The Control Sickness

by Robert Black

Robert Black's first novella, a satirical but humorous piece, based upon his experiences as a defense lawyer in New Zealand.

133 pages, Paperback

First published December 13, 2011

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve always loved lawyer films and novels so The Control Sickness had me intrigued from the description right away. I’m still clueless when it comes to the nomenclature surrounding the courtroom so the first chapter had me in stitches. From then on it was an honest, engaging and revealing account which I thoroughly enjoyed. I’ve read other books by Robert Black and I have yet to be disappointed, the author is very talented and has a gift for writing witty, attractive prose.

[Tabitha Ormiston-Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

The addition of graphic and rather adolescent porn did nothing to enliven this dreary little tale, and the sloppiness of its presentation, with its ridiculous number of homophone errors, not to mention actual misspellings, and weird, surreal changes of pronoun midsentence was not a very good advertisement for Black's services in the law. The one attempt at humour fell flat - it is quite beyond the bounds of credibility that any practising lawyer, however much a novice, would be unaware of the robing requirements of a court where he was to appear. The incident where the lawyer 'cannot be heard' worked well for Tim Kevan in Law and Disorder, where I suspect this chapter was sourced, but sadly did not work for Mr Black.
All in all, this would have been better left unpublished.

[Abby Vandiver · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Control Sickness depicts days out of the life of a lawyer. It's humorous at times, graphic, and gives real insight to the profession. Robert Black, the name of the main character (and author) tells the story.

The first chapter was hilarious. I knew from the start of it that it was something more than the inability to hear that was the cause of the problem, and leading up to Black's (MC) discovery, the writing was superb. I laughed out loud several times. In all, Black (the author) is a talented writer, however, for later chapters, I found the story disjointed. After the first couple of chapters I thought, perhaps it was a collection of short stories, but not all chapters came to a conclusion. Details were missing and it seemed that the author was just relaying different stories from his career. Transisition to make the story flow, in my opinion were missing. I'm not sure of the title, as in the book it had something to do with an idea that was not a main (actually, quite miniscule) part of the story.

They're were some sex scenes that popped up, without warning, as did legal cases. The ending was good for me, because I could wholeheartedly relate to the character's decision.

A short read that will be most appreciated by other lawyers.

[Bronwen Webb · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you've seen and enjoyed the BBC series "Silks," you'll enjoy this book. The story immediately throws the reader into the terrifying first court appearance of a young lawyer, with hilarious results. From there, the story involves difficult judges, games lawyers play with potential jurors and many other amusing anecdotes. But there is also the sad and challenging aspects of the law, and the impact this has on the lawyers. The writing is real (based on the author's own experiences) which makes the reader feel they are right there in the courtroom. While the story, so strong at the beginning, waned a bit towards the end (almost in tandem with the lawyer's interest in the law), it is well worth reading and I highly recommend it.