‘Farrell offers excerpts from Darrow’s magnificent courtroom arguments as well as delicious details of his personal life (he was a hearty participant in the era’s free love movement). [He] gleans from previously undisclosed material to offer a completely engaging portrait of a flawed man of noble ideals.’
Booklist (starred review)
‘John Farrell’s Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned is a riveting historical drama filled with strange twists and turns. Every page is a triumph of scholarship. A marvelous biography!’
Douglas Brinkley, Professor of History at Rice University and author of The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America
‘A comprehensive biography of the storied defense attorney. Making elaborate use of transcripts, observers’ accounts, correspondence and newspaper reports, Farrell chronicles Darrow’s most celebrated trials in detail … These cases — including two in which Darrow, almost surely guilty, was himself tried for jury tampering — dominate the narrative, but Farrell neatly places them within the larger context of this complicated man’s crowded life and practice … Farrell unflinchingly addresses [Darrow’s] shortcomings, even as he underscores the genuine brilliance of a still-unmatched advocate for underdogs everywhere.’
Kirkus (starred review)
100 Most Notable Books 2011
New York Times
‘John A. Farrell, in Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned, goes farther into the archives and deeper into Darrow’s crags.’
New Yorker
‘The portrait that emerges is of a complex idealist, a big-picture life lived out on the stage of the courtroom’ PICK OF THE WEEK
Saturday Age
‘His [Darrow’s] life story was epic in its sweep and influence … It is stirringly retold in Farrell's timely, balanced and important book.’
Weekend Australian
‘This book is a joy and revelation. It is at once a rollicking tour through the mind of a legal genius and a spellbinding account of some of the most famous cases in American history. The chapter on Leopold and Loeb alone is worth waiting in line to get a seat in Jack Farrell’s courtroom.’
David Maraniss, author of When Pride Still Mattered and They Marched into Sunlight
‘People want heroes. But history demands truth. This gritty biography demystifies a deeply flawed legal hero, who ‘almost assuredly’ bribed jurors and witnesses in order to level the playing field against ‘the rich and powerful.’ Darrow was a giant of his corrupt times. His biography is a must read for all Americans who care about both the means and ends of justice!’
Alan M. Dershowitz, author of The Trials of Zion
‘It is almost impossible to conceive how so much living could have come in just one life, and Jack Farrell’s masterful new biography makes Clarence Darrow come alive. This is a wonderful, at times heart-pounding story, which is told with precision, sympathy, and insight.’
Ken Burns
‘Clarence Darrow confounded titles: he was a freethinker, hedonist, anarchist, populist, infidel, cynic and master storyteller who became our greatest lawyer and a folk hero. Farrell’s masterful, sweeping new biography not only does justice to all his roles but joyously satisfies even a Darrow addict like me.’
Roy Black, Esq., criminal defense attorney
‘His name remains a legend. And in this new book, John Farrell explains why, weaving a tale as compelling and clever as one of Darrow’s bewitching courtroom speeches for the defense.’
The Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG, Justice of the High Court of Australia (1996–2009)
‘This new biography is a balanced account of a complex man, written with a great gift of story-telling. It sets Darrow’s battles in their rich historical setting, and brings him vividly to life. I hope that it helps keep alive the memory of a lawyer who, at his best, was a model for all lawyers to emulate.’
Julian Burnside QC
