ONE L

Like the hero of the book-then-film, The Paper Chase, Turow got all frazzled—smoking, drinking, making and breaking psychiatric appointments—by his first year at Harvard Law School (1975-76), the year with all the tough courses, heavy pressures, competitive snarls, and think-like-a-lawyer angst. So it's a wonder he was able to find time to keep this stupefyingly detailed journal, what with taking notes in technicolor (different pens for case-briefs, lectures, etc.), joining a study group, plunging into "moot court" arguments, fretting about future employment, and brooding over the motives of a brilliant, sadistic prof, the failings of an incompetent one, and the viability of the Socratic question-and answer law-teaching approach. Written too soon after the event to stifle self-dramatization—or to touch on the tenuous relationship between actual law practice and classroom drilling—this will be of interest only to masochistic, prospective law students but may mislead them, since Harvard's enormous classes, hothouse ambiance, and rock-rigid first-year requirements are less than representative of current options in legal education.