An Interested Life

by Earl C. Dudley

What the author calls his "worm's-eye view" of significant events in the second half of the 20th century is, in fact, much more enlightened -- and enlightening -- than that. As he writes in the introduction, "On two identifiable occasions in my early childhood my life was saved by the heroic deeds of women and men in the American armed services in World War II. Many years later I was privileged to work with several giants of the American legal and political scene . . . and to take part in exciting events that shaped some aspects of our political and legal culture." His life story spans internment in a prison camp in the Philippines, the impact of Brown v. Board of Education on a boy raised in the South, the heady experience of running a news desk when President Kennedy was shot, a clerkship with Chief Justice Earl Warren, legal work on Capitol Hill, a wide range of cases as a litigator in Washington, DC, and the joys of being a law school professor. Woven throughout are remembrances of growing up in rural Northern Virginia, his early and advanced education, his family and friends, and passions including golf, photography and the Redskins. Among the book's illustrations are several items that survived his family's internment more than 60 years ago.

312 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Carola · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have added a fourth star had I not factored out the bias I have as a result of my relationship to the author's family.

Mr. Dudley's life is one that warrants recording. Reading this memoir on the heels of We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese, I was interested in his accounts of life in the internment camps in the Philippines. He shares details from this period that augment the information available in We Band of Angels. This portion of the book, as well as his recounting of his work on important legal cases, would be of interest to historians and scholars alike. I think the author easily achieves one of the goals he set for himself when writing the memoir: to provide a "worm's-eye view" of his many interesting life events.

The author's second goal was in response to his interest in genealogy: to provide a record of his life for his descendants. Mr. Dudley's forbears will find a recording of the information he has gathered through his genealogical research. They will have an account of his childhood and memories of the relatives he knew in person. There will be a detailed chronology of his education and career. The one shortcoming I found, which the author acknowledges in the Epilogue,is a sparsity of attention to his non-professional life. I am hoping to have the opportunity to learn more about this in the future.