Defending Jacob

“Now, this was not exactly true. I do not believe in the court system, at least I do not think it is especially good at finding the truth. No lawyer does. We have all seen too many mistakes, too many bad results. A jury verdict is just a guess—a well-intentioned guess, generally, but you simply cannot tell fact from fiction by taking a vote. And yet, despite all that, I do believe in the power of the ritual.”

Andy expresses his doubts about the legal system. He asserts that no lawyer believes the system is truly fair, or truly excellent at uncovering the truth. This helps justify his interference in Jacob’s case. This quote also establishes Andy as an unreliable narrator: he has lied under oath, so he may lie again to the reader.

“The effect was to reverse the behavior patterns you might expect to see in adults—the teens seemed evasive when honest and direct when lying—but their shifting manner set off alarm bells just the same […] I could have told them, of course, that a virtuoso liar slips the false statement in among the true ones without a flutter of any kind […]”

Andy describes Ben’s classmates. Based on their failed attempts at lying, he is immediately certain that they are hiding something. Here, he also implies that he knows how to lie successfully. This invites the reader to further doubt his assertions and to look for the false statements that have been slipped into the version of events he presents in this book.

“Jake, everyone knows you did it. You have a knife. I’ve seen it.”

This is Derek’s Facebook post that will prove pivotal in establishing Jacob’s guilt in the minds of the DA’s office staff. Adults are unaware of Derek’s accusation until Andy finds and reads it. In Jacob’s trial, his guilt will be determined largely by Derek’s credibility: he is the one who saw Jacob’s knife; saw blood on his hand; and went to the police.

“Why spoil that? Why risk the rare happy marriage—rarer still, a love marriage that endures—for something as common and as toxic as complete, unthinking, transparent honesty?”

Andy justifies the fact that he has never told Laurie about his family history. Here, he shows his cavalier, sometimes contemptuous attitude for the truth, calling honesty “toxic.” Andy implies that one must always carefully consider whether or not being truthful is the best tactic, inviting the reader to further doubt his honesty.

“‘This is just some kids gossiping. If I could get my hands on Derek. That was incredibly stupid, what he wrote. Honestly, sometimes I think that kid isn’t all there.’

‘Derek’s not a bad kid.’

‘Will you still say that when Jacob gets a knock on the door one day?’”

Andy casts doubt on Derek’s credibility, and Laurie rebuts him. He makes it clear that he is willing to attack Derek if it will benefit Jacob. Here, we see just how far Andy is willing to go to defend his son. Later, Jonathan will continue this line of attack during Jacob’s trial.

“I did not glance at Logiudice. There was a wild energy rushing into my right arm. In that moment I felt that if I so much as looked at him, my hand would flash out, snatch up his throat, and crush it.”

When Andy is dismissed from the Rifkin case and placed on paid leave, he becomes violently angry at his mentee Logiudice. Throughout the novel, Andy asserts that he has never been violent and does not believe inheritance places a role in violence. Here, though, we see a violent impulse. If he has a “potential” for violence, he seems to feel it here, and he must struggle to suppress it.  

“As a kid, I had always believed there was a special drama about being Andy Barber, but the interior experience of being Laurie Gold must have been just as fraught with secrets and sorrows. She would always be a mystery, as all other people are.”

Andy narrates the process of falling in love with Laurie. Looking at her class notes, he finally realizes that she is as complex a human being as he is. This is important given Jacob’s diagnosis—as a teenage narcissist, he does not believe others are as human as he is. Andy seems to take longer than normal to realize other people are human, too. It can be implied that he has still not fully understood that Jacob, too, is a mystery. 

“You will say I am protesting too much, making myself sound too virtuous—arguing my own case to a jury. Well, I acknowledge the illogic: Patz did it because Jacob did not. But the illogic was not apparent to me then. I was the boy’s father. And the fact is, I was right to suspect Patz.”

Andy explicitly acknowledges that his narration is a kind of testimony to the reader. He tries to convince the reader that while he was being illogical in suspecting Patz over Jacob, he was nonetheless correct. This is important regarding the question of Andy’s reliability as a narrator.

“Jacob’s guilt and mine were entangled in my mind, though no one had ever accused me of anything explicitly. I was coming apart, of course. I knew this. I distinctly remember exhorting myself to hold it together, to keep up appearances, not to crack.”

Andy feels that, if Jacob is guilty, it is his fault—either because of his parenting or his genes. He feels that he, too, must defend himself. In admitting that he is “coming apart,” Andy also works to justify his erratic behavior to the reader. It is left for the reader to decide whether he succeeds at holding it together.

“I still believed in Jacob and, God knows, I still loved him, and there was no evidence—no real proof—of anything. The lawyer in me understood all this. But the part of me that was Jacob’s father felt cut, wounded.”

After reading the story on the Cutting Room, Andy is upset. He does not explicitly state whether he thinks his son his guilty. In addition, he casts doubt on the reliability of the story as evidence, connecting to the theme of reliable evidence. However, he admits that his son’s fascination with torture and murder is upsetting, even heartbreaking.

“[…] Judge French’s no-bullshit attitude was itself pure bullshit. The man […] was in reality a publicity seeker, an intellectual lightweight, and in the courtroom a petty tyrant. Which made him the perfect embodiment of The Law, when you really thought about it.”

Andy makes another disparaging statement about the reliability of the legal system. He has a low opinion of Judge French, who will preside over Jacob’s case: his celebrity-seeking style and lack of insight reflects the state of the courts as a whole. Here, Andy continues to justify his intervention and inference with Jacob’s case.

“But again I sensed Logiudice fumbling his case, not by some grand strategic blunder but inch by inch, in a thousand little ways. (Was this wishful thinking? Maybe. I do not pretend to be objective.)”

Andy outright states he is not objective; this is an important statement for weighing his reliability. At the outset of the trial, he is convinced that Logiudice will never be able to prove his case. He is aware this might be “wishful thinking,” and the reader must wonder whether the same is true of his assertion that Jacob is innocent. Because the case is dismissed, the reader never learns whether Andy is correct in his judgment of his former mentee. 

“I thought: when did all of this deterioration happen? All at once, with the strain of this case? Or gradually, over the years, without my noticing? This was not my Laurie anymore, the brave girl who invented me and who, it now seemed, I had invented for myself.”

As the trial drags on, Andy notices Laurie’s age. He is not sure whether there has been a sudden transformation, or whether she has gradually diminished in beauty. Throughout the text, Andy is preoccupied with Laurie’s beauty and uses his attraction to her as the barometer of their relationship’s health. As her beauty fades, she begins to seem less real to him—“invented.”

“‘[…] don’t bother calling me names. It don’t bother me. I’m the kid’s grandfather no matter what you say. Nothing you can do about it. You can deny me all you want, pretend I don’t exist. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t change the truth.’”

Andy visits his father in prison. While Andy has long believed himself to be essentially fatherless, Billy reminds him that everyone has a father, like it or not. Although Andy has no warm feelings for his father, it is clear that Billy feels some connection with both his son and grandson. This foreshadows his intervention in the case through the murder of Patz.

“The excitement was a mix of relief—everyone’s doubts were resolved at last, about whether Jacob did it and whether he would get away with it—and palpable eagerness for revenge. The rest of the trial would be only formalities, tying up the loose ends.”

After Derek’s testimony, the courtroom is persuaded of Jacob’s guilt. As a prosecutor, Andy is well-aware that there is no coming from such a shift in energy: now, the jury wants to see Jacob punished. This is a pivotal moment in the novel: after this turn of events, it is all but inevitable that, without a miracle, Jacob will be convicted. It thus lays the groundwork for the miracle that indeed takes place.

“It would be foolish to rely on ‘reasonable doubt’ at this point: the story Jacob had written about the murder read like a confession, and try as he might, Jonathan could not disprove Derek’s testimony that Jacob wrote it.”

Andy reflects on Jacob’s chances one more time after Jonathan cross-examines Jacob. There has been no change. Throughout the trial, Andy has been convinced that they need to give the jury another story; now, they have no choice. This connects to the theme of reliable evidence: while we know that the jury believes Derek, it is unclear whether the reader should as well.

“‘What if he went to Buenos Aires and killed someone there?’”

After the family has a brief moment of respite fantasizing about what would happen if Jacob fled to Argentina, Laurie returns to reality. She believes her son is guilty, and if he were to escape, he would kill someone else. As a parent, she feels a sense of responsibility for his actions. This foreshadows the events in Jamaica, where Jacob possibly kills again.

“‘If he’s guilty, then we’re guilty too. That’s just the way it is. We’re implicated. We made him—you and me. We created him and we sent him out into the world. And if he really did this—can you handle that? Can you handle that possibility?’”

Laurie tries to persuade Andy that they would be implicated in Jacob’s guilt. He has said as much to the reader already. She asks if he can handle that responsibility because he has been so unwilling to even entertain the idea of his guilt. The reader, too, must question whether Andy ever really confronts that possibility. This connects to the theme of parents’ duty to their children.

“It was better than a not-guilty from the jury. We kept saying this: not guilty is merely a failure of proof. Jacob had actually been proven innocent. It was as if the entire horrific episode was erased. I do not believe in God or miracles, but this was a miracle.”

Just after Andy has despaired, a miracle arises in the form of Patz’s suicide and confession. There is a brief feeling of elation, as it is now clear, at least to Andy and Laurie, that Jacob is innocent. Importantly, Andy will soon contradict this assertion in a conversation with his father, stating that it was wrong to deny Jacob his day in court. 

“Damaged at last, my wife had become a little like me, a little harder. Damage hardens us all. It will harden you too, when it finds you—and it will find you.”

Even after Jacob is proven innocent, Laurie is changed. Here, Andy implies that nurture, not nature, is what gives someone their grit. Laurie had to face hardship and struggle in order to develop her own. Here, Andy upholds hardness and even cynicism as a positive quality.

“‘Once upon a time, I might have patted him on the back, told him, ‘Witnesses lie. Nothing you can do. Go have a beer, just let it go. All crime is local, Neal—these guys all come back sooner or later.’”

After lying to Logiudice about his knowledge of Father O’Leary, Andy is cavalier and not compelled to tell the truth: as a witness, it is his right to lie, and simply part of the “crime.” In the past, he would have assured his mentee that all criminals will be caught out eventually. This is significant because it can be read as tacit acknowledgement that, if Jacob was guilty, he would likely kill again.

 “We did not want to go anyplace ‘real’; you cannot be in a place like Paris or Rome without thinking, and we wanted most of all not to think. At Waves, happily, it seemed no thought could survive for long. Nothing would be allowed to spoil the fun.”

The Barbers need an escape from reality. Rather than going to Argentina, they go to Jamaica. Here, the Waves resort is presented as the prefect place: it is constructed and artificial, covering over the reality of poverty in the Caribbean. In that sense, it is much like the Barbers’ happiness. There is a dark irony in Andy’s statement that “nothing would be allowed to spoil the fun” given Hope’s death.

“I rather doubt he had the sense to see the truth: that there are wounds worse than fatal, which the law’s little binary distinctions—guilty/innocent, criminal/victim—cannot fathom, let alone fix. The law is a hammer, not a scalpel.”

Andy doubts that Logiudice sees the truth of his case. Here, Andy implies that something worse than fatal has been done to Laurie. When it comes to the question of her guilt in Jacob’s death, it is much more complicated than a guilty or not-guilty verdict. Andy believes the law is fallible, in no small part because it cannot account for the complexities of human relationships.