club book, actually. Not all thrillers make good book club books, but I think this one would. There'd be plenty to discuss. So that is Defending Jacob by William Landay. It released originally in 2012 and now is, of course, available in paperback.
[00:24:56] This week, I’m reading A Fine Sight to See by Sophie Hudson.
[00:24:58] Annie Jones: From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram at @bookshelftville, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website:
A full transcript of today’s episode can be found at:
Special thanks to Studio D Podcast Production for production of From the Front Porch and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.
Our Executive Producers of today’s episode are…
Cammy Tidwell, Linda Lee Drozt, Martha, Stephanie Dean, Ashley Ferrell, Jennifer Bannerton, Gene Queens
Executive Producers (Read Their Own Names): Nicole Marsee, Wendi Jenkins, Susan Hulings
Annie Jones: If you’d like to support From the Front Porch, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your input helps us make the show even better and reach new listeners. All you have to do is open up the Podcast App on your phone, look for From the Front Porch, scroll down until you see ‘Write a Review’ and tell us what you think. Or, if you’re so inclined, support us over on Patreon, where we have 3 levels of support - Front Porch Friends, Book Club Companions, and Bookshelf Benefactors. Each level has an amazing number of benefits like bonus content, access to live events, discounts, and giveaways. Just go to:
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