Preview of Personal Injuries Summary:

The themes of Personal Injuries arise directly out of its social concerns. Primary is the theme of justice and mercy, incorporated in prosecutor Stan Sennett and defense attorney Robbie Feaver but also manifest in Robbie's defender George Mason and in FBI Special Agent Evon Miller. A second theme concerns love and gender relations put under strain by the high-pressure investigation, the painful relationship of Robbie and Rainey both pre- and post-ALS, and Even's struggle to find her sexual identity in spite of the constrictions of a conservative upbringing and membership in the rigid ranks of the FBI. A third theme might be called forensic epistemology, that is, the problematic question of how we demonstrate what we know to be true (the essential issue addressed by epistemology) before a court of law as proof (the forensic issue). Finally, the novel as a whole comments on ambition, since each character...