O ne L traces the important relationships in law school between professors and students and the students and their peers and families. At the center of the work is Scott Turow himself. He declares early on, "this book is not a novel. Everything I describe in the following pages happened to me."

Leaving graduate school in creative writing at Stanford at the age of twenty-six was a risky undertaking, and Turow carefully charts the changes he undergoes in his first year at Harvard Law from his initial euphoria and love of the law to his eventual burnout and disillusionment to his gradual adoption of a more balanced approach to his studies. Along the way, he is alarmed by the changes he sees in himself and in the people around him.

The extreme pressure to succeed brings out the worst in himself and in others; it also forces him...