The Globe and Mail - 19.10.2019

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Arts &

Books

SATURDAY,OCTOBER19,2019 | GLOBEANDMAIL.COM

BOOKS

ThestoriesofIndigenous

communitiesgivennewlifethrough

researchofarchivalphotos Rs

IL!

After20years,theculturalimpact

ofDavidFincher’sFightClub

isstillbeingfelt RØ

ILLUSTRATIONSBYRACHELIDZERDA

T

he Art Gallery of Ontario’s
new exhibition devoted to
the early work of Peter
Paul Rubens culminates with
that museum’s own big prize,
The Massacre of the Innocents, and
AGO director Stephan Jost

couldn’t conclude a recent

media tour without underlining

its importance.

Based on the

biblical story of King Herod’s

pre-emptive slaughter of every

male child under the age of two,

the painting features a seething

vortex of naked bodies as des-

perate mothers fight off the

soldiers hurling babies to the

ground. Reminding viewers that

Rubens had lived through

Europe’s religious wars, Jost

compared the subject with the

gassing of Syrian children last

year and pointed out that Mary

and Joseph, who fled with

the baby Jesus to Egypt to escape

Herod’s murderous decree,

were refugees. This is an anti-war

painting, Jost concluded.

Can we really place Rubens’s

bleeding Christs and buxom

ladies so easily in our own era?

Horror and titillation sit side

by side inThe Massacre of the In-

nocents. As the cultural sphere

busily debates whether Todd

Phillips’s Joker is brilliant,

offensive or just plain bad,

it is that tension that feels partic-

ularly contemporary.

Rubens’s work as a propagan-

dist for the Catholic Church’s

Counter-Reformation may not

speak to many 21st-century view-

ers, but his melodrama and his

darkness just might.

RUBENS, R}

ThemelodramaofPeterPaulRubensandhisdarknessondisplayatAGO

KATETAYLOR

I

n John Grisham’s latest novel,The Reck-

oning, the master of legal thrillers takes

us back to Canton, Miss., the setting of his

first book,A Time to Kill, published 30

years ago. Beverley McLachlin knows a thing

or two about courtroom drama: She was the

first female chief justice of the Canadian

Supreme Court and last year she released her

first thriller,Full Disclosure, followed by a

memoir,Truth Be Told, which came out

in September. Judith Pereira spoke recently

with Grisham and McLachlin about the art

of writing courtroom scenes, their work

habits and whyLaw and Orderis so madden-

ing.

JP:Let’s start with why both of you decided to

write thrillers and what excites you about the

genre.

BM:I had wanted to write fiction before I

went on the bench many years ago, but it

wasn’t compatible with a judicial career. But

as I approached retirement, I thought that

before I died, I wanted to try this. I didn’t

think it would go anywhere, but it did, in

fact, get published. And why courtroom dra-

ma fiction? Because that’s what I knew. I’ve

seen a lot of the drama and pain and conflict

lawyers have to work with, so I started to

write about it.

JG:Well, I love courtrooms. Uh, not necessar-

ily as a defendant – I do get sued occasional-

ly. They’re filled with people, lawyers, juries,

businesses and you have the full-blown dra-

ma of a big trial. Most of them are old-fash-

ioned courtrooms and they’re historic. I

don’t like modern courtrooms that much. In

1985, I had been practising law for four years

and I was in my home courtroom in a small

town in Mississippi, observing a trial that was

very dramatic. I was just there as a nosy law-

yer and I saw something that would eventu-

ally change my life, because it inspired the

story ofA Time to Kill. That’s how it all got

started – in a courtroom.

CRI!E, R14

Grisham

and

McLachlin

get

forensicon

crime

writing

Theformerlawyerturnedprolific

novelistmeetsupwithaformer

chiefjusticeandrookieauthor

totalkwithJudithPereira

abouthowtocrafta

dramaticcourtroomscene