Tough Talk
How I Fought for Writers, Comics, Bigots, and the American Way
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
The boisterous freedom promised by the First Amendment is both the heart of American experiment and the fissure along which it divides itself. Those who would fight freedom's enemies, from political correctness to corporate intimidation to outright censorship, face powerful adversaries. But they also have a potent weapon at their disposal: good, old-fashioned talk--tough talk. And as one of America's leading First Amendment attorneys, Martin Garbus is one of the toughest talkers there is.
Starting with his work on the tam that defended the legendary satirist Lenny Bruce against obscenity charges, Garbus has been a fearless advocate for some of the most important voices of our time, among them union organizer Cesar Chavez, actor Robert Redford, director Spike Lee, writer Samuel Beckett, Russian dissident Andrei Sakharov, and Czech playwright Vaclav Havel, who, as president of his country's revolutionary government, invited Garbus to help write the nation's constitution.
But Garbus is not an ivory-tower theoretician. He is a highly effective defense lawyer who takes on cases with the full intent of winning. In Tough Talk, Garbus goes behind the scenes to show us how our system really works and what he does to make it work for his clients. How does an attorney get controversial cases? What does he do to gain control of a hostile courtroom? How does he work with a defendant whose beliefs are the opposite of his own?
Tough Talk is both the story of one man's battle for freedom and a clear-eyed account of every major First Amendment issue this nation has faced in the last three decades, for the battles Garbus has fought have become the touchstones of America's debate about the limits of freedom. In showing us how he has harnessed his personal idealism to the gritty reality of the courtroom, Garbus gives brilliant testimony to the power of tough talk.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Garbus is widely known in publishing as a lawyer who has been at the heart of many significant literary cases of the past three decades. He helped get the Pentagon Papers published, quashed the attempt by Academy Chicago to do John Cheever's uncollected short stories (a move that put him on the outs for a time with many publisher friends) and argued several trailblazing cases that helped fiction writers escape libel threats. He unsuccessfully defended Lenny Bruce against accusations of obscenity (only to see the comedian vindicated after his death), yet spoke out on behalf of Nazis wishing to march through a largely Jewish Chicago suburb. He was also the lawyer on the spot in the crisis involving Salman Rushdie and the Iranian fatwa against Rushdie and Penguin, his publisher. Garbus describes himself as a First Amendment absolutist, and his stands have not always been popular with his associates. One of his latest crusades is the curbing of harmful "commercial" speech, e.g., cigarette and liquor advertising aimed at the young. He also describes his beginnings as a poor boy in the Bronx, his early civil rights battles and such triumphant moments as being asked to help draft the constitution for a free Czechoslovakia. His impressive record, which is eloquently, even excitingly, set forth here, offers more revealing personal detail than has appeared in previous books by the author--perhaps at least partly the doing of his skilled coauthor.