Roberts a noir novelist wannabe?
Check out U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Robert's hard-boiled opening paragraphs in his dissent from the denial of cert in Pennsylvania v. Dunlap:
North Philly, May 4, 2001. Officer Sean Devlin, Narcotics Strike Force, was working the morning shift. Undercover surveillance. The neighborhood? Tough as a three dollar steak. Devlin knew. Five years on the beat, nine months with the Strike Force. He’d made fifteen, twenty drug busts in the neighborhood.
Devlin spotted him: a lone man on the corner. Another approached. Quick exchange of words. Cash handed over; small objects handed back. Each man then quickly on his own way. Devlin knew the guy wasn’t buying bus tokens. He radioed a description and Officer Stein picked up the buyer. Sure enough: three bags of crack in the guy’s pocket. Head downtown and book him. Just another day at the office.
I think the man has potential. Dare I suggest he give up his measly government salary and write full time?
Of course, writers tend to average quite a bit less than the CJ’s current salary ($217.5K). In fact, I've herd the average novelist earns about $10K or so – and that includes only those with any income at all.
But Roberts already has significant name recognition. He could easily build a platform from which to launch a successful career as a novelist. In fact, he could command huge speaking fees, and then hand sell his novels at the back of the room.
So, in the spirit of helping an aspiring novelist leave the legal profession to pursue a full-time writing career, I personally promise to buy a copy – in hardcover! –of every novel Roberts publishes (provided, however, his resignation occurs while during a Democratic presidency).
Won’t you join my pledge?
