Judge: A Novel

by Dwight Allen

When beloved Judge William Dupree dies at eighty-two, he leaves his widow, two adult sons, and a more than devoted clerk to mourn him. The Judge-gentle, reserved, henpecked, and a lifelong Republican-was appointed to the United States District Court by Richard Nixon. But once on the bench, he invariably ruled for the liberal argument-pro-civil rights, pro-choice-dismaying his upper-crust Louisville, Kentucky, cronies, not to mention his wife. Mary Louise Dupree, a nagging hypochondriac (considered by some an out-and-out shrew), remembers her marriage querulously, but softens the day she must also bury the judge's loyal little dog, Duff. His two sons, Crawford and Morgan, react to his death by behaving in ways that would surely have disappointed him. His law clerk, Lucy, remembers him as a saint who politely lusted for her and finally acted on that lust at the age of eighty. In the aftermath of the judge's death, the mourners interrelate disastrously, acting out their grief. While they are grappling with loss and notions of an afterlife, they all feel-and sometimes even see-his presence. Dead or alive, the Duprees are, as a family, perpetually restless in their insistence on family love even in the face of family failures.

315 pages, Hardcover

First published April 11, 2003

Reviews

[Sorokind Banana · Rating 1 out of 5]

Insufferable.

[Voracious_reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dwight Allen's Judge is rambly. It has potential for warmth but one of its only likeable characters is dead by the end of the first page. I can tell that Allen likes his characters, but I don't. It really feels more like a clumsy, adolescent love story that is trying really hard with its multiple flashbacks and flash forwards and flash inwards and flash elsewheres. I kept reading it hoping it would improve; finally it was just over--over without Allen having provided any real insight into the world or his characters. I've got two words for you: self-absorbed and boring. I understand that he is trying to tell a story whose point is that you only get to true love by withholding judgment, but it's almost like he is asking you to like his story and his characters unconditionally.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second book I've read by 2009 book festival author, Dwight Allen. I liked it but found it about one wife/relationship too long. Judge William Dupree has two sons: Crawford-the older and Morgan-the younger. The wife Lucy is a nagging hypochondriac and his cousin Louis is a closet homosexual who had an affair with the judge. Quirky imagery: p. 76. "Like my father's clothes, Uncle Louis's always looked as if they'd been tailored for his shadow, or for the person he might become if only he would eat three square meals a day." A fun read. The unexpected pops up on a regular basis.