Courts

Nino And Me: An Interview With Bryan A. Garner

Nino and Me will appeal to readers who appreciate good writing on multiple levels.

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August is a nice, slow month — a perfect time for lawyers to catch up on their pleasure reading, perhaps at the beach or pool. If you’re looking for something that’s a pleasure to read — but not a guilty pleasure, because it’s also very smart and informative — then check out Nino and Me: My Unusual Friendship with Justice Antonin Scalia, by Bryan A. Garner.

Garner, the longtime editor of Black’s Law Dictionary, is most famous among lawyers as a lexicographer and expert in legal writing. But Nino and Me reveals the person behind the pen, since it’s Garner’s memoir of his friendship with the late Justice Scalia, with whom he worked closely on two books: Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges and Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts.

Garner’s memoir appealed to me, as it will appeal to large segments of the Above the Law readership, on two levels. First, it’s a book for people who are Article III groupies — i.e., folks who are fascinated by the federal judiciary and federal judges, especially justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Garner gives Justice Scalia the full celebrity treatment, revealing fun facts like what the justice liked to sing in the shower (p. 112), his issues with Mexican food (p. 112), what he thinks of Serena and Venus Williams (p. 298), and whether he enjoyed Bridge of Spies (p. 336). It’s also full of delicious tidbits of “inside baseball,” like Justice Scalia’s reaction to his famous spat with Judge Richard Posner (p. 196), and whether it affected Justice Scalia’s hiring of Posner clerks to work for him at SCOTUS (p. 227). (On the other hand, if you share Professor Rick Hasen’s concerns about “judicial celebrity,” then this might not be the book for you.)

Second, Nino and Me will appeal to readers who appreciate good writing — on two levels. First, it’s a beautifully written book, full of elegant, novelistic prose. Second, it’s a book aimed at “snoots.” If you’re not familiar with the term, here’s Garner’s explanation:

In the April 2001 issue of Harper’s, the late David Foster Wallace introduced his family’s acronym for “syntax nudnik of our time” or, alternatively, “Sprachegefhl necessitates our ongoing tendance.” …. The word denotes a well-informed language-lover and word connoisseur. It aptly captures the linguistic snootiness of those who weigh their words, value verbal nuances, resist the societal tendency to blur useful distinctions, reject newfangled usages without strong redeeming qualities, and concern themselves with linguistic tradition and continuity.

Nino and Me is a fount of knowledge about English grammar, usage, and style. Readers learn, for example, about the proper pronunciation of “gravamen” and “appellee” (p. 122) — on which Garner corrected Scalia, so don’t feel bad if you’ve been mispronouncing these words for years.

Not too long ago, I had the pleasure of speaking by phone with Professor Garner about Nino and Me. Here’s a (lightly edited and condensed) write-up of our conversation.

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DL: What led you to write this book?

BAG: I’d had such an interesting collaboration with Justice Scalia, and my friends had always found my brief accounts of things so fascinating. So I thought that for those who wanted to know more about Justice Scalia the man, I should tell the story.

I was also convinced that Justice Scalia himself would have enjoyed having our story told. But he would have wanted it to be utterly accurate and truthful as a portrayal, as I worked hard to make it.

We had a tumultuous beginning to our relationship—a misunderstanding that led to a lot of the early drama in the book. All that makes the story all the more improbable and compelling.

DL: Indeed! We know how it all turned out, since you ended up as coauthors, but that incident (pp. 46-49) had me on the edge of my seat.

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BAG: Several readers have told me that they get indigestion over the whole episode, in which it looked like our entire collaboration, as well as our friendship, was going to get scuttled—even though they know, because there’s so much of the book left, that something must have happened to put it back on track.

DL: Aside from the indigestion, how has the book been received?

BAG: One English professor has told me that he’s convinced it’s the best memoir he’s ever read. A lawyer told me yesterday that he was deeply moved, but mostly in the 48 hours after finishing the book and reflecting on it. Readers who hope to rush through the book find it way too detailed. It’s not a book to be rushed through. I meant every paragraph to be savored. If you wonder you why I’m telling a particular story, it’s worth thinking about it rather than summarily assuming it’s extraneous.

Anyone who resents the fact that the friendship developed will absolutely detest the book. I’ve read it through those eyes—the eyes of an older friend who might consider Garner a latecoming interloper—and the whole thing is infuriating.

If you’re reading for gotcha moments, you’ll find them. They just won’t be what you think. You’ll find yourself taken with a man you thought you’d dislike.

DL: The level of detail in the book is astounding, featuring everything from what people were wearing to what meals you ate with Justice Scalia to what seem like near-verbatim reconstructions of conversations. How were you able to do this?

BAG: I was very alert and attentive during my conversations with Justice Scalia because I considered my time with him to be very important. Some of our most interesting and important conversations I was able to reconstruct from memory, partly because I had recounted them so many times to friends and family. They’re seared into my memory.

I had some entries from a diary that I kept; I figured I might someday write a tribute to him, but long in the future. For example, take the first breakfast I had with him and my daughter. I didn’t know that we would become friends and collaborators. I just knew that it was one heck of a breakfast meeting. So that evening in 2006, I wrote a ten- to twelve-page account of our meeting, which is how I was able to be so detailed about it.

And I had so many other materials as well. My research for the book involved reviewing email messages and notes he had written to me, letters that we had exchanged, drafts of our two books, telephone messages he left for me, my calendar, and videos of impromptu interviews that he agreed to do in chambers.

Because my wife Karolyne was so much involved in the story, she was able to help me a great deal as well. When it came to the detail about what occurred during the Asia trip in the last weeks of his life, we actually went back to Hong Kong less than a year later and retraced all our steps. In doing that, many conversations came back to me. It was a wonderful thing to do.

DL: But at the same time, you were also very selective about what you put into the book.

BAG: Yes. We had hundreds if not thousands of conversations that aren’t included either because I’ve forgotten them or because they were relatively inconsequential—or else too intimate. Every vignette in the book is there because it illuminates something about Justice Scalia or about the friendship. Much has been excluded.

The book took an immense amount of research to piece everything together, and then I went through more than 200 drafts of the manuscript. It took me about 18 months to research and write. I hope that it’s some of my best work—certainly it’s my most personal.

DL: Writing it was an emotional experience, I’m guessing?

BAG: It was very cathartic. Writing the book was a way of dealing with my grief over losing the kind of friend I never expected to have—and never expect to have again.

The book surely gives you the sense that this was not an ordinary friendship. It was based on an unusual passion that the two of us shared, for language. The two of us were so different in some ways, yet so similar in others. Constitutionally—not in terms of the U.S. Constitution, but in terms of outlook and temperament—we were very similar. But in our views on social and political issues, we were very different. We liked that fact.

Bryan A. Garner

DL: You mention that Justice Scalia was supportive of you during your divorce (p. 42), after the death of your mutual friend David Foster Wallace (pp. 104-05), and at other times. Did that surprise you, given the depiction (or caricature) of him in some quarters as this ultra-Catholic, super-conservative, angry and intolerant figure?

BAG: Yes. I thought he would be a much more difficult man to work with than he ended up being, given the depictions of him in the press. I was as disarmed as anyone by his great warmth, and by his expressions of embarrassment and apology when he inadvertently stood me up for two of our early meetings.

I did fear that he might be very disapproving of the fact that I was getting a divorce. But far from it. When I spoke to him about it, he was just a very supportive friend.

DL: You mention a number of personal things about yourself such as your divorce, but also many personal things about Justice Scalia—everything from his undergarments (p. 146) to his exercise regimen (p. 287) to his favorite kinds of sushi (p. 185). Were you worried about how readers, especially judges or justices, might react to this “underneath their robes” look at a judicial figure?

BAG: It certainly crossed my mind. Yes, the world now knows that he wore sock garters.

But for goodness’ sake, the man was human. I’m trying to humanize Justice Scalia, which I think is a very good thing. And everyone I’ve talked to thinks more highly of him after reading the book, regardless of their political leanings.

In any event, I don’t think anyone I know thinks I’d write a similar memoir about him or her. This was a once-off. I’m sure I’ll never write anything else so autobiographical. I’ve written a book with Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, but I don’t think they’re expecting a similar kind of thing!

DL: What else might surprise people about Justice Scalia after reading Nino and Me?

BAG: Some readers might be surprised just looking at the photos, to realize how fun-loving he was. He was often depicted in the press as an angry, bitter, reactionary man, but that was certainly not his day-to-day persona. The man was gregarious, vivacious, full of energy, and full of wit. He was the kind of person that most people would love to sit down and have a beer with. You can see why he and Justice Ginsburg had such a close friendship.

Apart from that, I think people will be interested in how much Justice Scalia liked to argue, and how the arguments took shape. And they’ll be interested to see how often he’d concede.

DL: The justice learned a fair number of things from you—for example, that one shouldn’t use “thusly” (p. 23), or that the preferred plural for “forum” is “forums” (p. 39). What did you learn from Justice Scalia?

BAG: First, probably the biggest lesson—a lesson we’ve all heard, but I’ve never seen anyone live it as much as Justice Scalia did—is not to worry about what other people think. Not to behave according to what other people might think. Apart from his constant worry about any appearance of impropriety connected to his role as a justice, he was not bothered by what others thought, said, or wrote about his opinions, his questions from the bench, or anything else. He wasn’t bothered by negative press accounts, caricatures of him in the media, or public insults. I was bothered for him; he was completely unflappable.

Second, even though I’m strong on language and linguistics, I learned a great deal about jurisprudence and textualism from him. My linguistic interests were not nearly as well focused on statutory construction as they came to be because of his influence. I think I was a nascent textualist. I didn’t have nearly the well-developed view of judicial philosophy and jurisprudence that I think I now have as a result of having worked with him so closely.

Finally, I learned that you don’t always get an accurate picture of a public figure from the press. I hate to play into the whole “fake news” thing—I’m troubled by the current tendency to try and undermine all mainstream media outlets—but some coverage of Justice Scalia reflected the difficulty of getting accurate reporting from the press about conservative figures or ideas.

DL: Speaking of figures maligned by the press, you said in an interview interview (with Jess Bravin of the Wall Street Journal) that Justice Scalia had favorable things to say about Donald Trump as a presidential candidate?

BAG: Early in the campaign, Justice Scalia liked the fact that we had an outspoken candidate who would speak off the cuff, who would not have all his comments and positions subject to focus groups and airbrushing. But those were early days.

DL: It was certainly true of Justice Scalia as well—that he spoke his mind, and he didn’t airbrush his views. Thank you for giving us such a vivid portrait of the man behind the legend, and thank you for taking the time to speak with us about it!

(Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book, and all links to books in this post are affiliate links.)

Nino and Me: My Unusual Friendship with Justice Antonin Scalia [Amazon (affiliate link)]

Earlier: Black’s Law Dictionary: An Interview with Bryan A. Garner

DBL square headshotDavid Lat is editor at large and founding editor of Above the Law, as well as the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. He previously worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@abovethelaw.com.

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