The Trial of Abigail Goodman - Hardcover

That robustly persistent booster of the cause of civil liberties and the brotherhood of man, and author of over 80 published works (most recently, Being Red, 1990), now takes on the cause of women's rights--specifically the right to choose abortion- -and produces a lively courtroom drama, set in an unnamed southern state. A 41-year-old professor, having (presumably) had an abortion, is on trial for her life as a newly minted law makes abortion a crime punishable by death. ``Yesterday we were a sleepy backwater town. Today we're the hub of the universe,'' says presiding Judge George Lee Benson--a dream judge, hard as nails, fair, with a razor mind able to slice through windy detours and elaborate legal maneuvers. Outside the courtroom where Abigail Goodman is on trial are reporters from major foreign and American newspapers (they'll contribute sidebar versions of events). There are also bused-in activists from the pro's and con's. Meanwhile, Abigail, whose grandfather was a senator from the state, is represented by two friends--married couple Jack and Button Ridley--and by her husband, Bill, also a lawyer. They're joined by a New York attorney working pro bono, but he's then severely beaten and left for dead. (Possibly responsible is the anti-Semitism element about town.) Witnesses--clergy, doctors, and Abigail herself--are led out and into troubling unsolvable matters, both theological and medical, and often the judge summons lawyers into conference and snaps them to. The final breaking point in the trial will involve some fancy legal footwork before the case is buttoned up. The question raised here remains--whether the fierce anti- abortion movement is more angry for the sake of the unborn or at the emancipation of women. Fast, in any event, is donating profits from the book to Planned Parenthood. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The veteran author of some 50 books ( Citizen Tom Paine ; The Immigrants , etc.) stays up to date in a fast-paced, often electrifying novel dramatizing the abortion controversy. Sometime in the near future, Abigail Goodman, feminist history professor in a sleepy Southern town and 41-year-old mother of two, finds herself unexpectedly pregnant; she decides, with her husband's approval, to have an abortion. Shortly thereafter, she is indicted under a new state law that retroactively makes abortion after the first trimester an act of murder punishable by death. Fast is a master of courtroom pyrotechnics, and sparks fly when the defense team grills the ambitious DA's star witnesses: a Catholic bishop, a Hasidic rabbi and an obstetrician who once performed abortions. Though the sensational trial gives full play to both sides, the author's sympathies obviously lie with his forthright, brave and nervous heroine, who views the law as a weapon in men's campaign to subjugate women. Fast intersperses the main narrative with dispatches from U.S. and foreign journalists' coverage of the trial and attendant redneck violence which, if not always realistic, do provide a global perspective on what he sees as America's parochial attitude toward abortion.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.