and Hans J. Morgenthau at the University of Chicago where he earned both an M.A. and a Ph.D. in political science. He received his J.D. degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Buffa was a criminal defense attorney for 10 years and his Joseph Antonelli novels reflect that experience.
The New York Times called The Defense "an accomplished first novel" which "leaves you wanting to go back to the beginning and read it over again." The Judgment was nominated for the Edgar Award for best novel of the year. The latest Joseph Antonelli novel is Lunatic Carnival.
Buffa applied the Page 69 Test to Lunatic Carnival and reported the following:
If someone were to open Lunatic Carnival on page 69 they would find a police detective taking the witness stand in a murder trial. While this would not give them a good idea of what the book as a whole is about, it would introduce them to a significant, and often overlooked, element of a novel. How someone dresses, how they make themselves look, is a thread that weaves through Lunatic Carnival. Wearing an expensive suit and tie, the detective, Owen Chang, looks more like a lawyer in an upscale commercial law firm, and when the jury finds out that he is married to one of the wealthiest women in San Francisco, that expensive suit and tie underscores his place as part of the privileged elite who control what happens in the city.Visit D.W. Buffa's website.
When Joseph Antonelli’s new client asks him why he always wears a suit and tie, he explains that casual dress makes it more difficult to be serious, and there are things, like a murder trial, that need to be taken seriously. When they go to trial, Antonelli and the defendant are the only ones in the courtroom wearing suits and ties.
The importance of how someone dresses, the effect it can have on how they are seen, is nowhere more evident than when the prosecution’s main witness, the step-mother of the victim, takes the stand, wearing a bright green silk dress and pointed high-heel shoes, “that had the look of things bought to be worn once and then discarded for something else new and expensive.” The jurors, twelve average-looking men and women, dressed in average looking clothes, can only shake their heads in wonder. When a crucial witness for the defense, the elderly Albert Craven, who knows everyone in the city, takes the stand wearing a dark, tailored suit, everyone on the jury looks at him in a different way. They look at him with respect, and take seriously everything he has to say.
It may be only a slight difference, a relatively minor matter, how someone dresses for a trial. But when the issue is whether someone is, or is not, guilty of murder, even a slight difference may be all the difference in the world. And this is especially true when the trial is about whether fame and celebrity are the only things worth having, and immorality nothing more than the trademark of success. What Owen Chang was wearing on page 69, that expensive suit and tie, will, by the end of the trial, reveal more about what really happened than anyone could have guessed.
Q&A with D.W. Buffa.
My Book, The Movie: The Privilege.
The Page 69 Test: The Privilege.
--Marshal Zeringue
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