Sunday, March 19, 2017

"A Shattered Circle"

Kevin Egan is the acclaimed author of Midnight, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2013, as well as numerous other novels and short stories. He has spent his entire legal career working in the New York State court system, including lengthy stints as law clerk to two state Supreme Court justices. He graduated with a BA in English from Cornell University and teaches legal writing at Berkeley College in Manhattan.

Egan applied the Page 69 Test to his latest novel, A Shattered Circle, and reported the following:
Barbara Lonergan, wife and secretary to Judge William Lonergan, is extremely devoted to her husband. Prior to the start of A Shattered Circle, a fall from a ladder has left the judge with traumatic dementia. This condition would force many judges into retirement, but not Judge Lonergan; he has Barbara to support him, protect him, and run interference for him.

Page 69 of the novel is equally divided between the tail end of a flashback from Barbara’s past and her current condition. It is a quiet page, not representative of the rest of the book in which there are four murders and, very nearly, two more.

The flashback recounts Barbara’s girlhood on a broken down farm in upstate New York, her arrival in New York City, and her early years working in the courthouse steno pool. Barbara’s current condition is to lie awake beside her innocently sleeping husband and wargame the perils she expects to encounter the next day. One peril frightens her more than the rest. An embittered litigant has filed a grievance against her husband, and opposing the grievance can expose his mental state. Barbara’s insomnia is productive. She comes up with a strategy she believes can preserve the judge’s career and reputation.

On a symbolic level, page 69 recapitulates the Lonergans’ story. Barbara’s vigilance erects a protective circle around the slowly failing judge. But something in her past, hinted at in the flashback, contributes to shattering that circle.
Learn more about the book and author at Kevin Egan's website.

The Page 69 Test: Midnight.

--Marshal Zeringue