Like many men his age, Ed Tuttle is having a mid-life crisis. He is bored with his job, uncertain about his faith, and unable to find love in the wake of divorce. Unlike most other men his age, however, Ed Tuttle is a justice on the United States Supreme Court.
As the swing vote in one of the most contentious terms in recent memory, Justice Tuttle holds the future of the nation in his hands, a tall order for someone who can barely make it through a weekend without making a monumental life mistake.
In this hilarious and poignant debut novel, Jay Wexler—law professor, humor writer, and former law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg—reminds us that power is wielded by real, often emotionally fragile people and that nobody, regardless of how successful, powerful, rich, intelligent, lucky, or influential they may be, is immune from the feelings of restlessness, doubt, and anxiety that are inherent in living in the modern world.
Buy Tuttle in the Balance at Abe Books
“Penned by a Boston University law professor and former Supreme Court clerk, Tuttle in the Balance offers a goofy and fundamentally human take on one of the nation's top government figures that's likely to appeal to those who prefer political humor to political drama. . . . Along with the laughs, it also delivers some solid musings on success, friendship, and aging."
—The A.V. Club“This is the best -- and, I must admit, only -- novel I've ever read that deftly utilizes the possible reversal of a decision by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals regarding the Establishment Clause as a plot device within a light romantic comedy.”
—Chuck Klosterman
“Savvy watchers of our highest court will have a blast reading this zany take on the antics of a bored 60-something who happens to be a horny Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court going through a mid-life crisis. Seeking refuge from the tired debates over competing ways of interpreting our 1787 Constitution, this sex-starved Justice finds himself immersed in what turn out to be the remarkably similar disputes over how to interpret Chuang Tzu’s Taoist writings of a couple thousand years ago. For a painless lesson in constitutional theory for the layman, underscoring the ‘lay,’ you’ve got to read this book.”
—Laurence H. Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School
“Both laugh out-loud funny and emotionally stirring, the rueful and lusty Tuttle in the Balance feels like what you might get if Richard Russo wrote a Supreme Court novel, or Nick Hornby visited the Beltway. I loved it.”
—Henry Alford, Winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor
“Tuttle in the Balance is a comic massterpiece, fast-paced, hilarious, worthy of Evelyn Waugh, P.G.Wodehouse, or Kingsley Amis. A pungent satire of the Supreme Court…the book has everything--fisticuffs in the Court's conference room (recalling the fisticuffs in the War Room in Dr. Strangelove), a midlife crisis, sex, booze, gambling in Atlantic City casinos, a car crash, bemused law clerks, a Justice Scalia look-alike, an unlikable female Chief Justice, and--not least--three cats, all in major roles. A movie can be expected.
—Judge Richard Posner
“Disrobing a judge might not be pretty, but Wexler makes it too funny to look away. Tuttle is full of the cringe-worthy confessions, terrible decisions, and existential crises that make the best kind of humor. Watching a powerful white man chip away at his own privilege has never been this fun. “
—Beth Lisick, author of Everybody Into the Pool