Justice Barrett promotes her not-very-personal memoir; ‘I want people to know how the court works’
When U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett stepped onto the stage of the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, she had a big act to follow.
Not literally that morning, but in terms of the precedent set by the last member of the Supreme Court to promote a new release at the Library of Congress’ massive gathering of book lovers in the nation’s capital. In 2018, Justice Sonia Sotomayor filled the huge main ballroom of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center to discuss her first children’s book as well as the young adult version of her 2013 memoir. As a vocal member of the court’s liberal bloc, Sotomayor was greeted enthusiastically in progressive Washington.
On Sept. 6, Barrett sat down with philanthropist and book festival co-chair David M. Rubenstein to discuss Listening to the Law, released Tuesday by Sentinel, an imprint of Penguin Random House. The huge ballroom was again full.
The crowd was older, more reserved, and likely more conservative than the one that greeted Sotomayor. (There were a few audience members, though, who rose to try to disrupt the event, including one raising support for transgender rights, but they were quickly escorted out.)
Barrett, 53, said her book was an effort to answer queries she receives from many quarters about how the court works and what it’s like to serve while raising school-age children.
“I can’t talk one on one to everyone who has questions, but I can write a book that allows anyone who’s interested to read the answers,” Barrett said. “I want people to know how the court works, and I want people to feel pride, especially as the 250th anniversary of America approaches.”
Dobbs not ‘what I wanted to talk about on vacation’
Barrett’s book is not a deeply personal memoir, as were Sotomayor’s My Beloved World or the memoirs of Justices Clarence Thomas and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Barrett declines to use the names of her seven children, though they do pop up (along with her husband, Jesse) in some carefully crafted anecdotes.
She recalls the intense scrutiny of her confirmation, when “Jesse and I were reluctant to let our kids play in the yard.” Jesse Barrett’s view on the big family decision of whether to accept President Donald Trump’s nomination offer was, “if we did it, we had to ‘burn the boats,’” she writes, referring to Alexander the Great’s strategy of ordering his men to destroy the watercraft they landed on enemy territory.
“With the option of exit gone, there was no choice but to forge ahead, no matter the challenge,” Barrett writes.
Both in the book and in some of her interviews, Barrett has gingerly addressed controversial cases and issues that swirl around the court, most notably abortion rights.
She did not write a concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 decision that overruled Roe v. Wade and eliminated federal constitutional protection for abortion. Barrett had faced criticism from some quarters for not spelling out her own views despite being the only woman in the five-justice majority that overruled Roe. (Dobbs was a 6-3 judgment upholding Mississippi’s abortion restrictions, but Chief Justice John Roberts did not join the majority opinion overruling Roe.)
Barrett recalls that when her large extended family gathered for summer vacation in 2022, her brother-in-law arrived with a copy of the Dobbs opinion, heeding his sister-in-law’s general advice to always read the opinion.
But after the leaked draft of the abortion decision, security threats and protests, and the pressure of being part of a “momentous” decision, “Dobbs did not top the list of things I wanted to talk about on vacation,” she writes.
In the book, Barrett briefly discusses her substantive views of the case, writing that “Almost 50 years after Roe, when Dobbs was decided, abortion remained a contentious, hotly debated issue that caused significant rancor in American politics. Against this background, it’s impossible to say that a supermajority of Americans has traditionally considered abortion access so obviously fundamental to liberty that the Constitution protects it even without explicitly saying so.”
Barrett lauds the bravery of lower court judges who have faced opposition, such as the Southern judges who helped bring about the desegregation of public schools. She writes that she has had her share of harsh criticism, “including death threats, lewd packages, protests at my home, and a few ugly public encounters.”
“I can take it,” she writes. “These last years of being in the public eye have toughened me up.”
Using New Orleans and the 22nd Amendment to underscore points
On other hot topics, Jackson told conservative journalist Bari Weiss in a New York City appearance that the nation was not on the brink of a constitutional crisis amid the legal frenzy emanating from the Trump administration.
“I think the Constitution is alive and well,” Barrett said on Sept. 5 at Lincoln Center.
Barrett offers her views on denser topics such as originalism and textualism, as well as her approach to opinion writing. She illustrates some points with a discussion of the 22nd Amendment, which limits presidents to two four-year terms. Without any reference to the ruminations by President Trump and some of his supporters that he might find a way to seek a third term, Barrett in her book calls the amendment’s text a “clear imperative” that “leaves no room for second-guessing.”
Barrett uses her native New Orleans for some poignant personal anecdotes that she weaves into the book’s themes.
She uses the example of her grandmother’s unwritten recipe for shrimp remoulade (“a traditional New Orleans dish featuring tangy shrimp on a bed of shredded iceberg lettuce”) as a lesson in textualism. When Barrett sought to use the recipe, she made her own mother write it down.
“Writing enables precision and preservation,” Barrett writes. The unwritten family recipe was subject to uncertainty and imprecision when it came to making the dish for different sizes of parties. The U.S. Constitution, she continues, was the first in the world to be committed to writing, and “it is no exaggeration to say that the defining feature of American constitutional law is its basis in a concrete document.”
Barrett also tells of her family salvaging her late grandfather’s World War II naval duffel bag when a family home was flooded by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The bag included courtship letters exchanged during the war between her grandfather, who was stationed in the Pacific, and her grandmother before they had married.
“Her letters are newsy, full of stories about daily life in wartime New Orleans,” she writes. “His are almost entirely introspective, offering few details about daily life on the ship. (One reason for that was the screening of sailors’ mail home to make sure no tactical secrets were revealed.) The letters featured anachronistic words and other passages that needed careful parsing by the couple’s grandchildren to comprehend.
“The Constitution is hardly as personal or accessible as my family’s collection of World War II letters,” Barrett writes. “But it, like the letters, is rooted in a particular moment in time; it too is a historical text with an important backstory and unfamiliar words.”
Not as comfortable with book promotion as some colleagues
Barrett is the fifth current justice to have published a book, after Thomas, Sotomayor, Jackson and Justice Neil Gorsuch. The will soon be joined by Justices Brett Kavanaugh, who announced a book contract last year, and Justice Samuel Alito, whose deal for a forthcoming book emerged last month.
That leaves only Justice Elena Kagan, who has expressed no interest in undertaking a memoir, and Roberts, who was asked this past spring whether he intended to write one.
“I think my life is very interesting—to me,” the chief justice said at an appearance in Buffalo, New York, in May. “I’m not sure it’s terribly interesting to anyone else. … I don’t think I have that in me.”
Barrett faced genteel treatment from Rubenstein before she headed to a grand exhibit hall to sign copies of her book for a long line of admirers.
The justice suggested she was unlikely to be as dedicated to book promotion as some of her colleagues. Sotomayor has had a series of children’s books following her memoir, including her latest, published this week. Just Shine! is about lessons of kindness from her late mother. Jackson published her memoir, Lovely One, last year and is still making appearances to promote it.
“Our term begins on the first Monday of October, so I’m only doing this for about the next two weeks, and then I’ll be done and focused on the term,” Barrett said.
When Rubenstein asked her whether she would likely undertake another book, Barrett responded quickly: “No, I think this is kind of a one and done.”
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