Michael Schein
Autor von Just Deceits: A Historical Courtroom Mystery
Werke von Michael Schein
Getagged
Wissenswertes
- Geschlecht
- male
- Nationalität
- USA
- Geburtsort
- Vermont, USA
- Wohnorte
- Seattle, Washington, USA
Snoqualmie Valley, Washington, USA - Berufe
- professor
lawyer
poet - Organisationen
- Seattle University
Humanities Washington
LiTFUSE Poet's Workshop - Preise und Auszeichnungen
- Pushcart Prize Nominee
- Kurzbiographie
- Michael Schein is an author, attorney, and former professor of American Legal History. Mr. Schein taught American Legal history from 1988-2003, and since that time he has taught over one hundred continuing legal education classes, amny focusing on legal history. He has served on the speakers' bureau of Humanities Washington, and he is Director of the annual LiTFUSE Poet's Workshop. His poetry has been supported by a grant from King County 4Culture, and has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize. Originally from Vermont, Mr. Schein and his wife raise two daughters in Seattle and them moved to the Snoqualmie Valley in the foothills of the Washington Cascades. [adapted from John Surratt (20150]
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Just Deceipts von Michael Schein
(1991)Pretty good historical novel about the Randolphs of Virginia in 1793. Nancy and her brother-in-law Richard are accused of having an affair and the murder of their newborn baby. The story really picks up as they are brought to trial and are defended by future Chief Justice John Marshall and patriot Patrick Henry. Even though they are aquitted, it is learned in the end that there was a baby only it was fathered by Theodorick Randolph, who Nancy had secretly married against her father's wishes. Richard's brother Jack who was scorned by Nancy in a previous failed rape attempt by him, tries to get his revenge by encouraging the case.(Book description) In 1793, Virginia s most powerful family found itself embroiled in scandal: Richard Randolph and his sister-in-law, the beautiful Nancy Randolph, were charged with adultery and infanticide. Richard Randolph demanded a public trial. Richard s stepfather, Judge Henry St. George Tucker, hired John Marshall, a young lawyer who was connected to their family through marriage. John Marshall would go on to become the greatest Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, a man whose theories of law are now taught to every first year law student, though at the time of the Randolph trial he was relatively unknown. Uncertain about Marshall s abilities, the Randolph family at the last minute and unbeknownst to Marshall brought in co-counsel; none other than founding father and former Virginia governor Patrick Henry. Henry s wild, improvisational style clashed with Marshall s reasoned defense based on the facts, but Henry was so successful that Marshall was forced to learn from him and then to improve on the master. Author Michael Schein, a former professor of American legal history, drew on John Marshall s actual trial notes in writing this novel that centers on the trial of the 18th century. Just Deceits shows how the remarkable defense team of wily Patrick Henry and ambitious John Marshall battled each other, their clients, the prosecution, and the truth itself, in an effort to save their clients from the gallows. In its ribald portrayal of a young legal system already driven more by spectacle than evidence, Just Deceits calls into question the feasibility of uncovering "the whole truth." Ultimately, as secrets are revealed and relationships brought to light, Just Deceits tells a story as much about the trials of love as about the trial in the courtroom.… (mehr)
Very interesting if you're a former High School history teacher whose favorite period in US History begins with the Revolution and vends when Old Hickory takes office. Others might find it a tad boring. Brilliant people, new political ideas put in action, mixed with a society not to far removed from the Puritans in New England. Add those wealthy planters.......great story beyond the trial
Subtitled “A Historical Novel of Puget Sound,” Michael Schein’s Bones Beneath Our Feet tells us the story of two men, Isaac Stevens, Mexican-American War veteran and first governor of Washington Territory, and Leschi, Chief of the Nisqually tribe. Published by Bennett & Hastings, a Seattle-based independent publisher, the novel, at first glance, appears like yet another retelling of a White Man-vs.-Native American conflict told with the subtlety of an afternoon special. “Remember kids, the white man is a pure embodiment of evil while the Native Americans are innocent, Nature-loving gentlefolk.” This is the simplistic moralizing found in everything from Dances with Wolves, Last of the Mohicans, and, of all things, Avatar. Luckily, Schein’s novel lacks the simplistic moralizing and White Guilt-infused condescension of those tales.
The novel takes place in antebellum Washington Territory, formerly run by the British until 1846 following the Treaty of Oregon. Schein excels at describing the Native American tribes of the Pacific Northwest. Their societies differ radically from the stereotypical Native American (read: Plains Indian). He shows the religious cosmology infusing their world around them. When the inevitable war occurs, Chief Leschi fights for the land surrounding the Nisqually River that the tribe had settled from time immemorial. The depiction of Native American religion is done with delicacy and care with neither multicultural condescension nor New Agey platitudes. However, the Nisqually tribe is not all salmon fishing, communing with nature, and rainbows. The tribe practices both polygamy and slavery. In the latter, the lowborn slaves perform the menial tasks unbecoming to the family of the chief. (An ironic situation since the United States practices slavery at the time of the novel.)
Isaac Stevens is the other polestar in this epic conflict. While depicted as duplicitous, avaricious, and a whoremongering drunk, he cares deeply for the safety of his family and the orderly administration of his territory. Like Leschi, he is a man of his convictions, working hard to keep the constellation of individuals under his command in order. Like the majority of Americans at the time, he subscribes to Manifest Destiny. This involves the conquest of territory in order to make America white, Christian, and specifically Protestant. All other factions and races will be subjugated, domesticated, and normalized. (When the extremist fringes yammer on about “taking America back” and “traditional values”, these are the things they are too afraid to verbalize, since that would involve calling them out as archaic, religiously bigoted, racist digbats.)
The events leading up to and following the war occur in epic proportions. Bones Beneath Our Feet is a complex, nuanced, revisionist epic with a massive cast of characters, pitched battles, reversals, small acts of human tenderness, and a climactic court scene. Characters seem both larger-than-life and humanely familiar. Schein excels at returning the Historical – and by turns Hagiographic – to the human. While Bennett & Hastings has put out a story of regional importance to Washington State, this novel seems ready for a small screen adaptation. (It deserves a multi-season treatment on par with Deadwood or Boardwalk Empire.) While this review has avoided the specificities of plot, this reviewer highly recommends this novel with the reader discovering the twists and turns of the narrative.
http://driftlessareareview.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/bones-beneath-our-feet-by-mi...… (mehr)
The novel takes place in antebellum Washington Territory, formerly run by the British until 1846 following the Treaty of Oregon. Schein excels at describing the Native American tribes of the Pacific Northwest. Their societies differ radically from the stereotypical Native American (read: Plains Indian). He shows the religious cosmology infusing their world around them. When the inevitable war occurs, Chief Leschi fights for the land surrounding the Nisqually River that the tribe had settled from time immemorial. The depiction of Native American religion is done with delicacy and care with neither multicultural condescension nor New Agey platitudes. However, the Nisqually tribe is not all salmon fishing, communing with nature, and rainbows. The tribe practices both polygamy and slavery. In the latter, the lowborn slaves perform the menial tasks unbecoming to the family of the chief. (An ironic situation since the United States practices slavery at the time of the novel.)
Isaac Stevens is the other polestar in this epic conflict. While depicted as duplicitous, avaricious, and a whoremongering drunk, he cares deeply for the safety of his family and the orderly administration of his territory. Like Leschi, he is a man of his convictions, working hard to keep the constellation of individuals under his command in order. Like the majority of Americans at the time, he subscribes to Manifest Destiny. This involves the conquest of territory in order to make America white, Christian, and specifically Protestant. All other factions and races will be subjugated, domesticated, and normalized. (When the extremist fringes yammer on about “taking America back” and “traditional values”, these are the things they are too afraid to verbalize, since that would involve calling them out as archaic, religiously bigoted, racist digbats.)
The events leading up to and following the war occur in epic proportions. Bones Beneath Our Feet is a complex, nuanced, revisionist epic with a massive cast of characters, pitched battles, reversals, small acts of human tenderness, and a climactic court scene. Characters seem both larger-than-life and humanely familiar. Schein excels at returning the Historical – and by turns Hagiographic – to the human. While Bennett & Hastings has put out a story of regional importance to Washington State, this novel seems ready for a small screen adaptation. (It deserves a multi-season treatment on par with Deadwood or Boardwalk Empire.) While this review has avoided the specificities of plot, this reviewer highly recommends this novel with the reader discovering the twists and turns of the narrative.
http://driftlessareareview.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/bones-beneath-our-feet-by-mi...… (mehr)
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kswolff | 2 weitere Rezensionen | Oct 19, 2011 | Statistikseite
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