Len, A Lawyer in History: A Graphic Biography of Radical Attorney Leonard Weinglass by Seth Tobocman (review)

Serendipity often shapes our professional lives. I found this to be true when I was asked to review Seth Tobocman's Len, A Lawyer in History: A Graphic Bibliography of Radical Attorney Leonard Weinglass. As a community college professor in an ultra-conservative district once home to Congressman Denny Hastert, I appreciate any opportunity to study the New Left and Marxist historiography of my graduate training. In addition, my Master's thesis research on the Chicago conspiracy trial led me to admire Len Weinglass and his colleague, Bill Kunstler. Finally, as a teaching assistant in the 1990s conducting classes on the modern Political Left, I used Rius's Marx for Beginners (New York: Pantheon, 1976), a cartoon primer on Marxist theory and history. Therefore, while reviewing A Lawyer in History, my personal history helped me appreciate the scope and relevance of Tobocman's biography.

Tobocam is a writer and artist specializing in the radical avant-garde. His previous works include Disaster and Resistance (Chico/Edinburgh; AK Press, 2008), You Don't have to Fuck People over to Survive (Chico/Edinburgh; AK Press, 2009), and Understanding the Crash (New York: Soft Skull Press, 2010), among other publications. In Len, A Lawyer in History, Tobocam illustrates the lengthy and significant career of one of America's most important attorneys for the people's rights. The artwork serves as stark and minimalist commentary; however, the overall effect is engaging and instructive. The strength of this volume is the contextual overview of post–World War II American politics and society as well as the appreciation of Weinglass as a key but neglected actor in that history.

As Tobocam develops in his largely chronological biography, Weinglass matured from an overachieving student and athlete to an individual with a progressive consciousness unwilling to sacrifice his idealism despite his ascension as a prominent voice in American affairs. The chapters in this volume focus on his early biography, Newark activism, the Chicago conspiracy trial, the Pentagon Papers, the Jimi Simmons trial, CIA machinations, the Patriot Act, and the Cuban Five. Neglected is Weinglass's work for Kathy Boudin of the Weather Underground, Bill and Emily Harris of the Symbionese Liberation Army, John Sinclair of the White Panthers, and Mumia Abu-Jamal (though the author explains why Weinglass's work with Abu-Jamal precluded commentary). Tobocam provides considerable detail and context for the aspects of Weinglass's life and career covered in Len, A Lawyer in History. Throughout the volume, Tobocam highlights the need for a radical response to the systemic repression and reaction that animated American political and corporate policies from the 1960s through the twenty-first century, which Weinglass astutely addressed in courtrooms throughout the nation.

The strengths of this book are several. Michal Steven Smith's introduction provides needed background for the aesthetic narrative of the pages that follow. Tobocam's concluding notes not only identify principal sources but allow the reader to fill in the gaps in the preceding narrative. The artwork is stark and engaging—not ornamental, but black, white, and gray—and allows text and pictures to develop a strong storyline. The essential narrative is a stirring one, hypothesizing how an individual such as Weinglass might have effected change in the post–World War II and post–Cold War eras. Despite the contributions of contextual narrative, the background data sometimes overwhelm the narrative, leaving the reader wanting to learn more of the intimate Weinglass, including his relationships with loved ones, clients, and movement activists. While the overall narrative provides a satisfactory portrait of Weinglass, a commentary on how the lawyer related to the continuity of leftist labor attorneys such as Clarence Darrow and William Kuntsler would have been informative.

Finally, the reader may inquire as to the scholarly utility of a graphic novel such as this one. As mentioned earlier, I have used Rius's Marxism for Beginners in the classroom and...