Book Review

This book is funny and at other times the mood is more serious. The few chapters in the beginning were the funny ones. In these chapters he writes about his childhood and works his way forward to when he starts to work in the District Attorney's Office. Specifically he tells about how he was caught stealing a Hostess Fruit pie at the corner store, sneaking crackers from his house pantry, and being teased about having false teeth as a child. As he writes and talks about when he gets older the mood changes and gets more serious.

He writes a lot about his brother who was a big influence on him when he was young. Darden retells stories of how he and his brother, Michael, would salvage old, broken radios from the trash and repair them and then sit on Saturday nights listening to the local R and B station. His brother would always comment on how the Temptations were the best band ever. Also, he tells of the time when his brother was smoking a joint in their bedroom when their father came bursting into the room. Thinking quickly, Chris' brother swallowed the still lit joint. His father smelled the marijuana but never found any evidence of the joint.

As he tells about his childhood, he remembers how his grandmother would ask him what he wanted to be when he grew up and as far back as he could remember he would say that he wanted to be a lawyer. Christopher Darden grew up like a lot of black families of that time period, poor. They did have enough money to buy a 30,000 house and they always had a pantry full of food. Not many people from his neighborhood ever made much of themselves but he always believed in himself and his grandmother always believed that he could do anything that he put his mind to. She was the only person that believed he could be a lawyer and always introduced him as a future lawyer.

In high school Chris followed in his brother's footsteps and joined the track team. This would be his ticket to a scholarship at Berkeley University, and the start to his law career. After completing college, he applied for a job in the District Attorney's Office, and surprisingly got the job at the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office in 1981. Through the years, he worked his way up through the ranks of the D. A. s' Office and became a very prominent lawyer. He worked for 14 years before the Simpson case was brought before him. He never expected to work the case but sometimes