PW: Your new novel, Reversible Errors (reviewed on p. 64), involves the death penalty. What is the lure of the death penalty for writers and readers of legal mysteries/thrillers?
ST: It's an unbelievably rich subject, certainly the richest subject in the law. It asks questions about the value of life, the nature of punishment, the power of government—and, of course, it's inherently dramatic because the stakes are so high. I think Americans tend to focus on it as a moral issue. They're working out this idea of moral proportion—that ultimate evil deserves ultimate punishment—that's relatively straightforward, but watching it work out in practice is incredibly complicated.
PW: How does a legal background help in constructing novels?
ST: I'm not sure that it does, necessarily. Practicing law teaches you a certain economy of expression, sometimes. I think that lawyers and novelists have a lot of things in common. They are basically both word people. I was always startled in law school when one of my professors stood up before us and said, "The law is just words." While we tend to think of the mechanisms of the law—the courthouses and the jails and the lawyers' offices—the fact of the matter is that the law, as it exists and as lawyers consort with it, is simply a verbal form.
PW: How do you (or your publisher) build the national scope of your books' appeal, based on the regional nature of their settings?
ST: At this point, every part of America belongs to America, and Americans know something about it. Whether a story is set in Biloxi or Bangor, it's an American story. We all recognize that particular motifs and genres are peculiar to various regions, but we've incorporated and identified with all of those things.
PW: Have you always had the FSG hardcover/Warner Vision mass market axis?
ST: Since I started publishing novels, that's been the formula, and it's obviously been a winning one as far as I'm concerned. It bucks certain trends—it did when it started in 1987. At this stage, it's almost a dinosaur, in the sense that one house publishes the hardcover and the other house buys the paperback rights from them. But it's been a wonderful partnership for me. I have two of the greatest publishers, both corporately and personally, in Jon Galassi and Larry Kirshbaum. I'm deeply indebted to both of them, and I count them both as close friends.
PW: Are you currently working on any nonfiction?
ST: I'm working on a magazine article about capital punishment, sort of a personal account of my own experiences.... I think when I get this piece done, I'll put capital punishment behind me. It's been a part of my life as lawyer and writer now for a long time—as a lawyer for a decade, and as a writer it's preoccupied the last three years, and that's at the same time I've sat on the capital punishment commission in Illinois. I've had a big dose of it.
