Ordinary Heroes, by Scott Turow

A literary novel written by an author known primarily for his crime fiction.

Finally, a novel written by a lawyer that has heart and soul. And a narrator who isn’t a lawyer. Or at least one of them is not a lawyer. The protagonists in Ordinary Heroes are a father and a son. The son, who is the story’s narrator, Stewart, is a retired journalist. He is the instrument through which you hear his father’s story, a story that would never otherwise be told, a story kept secret by the father, David, for sixty years, and uncovered only on account of Stewart’s persistence in discovering why his father had died without letting his son know him, why he’d been a “crypt of a human being.” David was a lawyer with JAG during World War II. The story involves the events leading up to David’s allowing, against orders, a prisoner to escape in 1945 in Germany. Before his court martial, David’s defense counsel goaded him into writing a detailed account of the events that led up to the charges against him, a memoir, in fact. It is this account that Stewart discovers and discloses, in effect making David the narrator of his own story. Ordinary Heroes has two first person narrators, one to deliver the plot, and the second, Stewart’s, to fit the pieces together in a literary depiction of consequences wrought by World War II on a father, mother and son.

Ordinary Heroes is a literary novel written by an author known primarily in the court room genre. It is a refreshing departure from the overused plots in crime fiction. The characters are beautifully developed, and there is nothing formulaic about the plot. The story is one that illustrates their failures and successes, and their dreams and disappointments. It is a snapshot of lives, the picture in focus in some places, and not in others. The plot is clever and engaging, but it is not the primary force in the novel. The characters are the reason to read the story.

Ordinary Heroes is unlike Turow’s other work, and an exemplary demonstration of his writing ability. Most likely, this wouldn’t have been published by a major publisher if it were his first novel. To keep his other, bestselling, stuff coming, this piece of literary fiction was more than likely accommodated by them. The marketing people called it a leap from the courtroom to the battlefield. Seriously! It was a much further leap than that. And all of us should hope that Turow leaps again in this manner in the future. So far, nothing yet.

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