Hard Time & Nursery Rhymes: A Mother's Tales of Law and Disorder Book

What kind of woman leaves three young daughters at home every morning to spend her days representing convicted murderers and rapists? That is the question criminal defense attorney Claudia Trupp confronts in this sharp and riveting memoir as she seeks answers—for herself and, mostly, for her daughters.

Every working mother faces the challenges of balancing work and home, but the nature of Trupp’s work makes her juggling act all the more precarious—and at times hilarious and bizarre. Trupp’s domestic anecdotes of life with her kids run parallel to narratives of her most memorable, and often unsettling, criminal cases, each providing a platform to explore broader issues such as faith, perspective, and charm. The navigation of radically different realms—the criminal courts and maximum security prisons where clients serve hard time, and the home front where children demand marshmallows for breakfast—provides thought-provoking and entertaining reading.

While the working mother has been a popular subject of fiction and self-help guides, this may be the only book offering a woman’s deeply personal and unapologetic account of how embracing a challenging job while simultaneously guiding a family reaps unexpected benefits on both fronts. In a memoir that will resonate powerfully with all women, Trupp candidly conveys to the reader and to her daughters the struggles and rewards of the conflicting roles in her life, the joy she has found in being a mother, and the value of meaningful work.

Publishers Weekly

When criminal defense attorney Trupp leaves her home and her three daughters each morning for work in New York City, she trades one set of important demands ("marshmallows for breakfast") for the demands of her clients, most of whom are convicted murderers or rapists. This memoir is Trupp's explanation to her daughters: "why I choose to walk out the door each morning, despite their frequent pleas that I stay home," in order to step into the high-pressure environment of a courtroom, visiting prisons or even risking danger in the apartments of possible suspects. Trupp expertly reaches out to every working mother as she describes her day-to-day challenge of being in two places at once, struggles to keep up her pre-children physical appearance and relates a depressing experience at American Girl Place with her daughter where Trupp yearns for the simpler "quality time" that she spent with her own mother waiting in gas lines or running errands. This brashly frank memoir is packed with minute details of her work that will enthrall fans of legal thrillers, but may not hold the attention of readers who are simply looking for the story of how one woman balances family, hard work and having a quiet moment to herself. (Apr.)