Troubling Confessions: Speaking Guilt in Law and Literature

Those with an interest in law and literature have awaited this book, and for them there should be no disappointment. From a variety of perspectives, Brooks reflects on the extraordinary value that Western culture places on the act of confession, and the equally extraordinary problems that Western culture has assessing individual confessions. We want confessions, yet we are equally suspicious of them. Brooks' method for examining this cultural ambiguity is to juxtapose literary and legal traditions of confession (the religious tradition also receives significant attention). By juxtaposing these traditions, Brooks argues that we can better see the demands that are made of confession in Western culture, as well as the demands that confession, in turn, makes of us as members of social communities and as individuals. His interdisciplinary moves are skillful, his historical and legal glossings are accessible, and his readings of literary texts (and films) are smart. The chapters can be read individually, allowing the reader to jump around at will. Chapter 1 looks at how the Supreme Court has tried to address the problem of confession, primarily through Miranda. Chapter 2 looks at the relationship between the confessor to the confessant in various contexts -- law, literature, religion, psychoanalysis. Chapter 3 looks at the problem of the voluntary vs. the coerced confession with a close reading of Culombe v. Connecticut. Chapter 4 discusses how the religious tradition of confession affects modern understanding of identity and selfhood. Chapter 5 addresses the law's difficulty addressing psychoanalytic concepts of truth, identity, guilt, and victimhood. Finally, Chapter 6 sums things up by looking at what motivates or compels an confession at all. Among other literary works, Rousseau's Confessions, The Brothers Karamazov, Alfred Hitchcock's film I Confess, The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man and Camus' The Fall make extended appearances. These texts are hardly obscure, and neither are the general outline or the finer points of Brooks' argument. Very helpful to anyone interested in confession, narrative and rhetoric, or the general relationship between law and literature.

There's no shortage of originality in Peter Brooks' recent foray into the confessional act. Indeed, "Troubling Confessions" is a kind of sui generis text on the place of confession in Western Culture, and as such it bears absolutely no resemblance to other and earlier critical treatments of confessional literature. What's remarkable, looking back on the rich tradition of literary and cultural scholarship that came out of Yale during the 70s and 80s, is that nobody even *thought* to broach exactly these questions. That a work so plainly underivative should appear now, after the long and arid years during which the Yale school had grown into a pale and emaciated shadow of its former self -- well, it gives one pause. And one could justifiably argue that this is the effect of Brooks' oeuvre as a whole, which, if read cover to cover, induces the kind of silence from which even the keenest intellect can scarcely be roused.

For those with a general background in literature and in law, this book is straightforward and easy to follow. The book explores the complicated act of confessing in a myriad of contexts, greatly enriching the reader's understanding of this most troubling speech act. When so much "scholarship" in the nascent field of law and literature is banal, a profound work such as this one gives the entire field much needed legitimacy.

I am an editor and financial writer. In writing, you should do so simply, so that both the intellectual and unlearned man can understand and enjoy it. 50,000 books are written every hear, so you try and only have an opportunity to read the very best.The author of troubling confessions is apparently taken with his own vocabulary, that few of us can understand. He lapses into phsycoanalytics and other words I can't even spell, much less decipher.Peter Brooks talks about confessions in fictional works, that the average person never heard of, nor understands. Sprinkle in some french and latin, and you get the feeling Mr. Brooks wrote this book to impress a fellow nerd instead of relaying infomation to an interested reader.Because of the constant switching from fiction, to non fiction, from english to other sayings in french and latin, the theme of the book is lost, with the reader simply trying to keep up with the writer, who with big $2 words, is always 2 steps ahead of him.I have read a few books that I could not put down, but this one, I really struggled to finish. Better still would have been not to pick it up at all.And that is my troubling confession!JN

Do you know someone who likes to watch police procedurals, especially the brooding BBC and ITV shows? Do you know someone who really gets into Hannibal or other psychobabble crime shows? Buy them this book for their birthday. They'll love you forever.As a researcher, this book inspired me to pursue reading several other books, including Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" Albert Camus' "The Fall", and a lot of research about confession and criminal procedure. In other words, this book is an excellent starting point for scholars from multiple disciplines. Note that it is from the USA. If you are from any other country, I am sure you could buy this book in order to write responses from your own jurisdiction (this Canadian is working on one). The scholarly publications practically write themselves!