Alafair Burke On Writing Crime Novels and Teaching Law

Summary

Podcast Summary: Alafair Burke On Writing Crime Novels and Teaching Law

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Book Review
• Host: Gilbert Cruz, Editor of The New York Times Book Review
• Episode: Alafair Burke On Writing Crime Novels and Teaching Law
• Release Date: January 24, 2025
• Description: Host Gilbert Cruz engages with acclaimed authors and critics to delve into the latest literary works and trends. In this episode, Cruz converses with Alafair Burke, a renowned crime novelist and law professor, about her new novel The Note, her writing process, and her experiences bridging the worlds of law and literature.

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Introduction to Alafair Burke and Her New Novel

Gilbert Cruz opens the episode by introducing Alafair Burke and her latest work, The Note. He highlights the novel's setting in the Hamptons during summertime and its focus on three female friends whose casual actions spiral into a police investigation.

Key Points:

• The Note is inspired by a real-life incident involving Burke and her friends who humorously contemplated leaving notes after a parking spot was stolen from them. This playful notion evolved into a thriller where a simple note leads to unforeseen consequences.

Notable Quote:

“We were writing these notes and the waitress started writing notes and the people at the next table started writing notes. And then we started thinking about that's probably a really stupid thing to do...”
– Alafair Burke [01:18]

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Transforming Real-Life Events into Fiction

Burke discusses her methodology in converting real-life experiences into compelling fictional narratives. She emphasizes the importance of character alignment and situational pressure points that drive the story forward.

Key Points:

• The genesis of The Note stems from a humorous yet frustrating parking incident.
• Burke focuses on creating diverse characters with distinct backgrounds to add depth to the narrative.
• The process involves a "matchmaking" of characters with scenarios that evoke tension and intrigue.

Notable Quote:

“When I can start writing is when it's almost matchmaking of, oh, okay, if I take that character that I've been thinking about [...] and I put her in this scenario, that's gonna get interesting.”
– Alafair Burke [03:01]

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Exploring Internet Infamy and Its Consequences

A significant theme in The Note is the impact of internet culture on personal reputations. Burke delves into how viral moments can unjustly label individuals as social pariahs based on isolated incidents.

Key Points:

• The novel examines the phenomenon where minor actions online can lead to lasting negative perceptions.
• Burke reflects on the mob mentality prevalent on social media, especially targeting women.
• She expresses a "guilty pleasure" in observing how people are judged online while recognizing the humanity behind each persona.

Notable Quote:

“How do you justify it? Do you see yourself through other people's eyes? And what is it like to be judged...”
– Alafair Burke [05:43]

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Personal Experiences with Online Harassment

Burke shares her own encounters with online negativity, illustrating the darker side of author-reader interactions in the digital age.

Key Points:

• An incident during a book tour where a fan made unsolicited and hurtful comments on social media.
• The rapid escalation of negative feedback and the subsequent impact on her decision to limit online interactions.
• Burke underscores the importance of maintaining boundaries to protect personal well-being.

Notable Quote:

“It's like she felt free to say this really mean thing to me... And I just saw how ugly it got so fast.”
– Alafair Burke [08:17]

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Balancing Author and Academic Roles

As both a novelist and a law professor, Burke navigates the challenges of maintaining distinct professional identities while leveraging her expertise in both fields.

Key Points:

• Burke integrates her legal background into her storytelling, providing authenticity to her crime novels.
• She emphasizes teaching students about the discretionary nature of the legal system and its real-world implications.
• Her dual roles enrich her writing, offering nuanced perspectives on justice and law.

Notable Quote:

“What I learned that I continue to draw on... is that there really is a distinction between formal law, the way it's supposed to work in the books and the way it actually works in practice.”
– Alafair Burke [28:23]

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Influences and Inspirations

Burke cites influential works and authors that have shaped her approach to writing crime fiction, highlighting the importance of setting and character development.

Key Points:

• Mystic River by Dennis Lehane and What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman are pivotal influences, particularly in their portrayal of community impact and character-driven narratives.
• Burke admires Presumed Innocent for its focus on the justice system's effects on individuals rather than just procedural elements.
• She strives to make settings like the Hamptons feel integral to the story, almost becoming characters in their own right.

Notable Quote:

“I like to think my work kind of falls into those categories... they make their cities characters in their books.”
– Alafair Burke [32:46]

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Evolution as a Writer Over Two Decades

Reflecting on her 22-year writing journey, Burke illustrates her growth from a law-focused writer to a more confident storyteller who balances technical accuracy with narrative flow.

Key Points:

• Initial insecurities about writing led her to heavily incorporate legal details, sometimes at the expense of storytelling.
• Over time, Burke learned to discern which legal elements enhance the plot and character development.
• Her confidence has grown, allowing her to craft more engaging and relatable narratives.

Notable Quote:

“I'm a little more confident as a storyteller because... I think I'm a little more confident as a storyteller because of that.”
– Alafair Burke [34:15]

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Conclusion and Future Endeavors

Gilbert Cruz concludes the conversation by acknowledging Burke’s contributions to the crime fiction genre and anticipates her upcoming projects, including the Winterset series.

Key Points:

• Burke's unique blend of legal expertise and narrative skill positions her as a standout author in contemporary crime fiction.
• Her ability to address modern societal issues, such as internet shaming and the complexities of the justice system, resonates with a wide audience.
• Listeners are encouraged to explore her latest novel, The Note, to experience her signature storytelling firsthand.

Notable Quote:

“If you want to feel like you're in the Hamptons near the beach and it's 75 degrees outside, pick up the book.”
– Alafair Burke [31:47]

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Final Thoughts

In this episode of The Book Review, Alafair Burke provides an insightful look into the intersection of law and literature. Her thoughtful exploration of personal experiences, societal impacts of internet culture, and the nuanced portrayal of the legal system enriches her storytelling, offering readers both entertainment and reflection. Burke’s dedication to authentic character development and her critical perspective on justice make her a compelling voice in modern crime fiction.

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Episode Duration: 35 minutes and 8 seconds

Transcript

[Gilbert Cruz]

I use New York Times cooking at least three to four times a week.

[Alifair Burke]

I love sheet pan bibimbap. It said 35 minutes, it was 35 minutes. The cucumber salad with soy, ginger and garlic. Oh, my God, that is just to die for. This turkey chili has over 17,000 five star ratings. So easy, so delicious.

[Gilbert Cruz]

The instructions are so clear, so simple.

[Alifair Burke]

And it just works.

[Eric Kim]

Hey, it's Eric Kim from New York Times Cooking.

[Alifair Burke]

Come cook with us. Go to nytcooking.com.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review, and this is the Book Review podcast. It is freezing out, but in the Note, the new novel by author Allifair Burke, it's summertime. Set in the Hamptons, it's a thriller about three female friends and the small but consequential decision they make one night while enjoying a weekend getaway. Way Alair, welcome to the podcast.

[Alifair Burke]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Gilbert Cruz]

So you write or you have said that the Note grew from a real life seed, something that actually happened three years ago. What was that?

[Alifair Burke]

Like the characters in my book, the Note, I was one of three women getting together with friends who lived long distance. But we talk constantly and we see each other a couple times a year at most. And we had a girls trip over the weekend and we were being silly and someone stole a parking spot from us in a very brazen way. We were not happy about it. We had the universal language of the turn signal, the clicking turn signal, waiting patiently for our spot that was our real estate. And someone swooped in and took it. And we kind of became a running joke all day long. Like what we wanted to do to this person who definitely knew she. She kind of almost waved at us like, yeah, I just stole your parking spot and I don't care. But we started saying, like, notes we would write on, like to leave on the. And it kind of turned into a joke. And we were writing these notes and the waitress started writing notes and the people at the next table started writing notes. And then we started thinking about that's probably a really stupid thing to do, like, leave a very triggering note to somebody that might stir up trouble. And the note in the book that I don't think it's a spoiler. They leave a note on someone's car that says he's cheating on you. He always does. Which is just a way to mess with somebody's head. And then that lands them in the middle of a police investigation. And then things happen.

[Gilbert Cruz]

And then things happen.

[Alifair Burke]

That's all you can say about a thriller.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I know it must be so hard to write thrillers and only be able to sort of talk about sort of the bare minimum.

[Alifair Burke]

You can just kind of tee it up.

[Gilbert Cruz]

How do you take something that happened in real life and then turn it into a book? Like, do you have a list, a note in your notes app of things that are like, this happened, this happened, this happened. This one seems like it has potential.

[Alifair Burke]

It really is a gut feeling. Cause at some point you have to start writing. And for me, I always have a few ideas, kind of just like the setup in my head. And then I also have characters in my head and they don't. They're not aligned together initially. Like, I might just be thinking about a character who's interesting to me for various reasons. It might be the backstory that's interesting, or it might be a personality trait that's interesting. And then I'll have a setup. Like three women go on vacation and stir up some nonsense that gets them in trouble. And for me, like, when I can start writing is when it's almost matchmaking of, oh, okay, if I take that character that I've been thinking about with that backstory and that set of anxieties, and I put her in this scenario, that's gonna get interesting. And so that's usually the starting place for me when I feel like I've got the right character in the right pressure points.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Which character in this book came to you first?

[Alifair Burke]

Mae Hanover is one of the three women came first. I think the idea of these three very different women, they're different socioeconomic backgrounds, they're different races, they grew up in different places. And that's very much me and the two friends that I was with on this trip. And so the idea of a friendship where they're not all the same was interesting to me. But of the three women, Mae Hanover had already been in my mind. She's half Asian. She was raised by a Chinese immigrant. Her white father really wanted nothing to do with either of them. She's a very high achieving person, but she also puts a lot of pressure on herself to be perfect. Her friends call her like the little because she's a rule follower. You know, she would be the teacher's pet type. But she's carrying a lot of unrealized resentment beneath the surface. So putting her in a situation where she's suddenly potentially on the wrong side of a police investigation was pretty interesting.

[Gilbert Cruz]

What do you tell your two friends when you say, remember that thing that happened to us? I think I'm gonna turn that to a book.

[Eric Kim]

I'm sorry.

[Gilbert Cruz]

This is what happened.

[Alifair Burke]

They weren't real happy about it. They were like, it's not us. And I'm like, I promise you, the characters are. And they both were sort of relieved to be like, okay, no, it's not really us. It's just the setup. I'm like, it's just the setup. But it's the dynamics of the friendship are a little bit us just in terms of being in each other's business all the time.

[Gilbert Cruz]

One of the things that links the three main characters in the notes is the fact that they have found sort of some kind of Internet infamy. And the new book is in part about how. How the Internet, the web, can make us social pariahs of a sort, based on our worst moment or our worst moments. Talk a little bit about why that dynamic was interesting to you.

[Alifair Burke]

Yeah, I think I, like a lot of us, spent a lot of time on the Internet in 2020 when we were all locked up inside our houses. And it seems to me that was around the time when Karen videos started taking off and videotaping people having rage attacks on airplanes. It's almost become a form of its own entertainment. And these people become, you know, viral sensations for a day or a week or maybe even a month. And it is judging people by their worst moment. And I feel such a guilty pleasure because I will say I watch those videos and, you know, you read the comments and everybody's slamming this person, but it's a real person. And I just kind of started wondering, like, what's it like to see yourself, you know, acting like that? Is there a reflection on, you know, do you justify it? Do you see yourself through other people's eyes? And what is it like to be judged? And it also seems more angrily targeted at women. I mean, it does seem like a lot of those videos involve women who are clearly under anxiety or having mental health episodes in some cases. And it just seems like people pile on to women, specifically on social media. And so I thought I had some things to say about that.

[Gilbert Cruz]

What did you have to say?

[Alifair Burke]

Well, you know, from a storytelling perspective, I find it interesting because, particularly with crime fiction, you know, you be the good guys against the bad guys. And more and more, I think the genre is a richer place because people write stories where nobody's entirely good and no one's entirely bad. It's all situational and we're all human beings, but. And yet, at the same time, in real life, it seems like particularly when it comes to judging people online, we either think people are perfect, these very curated Instagram stories, or it's like they wake up looking like that and everything they eat is beautiful and every place they go is beautiful, and they're always doing good deeds, or they're just demons in the story. And I think putting all three of these women, they kind of fell out of touch, you know, in early adulthood. And what kind of brought them back together is kind of one by one, they each had some high profile thing happen to them that has made them fodder for strangers on the Internet. And they've kind of been there for each other to get, you know, to provide some context to each other to realize, hey, this moment will pass. You're not that person that the Internet is talking about.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Have you ever been on the receiving end of anything even approaching what the women in this book have to deal with?

[Alifair Burke]

Not nearly approaching. It's not a spoiler alert, I don't think to say that Mei kind of has a Karen moment. And they call her Asian Da Karen, which was kind of fun to write the hashtags for that because it was fictional. And then one of them, her husband was murdered, and it's still unsolved, and people are convinced she did it. So that definitely has not happened to me. And then the other one, her personal relationship, became Internet fodder where people speculate whether it's consensual or not, whether she's working somebody for power, that kind of thing. So luckily, that hasn't happened to me. But people are mean on the Internet, I will say. Like, several years ago, I was on book tour and had the pleasure of doing a joint event with Harlan Cobin. And for me, that was a big deal. And Nils Locked came from the E Street Band, and we got a picture taken with him. I mean, it was a cool night. And I posted pictures of that saying, like, what a great day of book tour. Like, hung out with Harlan and Nils. And some woman posted in the comments, whoa, maybe you should exercise more on book tour. You've gotten fat, but you're still my favorite chubby author. What quote, unquote. And I was like, well, that just made me feel really bad. And then, you know, I saw my readers loyal to a fault. Thank you. Like, they start yelling at her and, like, someone then goes and finds her old MySpace page. You remember MySpace? Yeah, I remember, like, where she had posed in, like, bikinis. And it turns out. And people started like. And I just saw how ugly it got so fast. People were like, well, I wouldn't be talking because you look like this. And I was like, whoa. Like that escalated super quickly and like I wound up deleting all of the comments and like closing it off to comments. And I just saw how fast that escalated. And it's like she felt free to say this really mean thing to me. Like as she told me, like she still loved me and I was her favorite chubby author. And. And then people just piled onto her like, so I'm like, whoa, like I don't want any part of this. And like and, and it. We all see it every day. There's a toxic, vile things people will say to. To strangers as if they don't read it. It's weird.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I have been making the grimace face emoji this entire time. That sounds.

[Alifair Burke]

You have just been like, I want there to be a hole in the ground that you fall into.

[Gilbert Cruz]

It sounds awful. It's amazing though, cause I feel like your relationship with your readers is interesting to me. I was struck by seeing at the end of one of your books, do you have a note in which you thanked dozens and dozens of readers for their comments during the writing of that book? So many names.

[Alifair Burke]

I think it was pages.

[Gilbert Cruz]

It was pages. What is your relationship with your non insulting fans?

[Alifair Burke]

The ones who don't give me dieting advice. I was encouraged to go on social media really early as a way to connect with readers by a publisher who kind of saw the future that that was going to be how books were sold. And I did it really reluctantly because at the time I was a very private person and I sort of kept myself sort of compartmentalized. I'm a law professor, I still am. And I would be Professor Burke and wear my Professor Burke clothes and use my Professor Burke vocabulary. And then when I was a writer, I was talking about other things and with my friends I acted a different way. And with social media that all kind of gets. You're out there, right? And my friend group was all in one place. It's kind of if you like Seinfeld references, right? World's colliding, worlds are colliding. And that put me in touch with different people. So suddenly I would be talking about true crime with law professors or talking about TV shows with law professors and talking about politics with readers, you know. So I kind of decided if I was gonna do it, I was gonna do it in a very organic way and it's gonna be real me out there. I'm not a curated Persona and I got of readers that way. And I'm somebody who does, like, what do they say? Writing is a solitary activity, but I'm not a solitary person. And so working all day by myself, when I couldn't run down the hallway and grab another DA and go get coffee, my social break would be to go on Facebook, and I'd be like, hey, I have a character, and she's going to a restaurant or something. Like, what should I name the restaurant? And it was just kind of a fun way to involve readers without getting them to actually write the book for me, but just kind of put their little. Put their little impression on it. And so I started calling those people, like, my kitchen cabinet. And so I started thanking people. But then it really did get. The one time it was like something like six pages, I was like, okay, I've got to stop thanking the kitchen cabinet by individual name. I might have gotten a little carried away.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I'm sure they loved it. I'm sure all of those 92 people just love seeing their name.

[Alifair Burke]

I still get people who, like, come to book signings. They'll be like, I'm an original member of the kitchen cabinet. I'm like, well, thank you. But, you know, when you're on book tour and they've cut back a lot on it. But when I first started doing this 20 years ago, I guess that was when they still send you to 20 cities in three weeks, and you're not there with a media escort or a publicist. It's just you and a backpack. And a lot of those readers would be. They were the ones kind of spreading the word locally before I came. They were the ones being the photographers at the time. And it really did feel like I kind of had a team out there waiting to help me on the road.

[Gilbert Cruz]

So it was a nice feeling as we touched on. It can also be dicey. You know, we live in an age when the Internet has made fans feel as if they are owed something or they maybe have more of a connection to the object of their fandom than is true in reality. Have you ever had any concerns about the ways in which you interact with your readers?

[Alifair Burke]

Maybe. I think I have got pretty good Spidey senses. I can normally tell if I think someone's expecting something out of the norm. And there have been a couple times you want to be careful when you leave the bookstore and go to your hotel. And I don't tell people where I stay. I've got boundaries about stuff like that. In the bookstore, we'll hang out, and then I go home.

[Gilbert Cruz]

The note also touches in part, as you alluded to on sort of our modern true crime obsession, maybe. I mean, it's a tiny through line throughout. You know, how the Internet has allowed access to information and other obsessive people to make some think that they are actual detectives instead of sort of passing detectives. You know, as a novelist who writes about crime, as someone who is a law professor and used to practice law, how do you get around the fact that this thing that used to be professionalized is now open to everyone?

[Alifair Burke]

Yeah, the amateur sleuths online from their basements are. They're powerful. I mean, they can amass a lot of information. They're able to crowdsource this information that they might get individually from their neighborhood ring cameras, from My brother's a cop, and he tells me this. But they can also be very wrong. I mean, there have been times where they put names out, like names of real people who are completely innocent, and then they roll with it. And in the book, I kind of talk about it becoming a form of fan fiction, except that there are real people associated with it and real crime victims. I mean, the recent assassination of a CEO in the middle of New York, and people kind of turned that into an adventure story that they were writing together online.

[Gilbert Cruz]

It also feels connected tangentially, or maybe not to something like Pizzagate, which is people coming up with theories online and sharing them. And that just sort of metastasizes into something that no one can.

[Alifair Burke]

Right. It's a form of a conspiracy theory. I mean, maybe not as dangerous as a political conspiracy theory, but it's taking somebody's murder often the case. Right, Somebody's murder, and then turning it into a form of entertainment. It's well intentioned by people who might think they're actually helping. But if I were a family member of somebody who had been killed and it became fodder for a message board, I think I'd have very mixed feelings about that.

[Gilbert Cruz]

We'll be right back.

[Eric Kim]

My name is Hannah Dreier. I'm an investigative reporter at the New York Times. So much of my process is challenging my own assumptions and trying to uncover new information that often goes against what I thought I would find. All of my reporting comes from going out, seeing something and realizing, oh, that's actually the story. And that reporting helps readers challenge their own assumptions and come to new conclusions for themselves. This kind of journalism takes resources. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of reporting trips. If you believe that that kind of work is important, you can support it by subscribing to the New York Times.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Welcome back. This is the Book Review podcast and I'm Gilbert Cruz. I'm joined this week by Allifair Burke. We're talking about her new book, the Note All Affair. You grew up as someone who, as I understand it, as a child and young person, just read books. You just read books about mysteries and crime and you weren't out there trying to solve murders. Tell me about how you became a fan of the books in the space that you now ride in.

[Alifair Burke]

I think I was trying to solve murders.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Oh, you were? Okay.

[Alifair Burke]

Yeah.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Okay.

[Alifair Burke]

So I grew up in Wichita, Kansas in the late 70s, which was a time when there was an active serial killer called btk. There's currently a podcast, yet another podcast about him out. And btk, if you're not familiar with it, he called himself that. It was his self chosen moniker and it stood for buying torture and kill, which is what he did to victims in Wichita, Kansas. And I remember when we first moved there, they were just announcing that, and I was probably eight at the time, and a lot of parents would have turned off the TV and said, my kid doesn't need to hear about btk. But my dad being my dad, he was like, pearl, turn the TV up. And we really, like in our house, we talked about that all the time. We would talk about why there's locks on the basement door, why we check the phone every time we get in the house to make sure the phone lines hadn't been cut. I mean, it was. Everybody in Wichita was raised that way in the late 70s and 80s. But in our house, my dad, who also likes crime stories and writes crime stories, we were like amateur profilers and, you know, we had our own version of a true crime message board going on under our roof where we took the available evidence that, you know, he had left some notes at Wichita State, for example, and he had left some at the library. So my dad's theory was that he was probably a former student at Wichita State. He probably was somebody who wanted to be a police officer because he was kind of toying with the police in this kind of cat and mouse game. And turned out, you know, my dad was pretty close. But yeah, that was our form of entertainment in our house. I was 10 years old talking about who the local serial killer might be.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Do you think if it had been decades later, you could have been someone who was in subreddits and message forums.

[Alifair Burke]

And, oh, I have an account and.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Listening to too many podcasts?

[Alifair Burke]

Yes, I do, I do. I'm guilty of It. I don't comment, but I definitely like, you know, And a lot of times that's where my imagination goes, is I like, well, instead of saying it out loud to strangers saying, I think this person did this, and this is why. That might be a theory that I come up with in my head that lives there until I find the right character for it, for fiction. But to go back to my weird origin story, it was around that time of the BTK being active in Wichita and not being arrested that I started asking my mother, who was a librarian, my personal curator of my literary collection. I kept asking her for more and more mysteries to read. And I think it was me wanting that resolution, wanting, you know, for the. If something really bad can happen in the middle of the book, but then you get an answer at the end, you know?

[Gilbert Cruz]

The BTK killer, who operated between 1974 and 1986. He was arrested eventually in 2005. Who reached out to. Did you call your dad first or did he call you? How did you share that information?

[Alifair Burke]

I think I was teaching. I do remember because he had re emerged. This has now turned into your new favorite true crime podcast.

[Gilbert Cruz]

We were always gonna get there.

[Alifair Burke]

He had reemerged and had said, hey, I'm still out here. It's been 30 years. You never caught me. And by the way, I killed some other people you don't know about. And of course, I was following that. And there was false alarm at one point where they executed a search warrant at someone's home who turned out to be innocent. And I was teaching. I was a law professor by then. And even though my students are supposedly not supposed to be on the Internet during class, one of them told on himself. Like, in the middle of class. He, like, raised his hand, and he's like, I know I'm not supposed to be on the Internet, but they're executing a search warrant for the BTK right now. And I thought you would want to know. And I'm like, we're going to take a break. I mean, I was that into it. But then when they finally did get the right guy, I think I was probably the one to call my dad, because I would have been the one on the Internet more.

[Gilbert Cruz]

And how did that feel, to have resolution to this thing that brought you together when you were a child?

[Alifair Burke]

Obviously, you think about the victims and you think about the fact that there's closure, if there's such a thing. But to have this person be arrested at last and face punishment for it is the way the system is supposed to work. But there was also something kind of profoundly disappointing about it because you want to think that someone who's able to elude to do the evil things that he did and then to elude the police for 30 years, you want to think that that's some kind of mastermind. Right? Like there's something special about them, how they were able to get away with it. And he's just a boring pedestrian guy, like, who was seeking power over women. And like, how did he not get caught? Like, it just seems like it shouldn't have taken so long. Not the second guess people, but we.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Have this wonderful fictional conceit of the genius serial killer. Maybe it's all because of Thomas Harris, maybe it's because of Hannibal Lecter, who knows? But I think you're right that these are just regular people who get lucky, who elude capture because of mistakes made by fallible law enforcement officials. And something like that is a reminder that these are just regular guys and they're almost always guys and not interesting.

[Alifair Burke]

There's nothing interesting about that person. And this is not something I talk about very often. But in my eagerness, I think, to know more about it. When he did get arrested, I wrote a letter not to him, but, but to his lawyers because, you know, he had court appointed attorneys. And I assume they grew up in Wichita because most people from who live in Wichita currently grew up there. And I wrote them and I was like, I don't know in what form, but I would like to come to Wichita and kind of just observe you doing your work. And I was thinking of it really more as like either a long form article or maybe even a book about being a criminal defense attorney. Right. They were probably checking their phone lines too, and checking their basement doors. And now they're representing the guy that was our childhood boogeyman. And I thought that was something. There is something interesting in that. And one of these days I'd love to hear about that from them. But in any event, the letter was to them. And of course they're busy criminal defense attorneys and they're like, I don't know who this lady is. And so they gave my letter to him. And so I got a handwritten letter from the jail from him. And it was very clear that that letter had made him feel very important of like, oh, you're interested in my story and you're so accomplished and I would love to tell you my side of things. And. And I just remember that the letter ended, your parents must be very proud of you. And there was Something that was so weird about that to me. And I decided at that point, like, he's. And here I am talking about it. I guess I'm talking about the case more than I'm talking about him. He's just not an interesting person.

[Gilbert Cruz]

How other than surprise, what did getting that letter feel like? Did you regret it? Were you like, this is?

[Alifair Burke]

Yes, I deeply regretted it. Yeah. I don't want to exist in his head. I don't want him to know my name. I don't want him to think I'm interested in him. And to the extent I have written about that and I'm talking about it now, it's not anything that he did that's interesting. It was about the toll that it took on a community. I mean, people who are. Towns like Wichita, Kansas, take pride in being, like, a good place to raise your family and nice people and a safe place. And the cognitive dissonance that it took to kind of continue to see yourself that way as a community while really horrible things were happening on a pretty regular basis was that, to me, was the interesting part.

[Gilbert Cruz]

You went to law school before becoming a novelist. What led you in that direction?

[Alifair Burke]

I think I'm a rebel at heart, where a lot of people who are creative people now are. Like, my parents wanted to be a doctor, wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer. My dad wanted me to be a writer and told me my whole life I would be a writer. And I was like, no, I'm gonna be a lawyer. No. I mean, I'm being a little bit cynical about that. But I think I wanted stability. I saw what being raised by a writer was like. He wasn't always in print. He worked really hard. And that didn't mean that you necessarily got published. And that kind of seemed like a bummer to me. And I wanted something that was a good profession, that was reliable. And I'm also very interested in the justice system and our courts and institutions. And I still enjoy being. I'm not a practicing lawyer, but I'm still law professor, and I really enjoy that life.

[Gilbert Cruz]

So we haven't said your father's name. Your father's the author, James Lee Burke, who has written many novels, but reader's probably known for his character Robichaux. What turned you off early on from being a writer? Just like, I need health insurance. This is not.

[Alifair Burke]

I know. It sounds so boring. Yeah. I was the really practical kid who was like, I was the fourth of four kids. I don't want to say we were poor, but I saw them Struggling at the end of the month with the checkbook, like, which bill's going to get paid first. I saw how hard he worked. And, you know, one of the realities of being any kind of artist, if you want to call it that, I mean, you don't have an employer. I mean, you're out hustling and, you know, he taught at Witchita State, but that's not where his passion was. And I thought, you know, how frustrating, what a frustrating life, that you're truly gifted. Everybody says, you know, he's, he's, he is, he's objectively a talented artist and a poet. And to not get recognized, like, I just saw him, like, banging his head up against the wall. And so it's kind of funny that I landed. It's probably a reason I still have a job too, on top of it. But, you know, I think every writer, if they're being honest, like, you just. There's no guarantee you can write a great book and people might not like it and can't do anything about it.

[Gilbert Cruz]

After going to law school, you became a prosecutor in Portland, Oregon, and then you eventually did that for a while and came over to this side of the country.

[Alifair Burke]

Yeah, I really enjoyed my work as a prosecutor. And I should put it in the context of it was in an era where we did community based prosecution. We were trying to look for alternative avenues from incarceration. So it was kind of the 1990s version of progressive prosecution, I'd say. And I learned a lot there. But I think what I learned that I continue to draw on in my books and I continue to draw on in the classroom when I teach or when I write as a law professor, is that there really is a distinction between formal law, the way it's supposed to work in the books and the way it actually works in practice. And my first book, Judgment Calls, which was based in Portland, Oregon, and the main character was an assistant district attorney. My motivation for that book, the idea came from every time I would see a prosecutor show up in a mystery novel, it was always like, hearsay, objection, you need a warrant. This very technical stuff. And wasn't showing the way that discretionary decisions made outside of the courtroom really are what fuels the criminal justice system. Whether a case gets issued or not really is a matter of whose desk it lands on, who gets the police report, whether a case pleads out or whether it goes to trial and turns into a life sentence. That's all just a single attorney making a discretionary decision. So I kind of wanted to use fiction As a way to. To put that out there.

[Gilbert Cruz]

So you're saying that the law, which is something that we think operates based on rules that we can all understand, is subject to human whims?

[Alifair Burke]

It is human whim.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Is this what you're telling me?

[Alifair Burke]

Yes. I call it prosecutorial discretion. But, you know, so many decisions. Even like, I'll yell at the TV because, you know, some so and so is charged with whatever crime, and they'll say, well, they make it seem like it all depends on whether the jury finds them guilty or not. And then if they're guilty than the maximum sentence of 20 years. I'm like, well, no one's going to jail for 20 years from that. It's not going to go to trial. It's going to plead out. The sentencing guidelines say this and all of that stuff. That's not formal law. It's just norms that have developed over time.

[Gilbert Cruz]

You are currently a law professor in addition to being a novelist. What are you teaching your students?

[Alifair Burke]

Well, I teach them the rules of criminal law, the rules of criminal procedure. But I talk a lot about those plea bargaining. I talk about the role of discretion. And, you know, I like to think I'm teaching them to be good lawyers who think about justice and to think about the impact of the law on real people. Yeah, I enjoy my students a lot.

[Gilbert Cruz]

What do they teach you?

[Alifair Burke]

Humility. And I talk about going on book tour and people are waiting for me and, you know, excited to get their book signed. They don't find me nearly as interesting. I gotta really, like, earn their attention in class. It's good to have a young person's view of the law. So sometimes when I'm cynical about it, like to see them really excited to be practitioners, I think reminds me how I felt about the law early on.

[Gilbert Cruz]

You have set your new book in the Hamptons. It's set in the summer, and today it's Tuesday, and it's about 8 degrees outside. What are you doing? Why are you mocking us?

[Alifair Burke]

I know. Well, I didn't know it was gonna come out when it was degrees. But Maureen Corgan was very kind to me in the Washington Post with a very nice review that I think of frequently. But it said it's the summer thriller you need now in the middle of winter. So that's my plug for my book is if you want to feel like you're in the Hamptons near the beach and it's 75 degrees outside, pick up the book. I do a lot of my writing in the summer, and I do A lot of reading of books on beaches, because I love to read on a beach. And so I think my books do tend to kind of. I'm trying to think if I've ever written a book when it's cold. I don't think maybe a few.

[Gilbert Cruz]

While we're planting the seed right now, I'd love to guide us towards the end of our conversation here by asking you about a couple crime books, mystery books, thrillers, whatever category you want to use that you think either you've read the most in your life or have been particularly influential.

[Alifair Burke]

I think mystic river by Dennis Lehane and what the Dead Know by Laura Lippman. I would kind of pair those together.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Tell us about those books.

[Alifair Burke]

You know, what's great about them is that they're both stories about things that happened decades ago when people were children and now in their adult lives. The scars of that and the secrets that were hidden kind of reopen and things happen. That's what gives propulsion to the story. But there also both of those books, I think, talk about the toll of crimes upon communities. In Dennis Lehane's case, Boston. And Laura Lippman, of course, who writes about Baltimore so well, they make their cities characters in their books. And so I like to think my work kind of falls into those categories. And then I'm gonna put in another book. Presumed Innocent, I think, to me, is a perfect legal thriller, and there's very little technical law in it. It really is about just the impact of the justice system on people and how it can kind of churn you. But. But he also turns that the politics of that DA's office and the fight for control over that office becomes a really rich context for the book. And I've read that book so many times. I love it.

[Gilbert Cruz]

How long have you been writing now?

[Alifair Burke]

My first book was started in 1999 and came out in 2003, so 22 years.

[Gilbert Cruz]

And what have you gotten better at at over that time?

[Alifair Burke]

I definitely, in my first book, if you do read it, I think that I felt insecure as a writer, kind of, who am I to write a book? I've never taken a writing class, but I thought I knew a lot about the law and I knew a lot about how the law works. And so I think I leaned probably too much into that. And these days, I kind of keep things moving. If I find myself feeling like I'm writing about something that a law professor finds interesting, I stop and ask myself, like, what does this add to character, plot, or setting? And if it doesn't I'm like, keep it in your law professor brain. It doesn't need to go in the book. And I think I'm a little more confident as a storyteller because of that.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Alifair Burke, we, I'm sure, all look forward to your new Winterset series that you're gonna start right after you leave the studio here. Thank you for coming on the Book Review podcast.

[Alifair Burke]

Thanks so much for having me. It's been fun.

[Gilbert Cruz]

That was my conversation with Ella Ferreira Burke about her new novel, the Note. I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review. Thanks for listening.